Over the sands and on to Holy Island

I spent the last night of St Cuthbert's Way in an inn on the A1, enjoying the nearly full (nearly blue) moon. In the morning it was bright – almost dazzlingly so, walking into the sun – and cold, but brisk walking soon warms you up.

Although you catch glimpses of the Holy Island and the coast from further inland, nothing quite prepares you for the almost flat expanse of dune and sea when you finally arrive at the shore itself, especially if you've been mostly surrounded by hills for the previous few days.

As it was low tide, I was able to follow the poles that mark the Pilgrims' Path over the sands, rather than walk along the tarmac of the causeway road. Walking bare-footed over the wet sands was the first time my feet had felt comfortable in a couple of days. Somebody in the bar last night had told me that the best cure for blisters is lancing them and then soaking them in bleach. That sounds a bit extreme, but walking through sand and seaweed and occasional patches of salt-water mud is about as effective a massage for sore feet as I've ever tried – people probably spend lots of money on treatments like that in a posh spa, and I was getting it for nothing, and enjoying a bright morning in a staggeringly beautiful place at the same time.

The setting of the priory, with its ruins and its views over the harbour to the castle, makes it a very pleasant place to linger and rest your feet. Cuthbert was buried here for a while before they had to remove his bones (and the Lindisfarne Gospels) from the invading Vikings.

He came back again, briefly, when William the Conqueror was 'harrying of the north' in 1069-70. The Durham monks, fearing that the Normans might desecrate his tomb, moved his body back to Lindisfarne. Arriving nearby just before Christmas, they couldn't get onto the island as it was high tide. Fortunately, according to a contemporary report,

the sea suddenly receding at that spot (but at no other), afforded them the means of passing over, whilst at every other point the tide was at the fullest

and

the waves of the sea followed hard upon their footsteps as they advanced, in such-wise as neither, on the one hand, to precede them to any distance, nor on the other, to linger far behind them as they hastened onwards

– so it was clearly not only Moses who could part the waters. It was probably a good plan to move him, as shortly afterwards William moved north in a devastating punitive raid against rebellious northerners. The chronicler Symeon, a near contemporary monk from Durham, wrote that

the roads of the north were littered with decaying bodies that spread disease. Between York and Durham there was not an inhabited town, only lairs of wild animals and robbers, greatly to terrify travellers

English Heritage's little museum at the priory entrance is worth a visit too, with knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff, and displays which manage to tread the difficult balance of being accessible without being patronising.

I would probably have enjoyed my time there more if I'd arrived on Holy Island just as the tide was coming in and the tide of cars was going out, rather than vice versa, so it would have been possible to enjoy the place in relatively lonely contemplation. Even among the crowds it is still a magical place, and of course made more so by the mild feeling of elation that comes from having completed a challenge. Arriving at the priory and finishing St Cuthbert's Way can't compete with suddenly coming upon the Portico de la Gloria at Santiago Cathedral after walking for 1000 km on genuinely ancient pilgrim roads across Spain, but it's probably as close as anybody will ever going to get to that feeling in this country.

We hope that Alan will step out again for the Northerner soon. Meanwhile you can read his previous three instalments here, here and here.