Corbridge to Wylam
Setting off from Corbridge car park at 1.15 in the hot sun, it is busy.
We are relieved by the cool of the wooded river path; there are very few people here.
We decide on pausing regularly, to be still and notice what is here.
We do it for the first time today…
Sycamore leaves bob gently, willow kisses the water, mallards looking like rocks, mirrored reflections of colour – intense blues and greens, tiny fish coming to the surface, creating ripples
Screams from a distance. Is someone in trouble? Over the hump, we see the men in white. ‘Howzat’ they cry again.
A fairy portal under an old ash (dog waste bag deposited within), is surrounded by keeled garlic, we nibble
We walk on and are rewarded by wide sweeping views of the river valley that feel more like a remote tropical valley than somewhere in Northumberland. Below us there is a cormorant perched on the branch of a skeletal tree, while white egrets make their way amongst the green of the foliage and a heron stands on a rock.
There are the remains of a fire on the sandy cliff overlooking the lip of the gorge. It is clear others have tasted this blessing too. The toot of a passing train reminds us of where we are.
We descend to a beach, where the feeling of the tropics is consolidated by the heat and the lush vegetation. We swim beneath a weeping willow, eat sandwiches, watch fish jump and skim stones across the wide flat waters. All is well – an idyll.
We have tea in the pub at Riding Mill. ‘The corn mill in the clearing’.
And on into the Scot’s pine. Soft spongy forest floor and dappled light in the inviting under canopy. We walk out into rolling green hills, golden fields and grassland leys of clover with dock and teasel
Josh thinks of John Moriarty, ‘all land is holy land’.
We enter Broomley from off the fields, a new way of encountering a familiar place, usually passed in a car, and it feels like meeting it entirely anew. All the coordinates are rearranged.
We consider the time properly and realise we’ll have to move fast to make a pub in time for dinner. We hurry on and miss the shorter path through the woods and end up rushing down a small road – with high hedges on either side.
In Stocksfield, we run for the bus, the driver pulling up on a grass verge to allow us to board.
Then we walk down the hill to Prudhoe and onto the White Swan in Ovingham. It’s busy. Ray’s funeral celebration. We eat steak pie and fish and chips. Catch the first three quiz questions. Get 2 of them.
Then walk out for a dusk ramble at 9pm
Through the country park. Noticing how different it feels to be on the wide tarmacked path compared to the desire line cutting through the wildflowers closer to the riverbank. Worlds apart as an experience of ‘being in’ the place.
We catch the last of the light looking over the pond in the Spetchells, bats swooping overhead, and walk on towards Wylam. The high containing walls for the river seen from Hagg Bank bridge seem like a significant shift in the level of management of the river to what we have seen until now. We make it to the boathouse, greeted by a delightfully friendly barmaid.
