A Homecoming of Sorts
Five days healing in the Cheviots
By Trevor H. Smith
August 2023
Camping by Harbottle Lough, the healing begins.
I left Steven at the Star Inn and headed for the Drake Stone. ‘Up by the Drake Stone, you’ll find somewhere to pitch around there, no problem.’ Steven had remained good friends with a few of our mutual classmates and from what I had seen on social media they had been cycling together around Northumberland, Scotland, and I think I also recall a European trip. It turned out there was more to it than that. They had, before the age of social media, taken to heading into the Cheviots together to spend nights under the stars. Exactly the kind of thing I would have been up for, on an alternative timeline where I hadn’t left the North East at the first opportunity.
The path to the Drake Stone is well marked, and within a mile I was in the shadow of this 2000-ton behemoth; an erratic sandstone boulder left behind by retreating glaciers at the end of the last ice age. I downed my pack and circumnavigated the rock, taking in views across to the Cheviots and back down to Harbottle while checking the ground for flat spots, of which I could find none. Mentally, at least, I was done with walking for the day. On my morning stretch I had napped and then stopped at the pub with Steven for a couple of hours before walking my final mile to the great fillet steak at the top of the Harbottle Hills. I so wanted to end my day here that I removed my boots and socks and laid out my tent on a tiny flat-ish spot at the base of the stone, sat my bag on top of it, stuck a couple of pegs into the dusty peat, and made myself a cup of tea. An hour or more passed before I was visited by a lone dog-walker – my final human encounter of the day – and after another hour had passed, I decided to get the tent up. At that precise moment the wind whipped up from the valley and around the Drake Stone, convincing me that if I remained in this spot, I would surely be blown off the top right back down to Harbottle itself, and I made the decision to pack up, get my boots back on, and seek shelter elsewhere.
Looking back down to Harbottle I could see the castle remains that I had intended to visit but which slipped my mind completely as I said goodbye to Steven at the pub and headed up to the Drake Stone. Now, buffeted by a south easterly, I wondered whether I might find a quiet corner in the castle grounds late in the day and pitch up there. It was a mile back down the trail, so would add a mile to tomorrow’s hike. The castle would be my very last resort, then, should I fail to find anything in the other direction down by Harbottle Lake, or Lough (pr. Luff). To borrow Steve from Otterburn’s phrase, ‘that’s how they say it round here’. The preamble to my second ever solo wild camp was shaping up to be very similar to my first. What few gaps there were between the heather presented either bare limestone or a spectacularly uneven surface, or both. Even so, none of them would have been big enough for my tiny tent. Yet more deja vous from the followed as I found myself committing to memory several spots along the path where the track widened enough to accomodate me, but I was a lot closer to the village than last night’s pitch, and I felt sure any trailside camp would bevisited by early morning dog-walkers or trail runners long before I was up and away.
Down by the lake the ground was too wet for comfort, and mere inches above water – I visualised the slightest breeze sending waves lapping into my tent. I walked on past the end of the public right of way and over the fence into MOD territory, where I picked my way to the crest of the hill through rocks and potholes hidden beneath the heather. I emerged at the edge of a pine forest, through which I took a speculative walk while scoping out either side of the faint path for a suitable pitch. It was no good. There was no way I was spending a night in the trees with a restricted field of vision and the likelihood of unidentifiable noises keeping me awake through the darkest, smallest hours. Instead, I headed back up to my one viable spot. Straight on top of the heather, just like last night. The winds that whispered me down from the Drake Stone had yielded now to stillness, while below me the lake had only the faintest of ripples across its surface. The calmness pervaded my disposition and I set about making camp.
I enjoyed one of the most peaceful nights of my life, with nothing to hear the whole night through bar the sound of my own scratching as I located midge bites in the sheer darkness. At 2am I rose for a toilet visit and beheld in wonder the Milky Way above me. Serene and motionless, I felt at one with my surroundings. Until the urge of the now compelled me to reach for my phone and capture a handful of pathetic images with my camera phone for nobody to ever see. Full of peace, I rolled back inside my sleeping bag for a second night of not-quite-warm-enough kip. Everything else in the world had melted away beneath me as I floated through the carpet of thick, purple heather and I felt in those moments that I might never worry about anything or anyone ever again.
