One of us is going through a bad situation. After we’d raked through the hows and whens and whys, I asked what she was going to do now. “I want to walk. I just want to walk myself through it.”
This story is the next in our Trails series. We invited people to apply to assemble a group of friends and walk a multi-day trail of Slow Ways. Cressida Peever narrates the journey, walking 80 miles through Northumberland from Berwick to Alnwick with friends Sarah and Anna.
Good Friday, Beraln one (day one)
We meet on the platform at Berwick. The three of us giddy. Backpacks full. Boots laced. Layered. Shiny. Our conversation surging, branching off, turning back on itself; so much to catch up on – and there is time. We have four days and eighty miles ahead of us.
Just south of the station we cross a footbridge over the river Tweed. This is the official starting point of our walk. We check the map. It feels like there should be a crowd to see us off. Better: there’s a magnificent viaduct to the left, and the sea stretching out to the right.
The rain of the last week has cleared completely, gifting us an azure blue sky and glorious sunshine. Before we have even made it to the coastal path, we stop to strip off layers and adjust our bags accordingly. Then we’re out of the town, past the lighthouse, and alongside the sea. We tumble over one another with questions – about a new partner, a broken heart, a family spat, a job opportunity; we know the headlines already, but it’s only being together like this that we can drink in the delicious detail of each other’s lives.
Although, we have never been together quite like this. We met through work some six-ish years ago. Since then, we’ve all started different jobs, all moved apart. We have touched base at weddings and parties and over coffee. This is already very different. There’s something about the act of walking that makes us able to speak more freely. It’s the looking forwards and talking into wide open space; not over-thinking body language or every facial expression.
The path rolls down off the crest of the cliff and meets the shore. The tide’s out, and the honey-coloured sand is a runway towards the sea. The perfect stop for our first tea break, a spot of sun-cream and a biscuit.
One of us is going through a bad situation. Though she’s been wrestling with it for a year, she only revealed it to me a few weeks ago – also over tea and biscuits. After we’d raked through the hows and whens and whys, I asked what she was going to do now. “I want to walk. I just want to walk myself through it.”
The route pulls us away from the lip of the land slightly, putting undulating grassy terrain between us and the sea. We meet a dog-walker here and, when she asks, are only too eager to tell her where we’re going: Belford tonight, and Morpeth by Monday. “That’s a fair way,” she says, but without the incredulity of London friends when they’d enquired about my Easter plans. This elderly woman with her scrappy dogs and well-worn coat could probably beat us there if she’d a mind to.
Before long, our route draws into the coast again, giving us a clear view of Holy Island. At first, it looks like part of the mainland, connected by a mile – maybe more – of golden sand. But the tide is coming in fast. Within the hour the sea has consumed the causeway. The last cars tear across to avoid being trapped on the wrong side. Slate-coloured clouds gather over the island, sending a rainbow down directly on its castle. There’s magic in the atmosphere.
“There’s a little telephone booth, and when we ring we are asked how quickly we can cross. “Uhh… Thirty seconds?” The voice replies to go now! and we dash through the gate, across the tracks and into the neat fields on the other side”
We re-trace the steps of the Holy Island pilgrims, first on St Cuthbert’s Way, and then onto St Oswald’s Way, taking us deeper inland. At Fenham Hill, we have to cross the East Coast mainline. There’s a little telephone booth, and when we ring, we are asked how quickly we can cross. “Uhh… Thirty seconds?” The voice replies to go now!, and we dash through the gate, across the tracks and into the neat fields on the other side.
The light fades gradually and the sky turns orange-purple over the sea behind us. A gentle rain ambles over, and for the first time we have cause to throw on waterproofs and put protective layers over our backpacks. As darkness descends, so do we – down the hill to Belford, and a hearty pub dinner.
Saturday, Beraln one (day two)
We’d stretched before bed, and we do it again this morning, limbering up for what will be the longest day on our feet: 21 miles from Belford to Alnwick. We apply plasters to pressure points, and buy more at the shop – just in case.
It’s less than half an hour before our route has us in open countryside again, already feeling far from the town. The well-kept hedgerows, drystone walls and herds remind us that civilisation is close, even if we’re the only people we see for hours.
We’re more tuned in to the natural world today. Out initial excitement has deepened into wonder, and we pause frequently to remark on the landscape, note the colour of the fungus, or share botanical insights:
“See those nettles? The white flowers on the stem tell you it’s the kind with no sting.”
Then it gets muddy. We have to pick our way through the saturated fields slowly to avoid sinking up to our shins – since we’re still clean enough for that to be a concern. It’s also the weight of the backpacks. Lean too far or unexpectedly, and you’ll overbalance, fall, and we can’t afford injury. It’s a welcome relief when we hit the next village – Warenford – and are able to buy pints of lemonade at the pub. Liquid morale.
