It’s quite a drive up to Barrowburn, certainly it was from Sunderland – it took us a good two hours to get there. Amazingly, despite the distance we had a very good turnout for this walk.

The early part of the walk was punctuated by crazy people doing a biathlon (running and cycling) and soldiers in full get-up carrying guns! Quite an unusual start for us.

The walk soon started to climb and we endured one particularly arduous pull up onto the tops of the moors to take in the full splendour of the scenery. Up here, on the English-Scottish border the landscape is moorland and scrub, not deciduous woodland or stone-walled farmland. Thankfully this wide open landscape was not windswept and wet on this day and we escaped the worst of any weather that came our way.

The section up to the border fence was a bit of a strain but once there it was a surreal experience to stand astride the border between the two countries – no border reivers to steal our sandwiches thankfully. After taking a few celebratory pictures we started the slow steady descent from the fells and down to the cars. On the way we came across some orange sheep – I kid you not! A small field of them by the farm – not a raddle mark but full blown all-over orange.

Unfortunately, as the walk was so long, we missed the tea room at the end!

Any ideas?