The walk has no great altitude to it at all, mostly completed at sea level with only the occasional wee brae or road hill. The weather continued to hold fine and we walked in good conditions down the River Eden, before going on the road for the walk to the Scottish border. Perhaps the occasional served to lift our spirits but we both felt We are both felt in good health and surprisingly high spirits.
There is a long distance walking path focussed on the Eden Valley called the Eden Way. Eighty-three miles long, it follows the river from its discharge on the Solway to its source at Boroughbridge in Yorkshire. The River Eden is one of the few rivers in the UK to flow north, so from Carlisle the route goes south to finish in the shadow of the Pennines and on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
From the bridge in Carlisle there are a couple of choices to drop down on to the riverside pathway. The riverside walk is quite busy with pedestrians and cyclists but it does not stop the enjoyment of the walk. You are on the path until just after Stanwix where the path re-joins a road just below Edenstown. From there to Etterby it is road walking but, again, it is not too onerous. After going through the houses at Etterby the route is back on to the riverside which is where it stays until the next stretch of road some miles later at Rockcliff.
To access the road running parallel to the M6 you need to walk south in the hamlet of Floristonrigg to a small access road on the left that takes you up and on to the unnamed road. The sign on the road gave us a small frisson of excitement with the thought that we were, after nearly six years of intermittent walking, approaching the end of our circumnavigation of England and Wales.
We enjoyed some shenanigans and cavorting when we reached the border, revelling just a little bit in the achievement of it. I had personally walked over three thousand, three hundred miles to reach this point and to be honest, felt everyone of them that day. However much I enjoyed it, there was a sense of otherworldliness about reaching the border and it was only some weeks later that I could really appreciate what I had walked as a whole.