The rolling road

Somewhere on the island of Great Britain. Often thought of as small and crowded, here it felt anything else. Vast, green and endless, a rolling road that had already risen up for several miles from a silent and empty border twisted on, following the frontier that here diagonalled south. Nothing quite made sense. A patch of land called I had no idea what. My phone had long since cut out. It was an interruption of normal life and noise, just the turning of pedals and my occasional reminder to myself that each one took me closer to Carlisle, and the end of that part of today.

Though I’d allowed myself to get lost I did, in honesty, know pretty much exactly where I was going – I’d come here because I wasn’t sure what I’d find here. Far south Scotland, where the Scottish Borders country of Jedburgh, Kelso and Hawick met Dumfries and Galloway, and struck out a salient line for England and Cumbria, had long fascinated me on numerous family holidays to Northumberland. From the far we stayed on, and explored out from generally no further than an hour in travel time there were numerous curiosities. Being so close to Edinburgh, one of the world’s great cities, yet feeling like you were off the map almost entirely. The procession of medieval remains of the border skirmishes that seemed utterly irrelevant, even as Scotland ties itself up in knots about its future facing old foes to the south. South, you can stare south from England and look at Scotland, the invisible line running more like 240 degrees than 45. So after several hurdles including finally acquiescing to having a proper bike fix, and replacing forgotten bits of kit, I got up early on Saturday and resolved to ride the roads from just inland from Berwick to Carlisle. 

It is always best to start early, with the most light, and the quietest roads. Grabbing my kit off the windowsill of our holiday cottage I caught the eye out the window of Mo, one of the resident border collies. We stared at each other for a while, each wondering why the other was up. He spent most of the preceding week encouraging children to play fetch with him but after this face-off didn’t take much interest in me getting ready to go. The other advantage of starting while sleepy the first few hours tick my in a kind of alert drowse. So went by silent lanes and the occasional view of the board, blue River Tweed, marking the international frontier as far as Coldstream. Upstream of here the border changes angle and, without changing direction, I entered Scotland and stayed there until the last few miles of the route. There are often flags and signs considerably fancier than the drab, apologetic English markers when heading the other way – my favourite just said ‘Cumbria – Skid Risk’.

At Hawick (’Hoick’) no-one was out of bed even though it was gone 9am, and the High Street, lined with fine honey-coloured buildings, appeared to be in a state of permanent dozing. I’d not originally planned to come this way, but during the week had found an ancient Ordnance Survey map in the back of a book covering the entire Borders area that suggested a 20 mile road south of Hawick to Newcastleton was a convenient bridge through some unknown terrain, and I found myself tempted by not needing any route guidance beyond this. The road remained as it appeared on that map, narrow and intensely rural, passing fields of horses, pigs and piglets and donkeys. The occasional hare zipped out across the road, and fields of as-yet unharvested wheat rustled in the wind. Speaking of which, I was starting to notice the wind, blowing at me as if along the border line, giving me a ready made excuse for slightly stately progress. Then the road began to kick up, and up, winding through what I later think is Liddesdale, up through scenery that was more robust than the Dales, but more forested and lower-lying than the Lake District. It was very easy on the eye, mildly terrifying to feel for the first time in a long time to be so far in the distance, and a very good workout. The descent, when it eventually decided to turn up, was a thrilling twisting ride on empty roads, at one point passing a railway heritage centre with some old Pacer trains – probably the worst ever trains – and an Caledonian Sleeper carriage. A remnant of an ancient line. And then Newcastleton, an 18th century planned village, Buckinghamshire in the Borders. 

Shortly further on I re-entered England, with an hour or so to go until Carlisle, and slightly surreal to enter it from the north and odder still to find it so sweaty under the glass of Citadel Station. I tried to ignore the chaos breaking loose around my island and be here and just here for a few minutes. A Saturday steam special was waiting to depart, while I had a magical journey back to Yorkshire to be reunited with my family via the Settle- Carlisle line, one of the world’s great journeys and even more stupendous in the late afternoon’s sun. The road twisted and curved round here too, days passing in another summer of ups, downs and round the bends.