Lindisfarne Pilgrim’s Way – Day 5 of 2025 England Pilgrimage

Tuesday 9/23/2025

MY STARS! The stars could be seen in hordes last night along with the Milky Way. Ever since we made reservations here and I saw that the moon would be in its Waxing Crescent phase, I’ve been hoping for clear night skys. Thanks be to God for the privilege of seeing His glorious handiwork!

Our long awaited Pilgrim’s Way walk became a reality today! We were up and out of the guesthouse before 8am. Man, was it nippy! The temperature was 46, feels like 41 degrees and breezy. But we layered – several shirts, then a sweatshirt, then a windbreaker, and Gregg wore a winter beenie and I had my earmuff band and gloves. So we were fine. And by the time we began walking in the sand, we were warmed up. Well, our feet weren’t once we took our shoes and socks off but they quickly became numb so no worries.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

We walked 3+ miles a long the causeway to the mainland. The plan was to start walking back around 9am. But once we got to the start/turn around point, nature was calling. Eek! Definitely no toilet facilities would be found once we began, so we walked an additional half mile to a cafe and another half mile back. We bought a “flapjack” to take with us – a square oatmeal pastry with fruit in it. Like a brownie, but made with oatmeal (and no chocolate.)

History refresher: Saint Aiden was the first monk to come to Lindisfarne (northeast England), along with (probably) a dozen others. In 635 AD, the Northumbrian King, Oswald, requested the monks at Iona (southwest Scotland island) to send monks here to share the Good News of Christ with the people in his kingdom. Saint Aiden mentored Saint Cuthbert and then left him in charge of the LIndisfarne monastery.

Reminder: Lindisfarne (now called Holy Island) is a tidal island. Twice a day it is cut off from the mainland by high tide.

There are poles lined up from the mainland to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) to guide the way across the tidal flat when the tide is out. Cuthbert didn’t have that advantage. This section through the tidal flat, called Pilgrim’s Way, is just a portion of a longer pilgrimage trail called St. Cuthbert’s Way.

The Pilgrim’s Way poles begin on the mainland side of a stream which never completely recedes. That stream is big enough to warrant a one-lane bridge for cars to cross. There was a lot of seaweed on the mainland side of the stream and we had no idea how deep the stream was, so we crossed it via the bridge and began walking in the sand on the Holy Island side of the stream. I know, Cuthbert didn’t have the luxury of a bridge when he made the trek.

The hosts where we are staying (highly recommend) at the Belvue Guesthouse calculated a recommended start time of 9am. The “bio-break” caused us to start at 10am but that was not a problem at all. We finished around the peak (?) of low tide.

After crossing the bridge, we sat down on a rock wall, took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants, and began our pilgrimage walk. There were many parts of hard sand even though it was wet. There were other areas of slick mud. We laughed and pretended to be kids again in sections of muddy sand which ozzed up through our toes as our feet sunk up to our ankles. We waded through water (which was never more than ankle deep) and we gingerly walked over grass and some type of sea grass/growing sea weed (?)

As we walked the Pilgrim’s Way, we thought about all the Celtic Christian pilgrims who have walked this “path” for over 1,300 years. That’s hard for me to grasp.

Today was a “How Great Thou Art” day and I sang the song over and over in my head as we walked each direction. Brandi and I first started this tradition on our Alaskan cruise in 2016. It is so fitting and lifts my heart to God.

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy hands have made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy pow’r throughout the universe displayed! Chorus Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee; How great Thou art, How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee; How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

Carl Boberg, 1886

We talked with a British couple who began walking just after us and ended as we were putting our shoes back on. They have been on a 10 day holiday walking about 75 miles. They have walked all over the UK and world including the Camino in Spain. It sounds like they make lodging reservations for each night, similar to what we did on our bike trip from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC.

I was BUSHED at the end. We’ve walked over 10 miles today before lunch. Soup sounded good, so we found a cafe that had tomato soup and a cheese scone. Then we returned to our guesthouse for a shower and a few cups of tea.

There are many other trails we could investigate here on the island, but I just didn’t have the energy. So we’ve been relaxing in our room, eating biscuits (Shortbread Fingers!), and I think Gregg mysteriously helped me get my blog to begin sending again. A mystery. I told it to send immediately after I publish a post.

That first email had an old post from 2024 at the beginning. But after that, the blogs from this trip begin. If you use Gmail, your email was likely trunkated after Day 3. If you look at the bottom lefthand side of your email, it might say: [Message clipped]  View entire message. Clicking on the link takes you to the whole email including Day 4.

We decided that we will pass on attending 5:00 evening prayers. We have a 6:15 reservation at The Ship Inn. We had requested reservations months ago. Yesterday I realized that our “confirmation” email from Visit Lindisfarne said we should receive a follow-up confirmation from the restaurant. But we didn’t. So we dropped in yesterday to ask. Sure enough, we did NOT have a reservation and the main dining room was already booked up (typical on the island.) He did say he’d save us a table in the pub. Whew!

So we’ll have dinner and then go to night prayers again at 9pm (which was around half an hour.) We will then look for stars again tonight and listen to the “singing” gray seals. (Winnie would probably howl with them if she heard it.)

We check out tomorrow and head to Canterbury.