St Cuthbert's Way Part VI

Wooler to Fenwick, the penultimate lap. It had to be easier than the last. Only eleven or so miles. It started with a pleasant stroll by the Wooler Water but soon it was climbing again up on to Weetwood Moor. This must have been a place of significance in Neolithic times with its boulder strewn heather slopes and its enigmatic cup and ring carvings. A gathering place... perhaps, a place of ritual or social functions. 

The piles of stones bear witness to previous structures long since gone, their components recycled into walls and sheep-folds.

http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/weetwood3.htm 

As Macdiarmid says " There are plenty of ruined buildings in the world but no ruined stones"

The stones survive.

Coming down from the moor, I crossed the Till, the only English tributary of the Tweed, at the Weetwood bridge and climbed steadily past the Hortons - West and East, to cross the Devil's Causeway, part of another old Roman road to Hazelrigg.
Looking back, Wooler could be seen nestling in the Cheviots.

 From here the Way follows the contours of the last ridge before the coast, then ascends to St Cuthbert's cave.

An arresting sight, the overhang where it is said, the monks rested with the saint's body as they fled from the Norse raiders at Lindisfarne. The cave is disfigured by centuries of graffiti gouged into the soft sandstone but is still a place to stir the imagination.

Two of the approach stones have vertical grooves on them, probably caused by water rivulets running down them, reminiscent of those on the "singing" Duddo stones.  On one, a horizontal crack creates a cross shape no doubt regarded as spiritually significant by pilgrims.

From the cave another climb took me to the top of the ridge and a view of my destination - Holy Island.

Holy Island with its castle

Downward into Fenwick, through the woods and picking up the signs for St Oswald's Way that goes to Hadrian's Wall, I realised that time was running out to make a connection with the bus service on the A1.

Not a squirrel in sight

 

 Hurrying along Dolly Gibson's Lonnen, surely a local version of loaning, then into the village itself, I could only manage a passing glance as I broke into a jog to get me to the bus stop. I caught it with four minutes to spare.

Only one short lap to do, the Pilgrim's Way, across the sands to Lindisfarne.