Dog-friendly Ingram

Four and a quarter miles and 250 metres of climbing in two and a half hours up onto the ramparts of the Iron Age fort on Brough Law and round by Ewe Hill and Cochrane Pike above the Breamish. Start from the free National Park parking strips along the valley road past Ingram, where there is space for dozens of cars but almost all of it is on the grass verge and it fills with picnickers on hot days. The Breamish is beside the road at the start and makes a fine shallow paddle, and the hill tracks are good off-lead ground, but the fell is grazed all year, ground-nesting curlew and lapwing mean leads from March to July, and there is no water once you are on the tops.

Three and a quarter miles there and back with 145 metres of climbing, an hour and a half on track and hill path to a 60-foot chute of water falling into a plunge pool five metres deep. Start from the road-end parking beyond Hartside at the top of the Breamish valley, four miles of single-track lane past Ingram, where there is space for perhaps eight cars and the passing places must be kept clear. The track is easy off-lead walking with the Linhope Burn alongside, and the pool is the best dog swim in the Cheviots, though the rocks around it are slippery and the drop beside the fall is unfenced; sheep graze the whole valley and there are gates rather than stiles.

The valley road ends at Hartside, past river shingle, hillforts and cleared settlements, with parking on the haughs at Ingram and Bulby's Wood. The national park's own guidance is the one to follow here: dogs are very welcome but as a general rule should be kept on a lead, with particular care not to scare sheep and lambs or disturb birds. There is no shop past Powburn and no mobile signal in the upper valley.

A waterfall dropping into a deep plunge pool in a fold of the hills, reached by a two-mile track from Hartside at the head of the Breamish valley. The walk crosses open sheep ground and the last stretch is rough underfoot. Leads on, as the national park asks; there is nothing at the far end but the water and the hill.