Day 16 - Edinburgh to Peebles - 25 Miles

Edinburgh is a great city, and Edinburgh is especially vibrant when the weather is as brilliant as it has been this weekend.  Everyone seems to be in a good mood and with Andy Murray in the final of Wimbledon today, there is a good atmosphere everywhere we go.  We were a bit late leaving the B&B this morning as the staff had been partying a bit too much last night, but we eventually got breakfast and hit the road and headed out of the suburbs in a southerly direction.  The roads made for good going and there was a pavement for the first 10 Miles of the journey, which passed by fairly quickly, despite the increasing heat.
When we reached Leadburn, the path ran out so we tried to pick up the tracks of a disused railway, but it was overgrown, so we got back onto the verge of the main road to Peebles.  As we got closer to Peebles, the road narrowed a bit, so we tried again to find the railway line at Eddleston, but it seemed to lead into someone's back garden, so we followed the main road again into Peedles.
At the outskirts of town we met a lady who informed us that she had been unable to get a B&B in town and that everywhere was fully booked, so we decided to pitch up at the local campsite.
The campsite is a really friendly place and a nice couple asked us about our journey and gave us a hot dog, then gave us a donation for H4H.  After pitching tent, we headed for town to get some more food and met up with our old friend Bob who brought his dog with him and was welcomed into the pub.  Bob offered to transport our bags to Melrose tomorrow to give our feet a rest which was nice of him. He also told the waitress about our journey and she also gave us a donation for the cause.
Maybe Andy Murray's Wimbledon win which was being shown on loop round in the pub has worked wonders to make everyone feel happy.

 Peebles in the morning.

Statistics

Distance: 24.4 Miles

Moving Time: 7 Hours 38 Mins

Cumulative Distance: 379.04 Miles

View the route for day 16 here.

Day 15 – Linlithgow to Edinburgh – 24 Miles

Before I continue to talk about today’s walk, I can officially confirm, thanks to Tim’s friend Pat in the pub last night, that the creature we saw in the woods at Inversnaid, was a Haggis!

Today’s walk was hard.  Long, predictable and painful.  We both now have blisters, brought on by the canal’s rough surface.  This combined with the hot (yes the sun has finally shown its face) weather, meant that we are stopping every hour to let our feet breathe and apply any necessary remedies.  The Union Canal is pleasant enough and pretty much devoid of boats.  Plenty of people cycle and walk along the towpath, which is nicely wooded in places, but I’ve had enough of canals now and want to get back into more interesting terrain.

We stopped for lunch in Ratho, then after what seemed like forever, we got into the less attractive outskirts of Edinburgh and made our way towards the centre of the city.  As always, we hadn’t booked any accommodation, so stopped in Costa for a coffee and made use of the free Wi-Fi to research places to stay.  We soon found a nearby B&B that was just what we wanted and got checked in.

Later, we met up with an old friend Niki who kindly took us for a few drinks in a very trendy part of the city, filled with students and young types who were too busy having fun to bother about our less trendy apparel and flip flops.

We have now completed our “Z” shaped traverse of Scotland and tomorrow we head directly south for another 25 Miles to Peebles.  Apparently it is set to get even hotter, but at least we will be off the canal.

 Edinburgh's answer to Ayres Rock.

Statistics

Distance: 23.3 Miles

Moving Time: 7 Hours 21 Mins

Cumulative Distance: 354.64 Miles

View the route for day 15 here.

 

Day 14 – Twechar to Linlithcow – 25 Miles

After a huge breakfast at the Twechar Farm B&B this morning we packed up ready for what seemed like an easy day on paper.  25 Miles of canal walking to a touristy destination that was bound to be full of B&Bs’ with a campsite as a fall-back option, what could be easier?  As we left, the lady from the B&B handed us a donation for Help for Heroes which was very nice of her, I made a mental note to add her donation on-line and send her a link to the Just Giving site so that she could read up on our journey.

