Onward from Alston

Finding a walking route from Cumbria to Milngavie is not an easy task. We decided that there was no point in persuing the Pennine way route into Scotland as this lead too far east. A direct route would Lie through Brampton, Longtown and on north west to Moffat. We would have to use the roads as the OS maps showed no other realistic routes to follow.

We settled for the 669 from Lambley into Brampton, although an ‘A’ road it is fairly quiet and we made steady progress without any problems. We were amazed at the number of houses for sale as we passed through the villages of Halton lea Gate and Midgeholme.

The road weaves around with gentle undulations through some quite pleasant hills. We found an interesting old stone memorial seat for a rest at Coalfell We were soon on the way again past a sign for Talkin Tarn, The sign pointed up a winding valley which looked interesting, but we pressed on to Brampton down a steep hill that carried the road in a deep cutting to the outskirts of the town, We were glad to get through the cutting without meeting any traffic as it was a bit on the narrow side.

Brampton is a busy place in the town centre but we were soon out on the 607 for Newtown and the camp site that we hoped to find near Laversdale. However we stayed in a quiet site near Newtown, it seems we were too early in the year for the Laversdale site,

Leaving next morning we were faced with a long straight road to Longtown, the road seemed to carry more traffic than we encountered yesterday and we had to hop on and off the verges as cars and wagons lumbered along towards us. Load after load of logs went past there must have been some major timber felling in the area, or perhaps we were close to a sawmill. The surrounding countryside was very flat and not very picturesque. A couple of miles before Longtown we stretched out in a field alongside the road, The sun came out and we took advantage of the warmth to relax for a while before crossing back over and following the now arrow straight road to Longtown which we could see in the distance. We were escorted for a while by some nasty looking Alsatians that were guarding a coal yard. They would have loved to get through the wire to us but fortunately (for us) they were out of luck,

Longtown was a pleasant little place. We found a chip shop and went in for fish and chips with a pot of tea, then sat in the sun for a while outside on the municipal seats. Although the sun was still shining the wind was cold and strong so we were glad to be on the move again in search of the little by road to Chapelknowe.

This was little more than a single lane road climbing gently up to a higher plain that stretched away over to the north. We stopped for a chat with a chap tending his garden and discussed our plans with him, he agreed walking to Moffat would be no problem but crossing .Beatock Summit with the A74 would be grim. We will have to do some homework on that section later.