Such a huge contrast to the last walk!

After the snow and wide open moorland of the Border Rides, a walk through the verdant spring green of the Tyne Valley.

We started from the pretty village of Acomb, just off the A69 – a village with a very healthy pub:inhabitant ratio! The walk squeezed between terraced houses and barn conversions before striking out and up into open countryside. Up here in Northumberland the hedgerows were still sprinkled with snowdrops in mid-March and the sunny weather on this day saw them all out and beckoning insects.

It was a long slow drag up the hill towards Fallowfield but enjoyable nonetheless as fields unfolded around us occupied by new mothers and bouncing lambs. Looping back through the wooded Red Burn valley we passed holiday caravans, no doubt awakening from winter slumber before striking out down the road past The Mariners Hotel. A strangely named hostelry for so far inland!

As we curved back towards Acomb we noticed a field full of sheep – a breed we had never seen before. Later, back home, we discovered them to be Balwen Welsh Mountain Sheep; you don’t see many of them round ‘ere.