The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Monday 26 September 2011

East to West Photos: Day 25

Wed 13 April (0735-1400) (Chew Green to Jedburgh)
Distance: 16 miles (Tot: 427)
Weather: few brief bits of sun, light showers (every time one of us dared take off a waterproof item), windy again.

About five paces into the day we joined the Pennine Way, which we followed for a whole mile and a half, before we headed off along Dere Street. Here’s Mick on Deer Street. You might think from his attire (even waterproof mitts feature in his ensemble) that it was raining. Although the day did involve a few light showers they certainly weren’t enough to warrant this level of waterproofing. We were actually both dressed in full waterproofs just for warmth. Up at 400m and with the wind still battering us, it felt very cold.

Day 23-3

Our surroundings were, once again, absolutely stunning. The photos just don’t do justice to all of the lumps and undulations, with all of the subtle differences in colour.

Day 23-2Day 23-4

Getting towards Jedburgh, Dere Street became a nightmare to walk along, having been deeply rutted across its entire width by 4x4s. We were pleased to get off that section.

Day 23-5

Arriving in Jedburgh our priority was to find ourselves a nice big lunch, but we did take a little bit of a detour to have a look at the abbey, which is in pretty good shape compared to some that we had passed earlier in the trip.

Day 23-6

My original comments about the day can be found here.

4 comments:

  1. So, the sunglasses are because Mick's eyeballs were cold...

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  2. My original LEJOG route intended to follow Dere Street, but for complex reasons I can't remember now I rerouted, and am I glad after seeing that pic.

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  3. Louise - Pretty much! Any hint of a cool breeze makes Mick's eyes stream, so he can be seen wearing his sunglasses in most weather conditions. It certainly wasn't sunny when that photo was taken!

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  4. Conrad - I'd assumed that you had gone that way on your LEJOG. In context, the horrible rutted section of Dere Street accounted for less than half an hour of our day, so it wouldn't necessarily put me off going that way if I happened to be heading in that direction again.

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