For over 20 years, some of Northumberland’s most beautiful countryside lay at my feet, and I knew nothing of it.
Imagine if you will, perfect green fields with tiny streams running alongside them, complimenting their existence. If the grass was greener on the other side, I have surely leapt over the fence and onto said side. But imagine this time, woodland abundant and views that would stay with you for the rest of your life. Now imagine it was by your doorstep your entire life, and you had only just discovered it.
Take a trip back to my early twenties and it’s the final year I will live in the quaint little village of Wark-on-Tweed, not that I know it then. After puncturing my bike’s front tyre in a pothole that was surely bigger than the pits of hell themselves, I was rendered unable to continue cycling until it was repaired. But never one to give in, I decided to start walking again but this time, I found myself going down a new footpath: the footpath from Wark to West Learmouth.
Boldly going where I’ve never gone before
As I approach the start of the path, just at the edge of the village, I think of all the times I’ve cycled past it and never thought to go down it. I lived in Wark all my life and yet never once have I thought to set foot down the path. But today, that would change.
For the first five minutes of the path, I wasn’t too phased. It was nice sure, but nothing I hadn’t seen a hundred times before. But then bam! I reached the end of the initial rocky path to see what looked to me like a literal paradise. An oasis in the middle of already beautiful countryside.
I took a moment to drink in what lay ahead of me. A field full of the most gloriously green grass I’d ever seen, rising from where I stood to the top of a small incline where a small woodland stand, stoically watching over the path to the next field. I look to the bottom of the field, covered in lush grass like a full head of hair, and see a row of daisies, basking in the sunlight with their heads held high. The sun beams its warm, yellow rays down onto the field and I too, take an extra moment to bask in the warmth.
Onward to even more undiscovered beauty
But like the gushing stream beside me, I must continue my journey and I do so along the field and up the incline. As I pass the woodland at the very top of the field, I look from the tops of the trees to the woodland floor. I take in this miniature civilisation of birds, bark, leaves and pinecones and marvel at how untouched it is by the everyday challenges of human life. I descend a small decline in the field find the stream again. On the other side of it is a gate, guarded by a tall and majestic tree. I hop over the stream and after a glace back to it, watching the water charge through the open country, I enter the next field and leg of the footpath.
This time however, I’m not in a field, rather the field is on the other side of my path and I am walking on a narrow patch of overgrown land, parallel to a row of bushes and trees through which I can see the fields below, the main road between Wark and Cornhill-on-Tweed, the river Tweed and Scotland. I continue on and round a corner before reaching another field. There, I pay less attention to the field, less green than the rest, and more to the two cows lying in a neighbouring field. They look at me and I briefly look at them, no doubt they’re wondering what I’m up to. They seem to be enjoying sunbathing in the hot summer sun.
I climb a style and go into a slightly overgrown woods, cursing a little as I’m stung by a nettle. But I’m hardly in there for long and when I emerge, I’m on another rocky track road with West Learmouth at the bottom of it, mere feet away. Another footpath leads off and I realise that I’ve emerged on an old railway line with the line to Cornhill to the left of me and the line to Sunilaws Station to the right of me. But my destination is West Learmouth and I head down to the little farm and hamlet, proud of what I’ve accomplished.
This footpath was right under my nose for the over two decades that I lived in Wark. During my many years of cycling the country back roads, soaking in the beauty of the area and often cycling through West Learmouth, I never imagined what an unspoiled oasis lay along that path. I never thought to explore and look. I learned a lesson after that walk and it was time to give cycling a break and discover all the footpaths around Wark and find out what natural treasures they held.
