Our ingenious plan for day 4 was to take to bus to our evening stop and walk back from there to our morning starting point. This was a truly great plan, apart from the task of firstly getting to the bus across 2 miles of open pasture land to Haltwhistle. Although we made it in time, our journey was slowed for ten minutes as we patiently (and nervously) tried to cross a field full of rather angry cows tryign to protect their new born calves. The cliffs they were cornerign us against didn't seem to friendly either...
Nevertheless, we caught the bus to Brampton and a taxi onwards to Walton, where we left our bags in the care of the lovely Sutcliffe family at their farmhouse "Sandysike" B&B. Successfully de-bagged, we thus set off to walk back from where we had come that morning - a great experience to do a few miles without carrying an extra 3 stone in weight! The weather was again glorious - perfect for balancing out the tan as, having only walked East to West thus far, we were lookign a little stripey between left and right.
As it was, we didn't make it right back to where we had left the wall the other day as the time was growing on and our feet were sprouting more aches. Remember, though, that we had already walked 2 miles off the trail the previous day to find the campsite, and a further 2 miles that morning to get the bus, and so our overall mileage was only down by about 3-4 miles.
That evening we stayed in the beautiful Sandysike farmhouse (as their bunkhouse was yet to be completed), and had a truly wonderful evening with the cattle-farming Sutcliffe family who owned it. They welcomed us with steaming cups of tea, and laid open their house to us. I wouldn't hesitate to return to their hospitality and friendliness.