Photo: Plaque marking the centre of Britain in Haltwhistle

31st August
The swell into the harbour had decreased enough for us to get out of Eyemouth safely. Ivan the harbour master came out to the end of the pier to wave us off and to tell us to come back and visit again. We got the sails up and engine off and tried sailing but unfortunately after only an hour the wind had decreased to a level that we couldn't sail against the swell.

I don't know where the easterly swell was coming from as we'd had north westerly winds most recently, all we could guess was that there'd been some strong winds over in Norway and Denmark. Due to the swell we didn't think anchoring at the Farnes would have been very pleasant so headed on to Blyth. Despite there being no wind we encountered some rough water off the eastern tip of the Farnes even 2nm off them.

The sun came and went, our speed over ground went up to 7kt with the tide which hasn't happened for a while - looks like the bottom scrub made some difference! We made our first landing back in England at Blyth 11 hours after leaving Eyemouth and tied up on the empty visitor's pontoon at the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club.

I'd read that the area was very industrial and not very pretty, but it wasn't that bad. Golden beaches lined most of the coast all the way down to the Tyne with hills lining the horizon. Blyth port was a major exporter of coal; that has dramatically declined with the closing of most of the pits in the area (although it does still export a small amount) and it is now establishing itself as an area for renewable energy research.

2nd September
We were up early for a 2 1/2 hour bus journey (which was very good value) to the centre of Britain. This is a place called Haltwhistle in Northumberland. Its measurements were slightly suspect in that it had used north Orkney as its northerly point, but not included Shetland, but it feels wrong to criticise a place for trying to attract visitors. The day started dry but as we left Newcastle behind a drizzle began to fall. At Haltwhistle we quickly looked at the 'centre of Britain' signpost and ducked into the nearest café to wait to see if the rain would pass and to fortify ourselves for a day's walking.

The rain passed for long enough for us to walk the 2 miles alongside Haltwhistle Burn to Hadrian's Wall. The rain then returned, but up on the wall we could see west to where the clouds were rolling in from and it looked like we'd have a dry spell after this shower had passed.

Hadrian's Wall is a Roman defensive structure begun in AD 122 that stretches right across northern England and marks the northern frontier of the Roman Empire. There were some good remains of stone wall in the 6 mile section we'd chosen to walk, along with the remains of milecastles and turrets. The terrain was surprisingly rugged with lots of steep ups and downs and in places so craggy that they didn't need to have bothered with a wall at all. The scenery was stunning - looking south to the dark, brooding Pennines and north to the forests and hills of Northumberland.

Photo: Walking along a section of Hadrian's Wall

We passed the point where Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves (the one with Kevin Costner) was filmed, that I am reliably informed is called Sycamore Gap. Our walk ended at Housesteads Fort which we could have paid to go in and look around, but because we'd delayed over coffee and cake at the start, we'd have had to gallop around and our normally ship-bound legs weren't up to any galloping by that point. So we've now visited south, west, north and centre of Britian and Hadrian's Wall marks our second UNESCO World Heritage Site for this year.

We then left the wall for another 2 ½ miles walk to Bardon Mill where we found that the bus stop was a pub - how perfect was that and we had just enough time to enjoy a pint in the sun that had now appeared.