The day turned out to be a bit of a long trudge in the end.  Canal walking, although flat, is pretty dull and meanders along the contour, so is never very direct.  Combined with the rough gravel surface, meaning that every stone is felt right through your boots, this wasn’t really as pleasant as we had hoped.  Still, we plodded away and at the half-way point we reached the Falkirk Wheel.  The locals are rightly very proud of this 2002 engineering project which uses the Archimedes principle to provide a perfectly balanced mechanism for lifting barges up the 24 Metre ascent onto the Union Canal.  We stopped for a coffee and watched whilst tourist boats made the “Falkirk Wheel Experience” up and down the canal.  Sadly the waterways don’t seem to be used for much else these days.

It was a good job we stopped for coffee here as checking the map we realised that this was the point where we switched from the Forth and Clyde Canal onto the Union Canal.  If we had missed this then we would have headed on north of Falkirk blindly following the wrong canal.

Eventually, with very sore feet, we reached the pretty town of Linlithgow.  Linlithgow has a picturesque palace that sits on the shores of a Loch that I am sure would be nice to visit, but all we needed was accommodation.  Unfortunately, both the big hotels in town were closed and the few B&Bs’ were all full, so we no option but to check into the local campsite which was pretty much at the bottom of the scale as far as campsites go.  We just about found a place in between some disused caravans and decided to retire to the local pub to watch Andy Murray in the Wimbledon semi-finals.  The pub was friendly and the locals were interested in our journey and bought us a whisky to reward our efforts as we watched Murray power through to the final.  Eventually, we made our way back to the campsite, contemplating another long day ahead of us tomorrow.

 The ingenious Falkirk Wheel.

A long canal tunnel with water streaming down.

Statistics

Distance: 24.5 Miles

Moving Time: 8 Hours 01 Mins

Cumulative Distance: 331.34 Miles

View the route for day 14 here.

 

Day 13 – Drymen to Twechar – 21 Miles

I have been informed today that the unusual grass that we have been seeing throughout the Glens is in fact “Cotton grass” which also grows in England.  This proves two things, one, that I have not been very observant whilst walking in England, two, that at least one other person is reading this blog.  Maybe someone could also let me know what the strange creature that we saw running into the woods at Inversnaid was, it looked to me like a racoon, but I’m pretty sure that Scotland doesn’t have any of those.  It had a stripy tail and was not any of the following:

• ·         Cat
• ·         Beaver
• ·         Otter
• ·         Loch Ness Monster

Today started out very wet again, I still haven’t managed to get any waterproof trousers, but I’m sure that there is a big gap in the market for wet weather gear in the shops along the West Highland Way.  After heading out on the inevitable “Rob Roy Way”, we soon left behind the West Highland Way that we have been following since Fort William and picked up the tracks of a disused railway line.  We also left behind Gary the milkman whose GPS tracks from his invaluable blog here we have been following since day 1.  This guy can only be described as a “Milkman on a Mission” and achieved some impressive times for his daily walks.  Fortunately the mad milkman now heads towards Glasgow and we follow a slightly more relaxed daily schedule.

The disused railway line that we joined was at first overgrown and boggy, making for another soggy foot day, but it soon opened out into an established tarmac route that made for pleasant walking all the way to Lenoxtown.  We tried to stop for food in Lennoxtown, but none of the pubs did food, so we just had a drink, then left, despite the promise of evening entertainment with “Big Nellie”.

After passing through the fairly dull Kirkintilloch, we reached our destination B&B at Twechar.  As usual, we hadn’t booked, preferring to keep our options open, but there didn’t seem to be many options around here and it looked like we might finally be out of luck as there was no answer at the door or by phone.  Finally we tracked down someone to let us in and we started investigating food options.  As the local pub had shut down and as we didn’t fancy going for a long walk, we ordered a pizza big enough to suffice for evening meal and walking provisions tomorrow.

 Views along the disused railway line to Lennoxtown.

Statistics

Distance: 20.9 Miles

Moving Time: 6 Hours 45 Mins

Cumulative Distance: 306.84 Miles

View the route for day 13 here.