Although the main source of energy is the conversation. We’ve talked non-stop. No topic is too big or small: childhood holidays; dream meals; nasty break-ups; Jacobean history; what makes a good walking boot. It’s the rope that we pull one another along with, taking turns to lead or be lifted.
“You seem lighter today.”
I mean in spirits; less weighed down by everything else she’s contending with. It’s so true that she doesn’t take my meaning, and responds by talking about layers and terrain. But she gives me my answer later:
“When you’re walking… there’s something about feeling grounded at moments when your life feels out of your control and chaotic, and you can’t see how to fix it. You’re literally moving yourself forwards.”
“Yes. It is very literal. We went through that muddy patch earlier – which is how you describe something in your life, right? Or occasionally you lose the path, or the path appears before you…”
She’s right. Difficult terrain. The path less taken. Following in someone’s footsteps. Effortlessly wise, that one.
“When you’re walking… there’s something about feeling grounded at moments when your life feels out of your control and chaotic”
“Doing a long walk, there’s a sense of me proving to myself that I can do it, and along the way learning more about my body and how I overcome something. Inner strength.”
We have literal obstacles to overcome now: a mass of fallen trees blocking our way. We scramble over, under, trying to stay close to the path, but it’s impossible. The lattice of bark and branches is too dense. So we look at the map and plot a different course. It happens.
But this, along with the muddy path this morning, mean we’re not as far along as we’d hoped. We have tarmacked country lanes underfoot now, which are more reliable, but somehow accentuate every ache and sore that has been sneakily developing. We make several pauses to adjust bags, put on more plasters, and re-lace boots. At four thirty, we are still six miles from Alnwick, and feeling every step.
So it feels like divine intervention when around the next corner we happen upon a tea shop, seemingly in the middle of nowhere – like a mirage in the desert. It is still open – just! – and has twenty different kinds of tea, as well as great wedges of cake topped with chocolate eggs.
Warmed and sugar-fuelled, carrying on, we are rewarded further with a spectacular sunset: the clouds spun into pink and purple candyfloss, before the sun washes everything tangerine. It’s fully dark by the time we march into Alnwick, and the castle is lit up majestically against the deep blue dusk.
We are over half way.
Easter Sunday, Rotaln one
Kippers for breakfast. Then it’s boots on and up a steep hill, heading south. We’ve lost an hour of sleep to daylight saving, but have managed to get out on time, and buoyantly. There’s a stretch along an old railway line, with the trees on either side reaching towards each other. Having such changeable landscape each day has been a joy – making each moment distinctive and easier to relish.
The fields and barns are full of new-born lambs and fluffy ewes still wearing their winter coats.
“It takes about forty minutes to shear a sheep.”
She knows this because every year as a child, she would go up to a tiny village in Scotland and her family would help with whatever needed doing, be it fleece-rolling or sheep shearing.
“So, you have the sheep on its side, and you cut away the wool, line by line, and when you get over half way, you flip the sheep over and cut the other half and then the sheep runs away. And my dad’s trademark was never quite cutting over the half-way mark, so at the point at which you let the sheep roam free, it would have a mohican down its back and it was too late – there was no catching that sheep until the next year!”
We have naturally drifted into sharing childhood memories. They are at once urgent, charged declarations of how we came to be who we are; and at the same time, they’re random, selected for their power to generate a fresh memory from someone else. To keep us talking, listening, moving. Later, when I recall these conversations, I will also be able to clearly visualise the landscape around us at each moment, like our words have fastened to the grasses and branches and fenceposts.
We challenge ourselves to climb to the top of another hill before lunch, and our effort is recompensed with a spectacular view as we eat. On all sides, a patchwork quilt of lush green fields, sewn together by hedgerows and thickets. We take out the paper map now, spread out over all six knees. Point out Percy Wood. Old Swarland. Newton-on-the-Moor. Pauperhaugh.
Onwards to Rothbury, then. Through an active airfield. Across more muddy farmland, with equine gatekeepers. Changing course when the route suggested crossing a stream, which had swelled to a torrent in spring rain. When we finally did cross the River Coquet (via a sturdy stone bridge, thank goodness) it was calm and quiet. Reverent, almost.
We end the day’s walk as we began: on an old railway line. This time, it is rock faces on either side, shaggy with moss. Rothbury is bronzed in evening sun when we finally reach it. The sky morphs to a bruised black-purple, and it smells like rain.
Easter Monday, Rotmor one
It pours. At least we feel vindicated for bringing strong waterproofs.
