Pennine Way - Day 15: Once Brewed to Bellingham

The best Mile Castle

Off we go. Back to the wall, briefly thankfully.

There is a long an apocryphal story about how Once Brewed got its name. It involves generals and innkeepers and threats of death resulting from weak beer. This had been told to us by my father who was devastated to learn that this was in fact not true. In fact, the YHA named it Once Brewed as the location was simply next to Twice Brewed.

 Simple, but boring.

(But the story might still apply to Twice Brewed, next door. Says the romantic in me)

The Tree

We had been informed in the informative visitors center that there was a colony of red squirrels living somewhere near the wall. But they were few and wary. We wouldn’t see any we were told. Kill and eat the grey that is my motto, can’t sit on the fence on every issue. Squirrel pie, beats shepherd’s pie and shepherds are rarer than the red.

An Ex-parrot

In the end, we saw a red squirrel. It may have been few, it may have been wary. But it was definitely dead. It seemed to have committed suicide on the path in protest, probably of the lack of action with grey squirrels.

Given that we hadn’t seen much wildlife. Just the dead moles, we took a picture for posterity. Whoever she is.

You have to love it

We got to the most photographed tree in England. Made famous by Kevin Costner (a.k.a. Robin Hood) who passed it returning to Sherwood Forest. Sycamore gap, see photo. Very something or other in the right light apparently. We didn’t have the right light. So, it was just a tree.

Just a big and mature tree. We couldn’t help notice that a young tree had been planted nearby as a stand in, so to speak. Keep those tourist dollars rolling in.

We left the wall and headed towards Scotland. The rest of the day is a bit of an anti-climax. We met a friendly bull, who rather disconcertingly lead us along the path. Which of course went through a little gorge type thing. Luckily, he didn’t want to change direction as he was an impressive bit of beef. And we boy’s looked.

Don’t say that. We can’t help it. It’s a genetics thing.

Sticking to the path

It was a nice day, so we took shelter in a stone enclosure to have lunch out of the wind. This was the only structure in sight other than walls so I guess it often doubled as a restaurant / toilet for walkers. I was just not sure which bit was which. But I assume everyone makes the same decision and we weren’t dining in the toilet end.

Around a corner after a bit of wet stuff we met an elderly couple. They asked if we had seen a lady and a dog. Our reply was that we hadn’t seen anyone since Hadrian’s wall and went on our merry way. Apparently, without saying anything to each other we had all thought of Venessa and Gretel. A set of likely stories.

Just follow the green grass path, Dorothy

Green or gold or purple or brown or yellow or all of the previously mentioned and undulating described the rest of the day. Pretty in a very relaxing, not in a hurry type of way. The way walks should be. The type of countryside that had been created for walkers.

Bellingham: which we were informed is called Bellinjum was a nice little nothing. A nice B&B straight out of fiction land (But not Rising Damp) and dinner and a beer in the best Pub.

Life is hard.

We have tried to have a different beer every day. Real beer – not Euro-larger. It has had its ups and downs, but we do like a nice pint or two or three or four.

We’re trying to get binge drinker qualifications.

		Cumulative
Distance Walked	25km	342km
Start Point	Once Brewed
End Point	Bellingham
Via	Hadrian’s Wall
General Comments A famous tree A lady and a dog? Elocution lessons

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