Why Are You Walking? End — to — End, Walking Across the UK Part 7
The next section of my walk wasn’t the most fabulously interesting landscape — though there is a pretty heart-racing scene involving me jumping over a wall.
It was beginning to occur to me that getting the train might have been a faster way to reach my goal of getting to the other end of Scotland.
I have found while doing my End-to-End that sections of it aren’t walks that I would do if I were just going out to do a week’s walk but unfortunately they link up with other more interesting trails, even if they didn’t enthral me as much as I had hoped.
There were times when I was bored.
This made me consider why I was walking. Why was it so important to do this section? If I didn’t like the walking on this part of the trail, why not go somewhere else or get a bus across this section? Was it because of the importance of completing an End-To-End?
What meaning lay behind completing the task that I had set for myself?
I never considered that doing every bit of the walk could be because of other people’s expectations of me — the need to tell others that I’d missed a bit out might lessen my grand achievement, but this didn’t particularly matter to me.
Promises, Promises…
“I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”
Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
We all make promises to ourselves. We are the only ones who can decide what something means to us. No one can tell you that walking 10 miles means anything. Ultimately, maybe it doesn’t, but to me it felt like a lot.
It feels important.
I had set out to walk from Lands End to John o’ Groats. I didn’t care how many years or how many sections. But it matters that I get there and that I walk the whole way.
Because I had promised myself.
Because I had decided that it mattered to me.
Our daily rituals and promises are important things that make us who we are.
We get up and we do things because they matter to us. They are the narrative of who we are.
Stopping and thinking about why it matters isn’t something I do very often.
What would happen if I reneged on the promises made to myself?
I feel that if the rituals and promises I make to myself stopped then so would I. I wouldn’t exist as I am now. I wouldn’t be able to care for things large or small.
If one step doesn’t matter then why should a thousand steps?
Every step of my walk holds meaning to me. The moment that stops being the case then what weight can I give to the rest of the walk?
This is not to say that someone who walks 100 miles, gets a bus for 10 miles, and then walks another 100 miles should be left feeling that they have betrayed themselves. Rather, I believe that it’s about what we set out to do. If you set out to walk 10 miles and complete your goal, you have kept your promise. If you get up in the morning, if you do what you set out to do, large or small — these things matter.
I also think there’s a link to how we experience our own achievements. For me, it relates to a 10-day meditation course I went to in February.
During the course we listened to a series of lectures in the evening on observing Buddhist values and how they might (or might not) relate to our lives. I’m not a Buddhist but I find a lot of their values resonate with the way in which I aim to live my life. One of the elements discussed was letting go. Nothing is permanent. The more we give value to impermanent things, the more power we give to them, the more they hurt us when we lose them.
What if I achieve a long walk and then never hike again?
Does that make my failure double? If I had never done this in the first place then I would not feel that my lack of hiking had any value. But if I achieve something and then stop doing it, have I let go of something that was a potential future achievement?
If I paint a masterpiece and never paint again, am I depriving myself of future masterpieces?
But what if I walked a single step, noted it for exactly what it was, and then let it go?
What if I then walked another and another and another and another and did the same thing with each step?
Perhaps a large part of why I enjoy walking is that I am testing a theory. I’m challenging myself to do something without getting attached to what I have already done.
A mile behind me is behind me after all.
There are plenty of steps left to take.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
Heraclitus
No action we take can be repeated.
No value given can be given twice.
We decide to act because we promised ourselves that we would.
And I have many more miles to go.
Kirk Yetholm To West Linton
Before leaving Kirk Yetholm I had to decide where I was going exactly…
When I left to do the Pennine Way I hadn’t thought that I was going to go further but for various reasons I had some time to kill and figured I may as well continue my walk for another week or so.
Starting out, I would be following the St. Cuthbert’s Way to Melrose.
I didn’t write much in my journal about the day’s walk other than that it was dull — farm fields and roads. Some of the views were pleasant but perhaps I had been spoiled recently as they didn’t massively inspire me.
The next day I was walking through a field when I noticed the local residents (the cows) had taken a rather strong disliking to me. Now of course I know the situation… Cows get mad and chase you — what one ought to do is calmly keep walking. Running will only make then want to chase after you. But calmly walking through a field like it’s no-one’s business is sorta tricky when there are six angry cows running round you in circles, stamping their feet.
So, of course, I ran. As I am writing this, you can assume that I came out of the situation in one (relatively unharmed) piece but I did have to climb a wall and jump over it, hurting my hip in the process. It wasn’t going to make it into my top ten favourite days.
I promised myself that when I got the opportunity I was going to buy myself some steak so as I could feel avenged. I’m a vegetarian so I had no intention of eating it, but I felt like watching it burn might bring me some peace.
Getting into Melrose meant that I had finished the St. Cuthbert’s section of my walk. The St. Cuthbert’s Way is an old pilgrim trail in Scotland; St Cuthbert being a 7th century saint and native of the borders. It runs from Melrose to Lindisfarne and totals 62 miles. It’s relatively popular — there are even numerous guided tours now, which seem increasingly popular these days.
Because… ohm… actually I’m not sure.
They seem rather overpriced to me. I could understand getting your bags shipped around but I can’t say I would pay hundreds of pounds for someone to book a few hotels and tell me where to go that day. (But hey-ho perhaps there’s more to it?)
After the incident with the cows I was chugging down an assortment of painkillers. My hip had already been hurting before the cow debacle but now it was agony. Going uphill felt like a particular torment. But I didn’t have far to go… just another 40 miles or so, right?
From Melrose I went to Traquair and from there to Peebles. The walk into Peebles was beautiful — I enjoyed walking along the river. It was flat for one thing, which made me happy.
From there I followed the Cross Borders Drove Road to West Linton where I decided to give it up. I had originally intended to walk to Edinburgh but I was getting concerned about my hip and in a few weeks time I would be going to Spain to hike the Camino so I felt it would be somewhat unwise to cause myself further injury.
Getting on a bus always feels strange after walking for so long. I felt like I was moving unnaturally fast.
This was the last part of my End-to-end for 2018.
I think that the next section will be the completion of it, which is an odd thought.
But for now I’m heading to Venice for a spell then I’m going to walk the Camino De Santiago. I am increasingly fascinated by pilgrim trails. So stay tuned for further updates.
(All Images By Cottia Fortune)