We start the day with our steepest climb yet, and as pretty Rothbury falls away, we discover a more dramatic landscape. Here, at last, is the rugged orange and brown heather I associate with Northumberland. It sweeps across the tops of the long, broad hills like wildfire, and crackles as we stomp through it. Coupled with the dark skies and pelting rain, it feels truly wild up here. Like the end of the world. Or the start of something.
“I like not knowing how much I’ll keep changing. New experiences, new things. I’ve never had a five-year plan or a ten-year plan. So, who knows? It doesn’t give me any stress or anxiety. It’s very freeing.”
“I like not knowing how much I’ll keep changing. New experiences, new things. I’ve never had a five-year plan or a ten-year plan. So, who knows? It doesn’t give me any stress or anxiety. It’s very freeing”
All three of us are thirty-one. So, all being well, about a third of the way through our lives. If I’d had to guess when we met where we’d be now, I’d have been wildly wrong. And I’d certainly never have placed us seventy miles down in a muddy field near to – (where are we now?) – Longhorsley.
“I think if I were sixteen and I could see myself now… how impressed I’d be. How much I would want to be myself. And I suppose I have this belief that the trajectory will only continue, and I’m excited to think that, looking ahead, thirty-one-year old me is going to be blown away by what sixty-year-old me achieves.”
“Breathless. Hearts hammering. Astonishingly, still laughing…”
The rain is seeping through the cracks. Our gloves are wet, chilling our hands. The water is picking at the plasters on our heels. The fields and footpaths are so saturated with water now that we have to shimmy along fences to avoid wading through boot-submerging sludge. The most unpleasant stretch is just after lunch, when the muddy field has been ploughed with deep ruts, so we have to leap from mound to mound for over half an hour. Breathless. Hearts hammering. Astonishingly, still laughing.
But our resident botanist is still eagle-eyed. As we come out of a stretch of woodland, she audibly gasps and kneels down to point out a delicate green plant with green flowers, growing close to the base of a tree. Its common name is townhall clock, and it has not been recorded in this spot before, and not in this area since 2018. But it’s waited here for us, to boost our spirits in the drizzle.
“I think I’ve always been here. It’s about listening to myself more. Listening to my gut, which I’ve always known was right. Trusting in that more… I do have the answers… in the values that I hold.”
The end is nearly in sight. It’s 7pm, and our train leaves Morpeth station in exactly one hour. We do some quick calculations. From here, it will take fifty-eight minutes to get to the station on foot. Determined to finish what we started, we pick up the pace – and immediately hit the biggest hurdle yet:
“After a full day of rain, it’s fierce and brown, the bottom invisible. Should we turn back and look for a different route? There isn’t time.”
It’s a steep drop down a muddy bank. The ground slithers underfoot, and we cling to branches all the way down in an attempt to stay upright. At the bottom, the route crosses a stream. After a full day of rain it’s fierce and brown, the bottom invisible. Should we turn back and look for a different route? There isn’t time. So we lock hands and wade through it. Now, soaked to the knees, we scramble up the other side of the bank on all-fours.
Then we’re on solid road. We break into a run, so delighted are we to see tarmac and street lamps. With this final, inexplicable burst of energy, we sail into Morpeth station fifteen minutes ahead of the train. There’s no welcome party – not even another passenger to tell what we’ve just achieved. But there is a large map painted on the wall, which shows our entire route from Berwick. Just look how far we’re come!
There are tears then, in the safety of a huddled group. Joy. Relief. Blisters.
“I didn’t think I could do it. But now I know – if I can do that…”
“You can! You did!”
“Let’s do this next time in Scotland.”
“Yes! And I want to explore your bit of Yorkshire.”
“Do you think I’ve got enough time to change my socks?”
The train whistles in right on time.
About us
We are three women in our early 30s who originally met working in theatre six years ago. Now, we live in different parts of the country, doing different things, but we’re united by a love of the outdoors and the fact that we have a blast when we do get together once every few months.
Sarah is the most active person I know. She plays in numerous sports teams, and spends every spare moment hiking. She works for a botanical charity, and is never short of facts about plants and nature. She’s exceptionally wise, easy-going and adventurous.
Anna wants to walk her way into the next chapter of her life. She’s going to climb all of the Munros, so this was good training. She’s possibly the bravest person in the world, and brimming over with joy.
I’m Cressida, the writer and filmmaker. Much of my work is set in the outdoors, whether it’s inspired by Cuthbert’s Way, recorded in The National Forest, or a set in an imaginary woodland. I write for stage, screen and audio, and love telling stories about the way people connect with the outdoors. Find me at www.cressidapeever.com or on Instagram @cressida_peever
