Day 21 - Stonehaugh to Knaresgrave - 22 Miles

Our start today turned out to be an hour later than planned, thanks to the 'Saloon' last night and we set off feeling a bit hungry having had only the two bananas that we managed to persuade the owner of the campsite to sell us.
The route today took us back onto the Pennine Way and we soon began walking alongside Hadrian's Wall.  The B road running parallel looked to be an easier option than the up and down wall, but we stuck with it for about 6 Miles before turning towards Haltwhistle.  We had lunch in the first pub we came to, this being the first decent meal we had had in two days.  We didn't linger in Haltwhistle, instead we pushed on along the South Tyne Way, which follows the tracks of a disused railway line.  This was a nice quiet trail that at one point, crosses a huge viaduct, shortly after which we reached our destination in Knaresgrave.  The extra mileage that we have covered in the last two days has set us up for a chance to get a whole day ahead of ourselves if we can reach Langdon Beck tomorrow.

 

Hadrian's Wall is a tough walk.  

Statistics

Distance: 21.1 Miles

Moving Time: 7 Hours 48 Mins

Cumulative Distance: 486.34 Miles

View the route for day 21 here.

Day 19 - Jedburgh to Bryness - 21 Miles

The first big milestone of our journey has now been reached,  at about half way through today's walk, at the point where we reached the first Pennine Way signpost, we crossed over the border between Scotland and England.  We can now say that we have walked the length and breadth of Scotland and that feels quite good.
The first half of today's route started by following quiet minor lanes, before joining Dere Street, an old Roman road, then passing by the remains of a Roman camp.  As we sat on a bridge attending to our feet, a lady out walking her dog approached us showing a great interest in what we were doing.  It turned out that she was a retired chiropodist and she couldn't resist examining our feet.  She then gave us plenty of advice on how to prevent blood poisoning and septicaemia and also said that my shin swelling was normal, provided that it goes down overnight (which it did, before ballooning up again each day).
After our impromptu chiropractic check-up, we continued on our way following the sparsely signposted Pennine Way, through bogs and firing ranges to Bryness Hill where we made a rapid scrambling descent to our final destination.  Our stay for the night was a friendly B&B where the owner had encountered many end to enders, so was able to offer plenty of advice and even offered to transfer our bags to Bellingham.  Tempting though the offer was, we had to decline as we decided that we needed to go further and set our sights on a campsite 5 Miles further down the road in Stonehaugh.

 This signpost marked our entry into England.

Statistics

Distance: 20.9 Miles

Moving Time: 7 Hours 12 Mins

Cumulative Distance: 441.44 Miles

View the route for day 19 here.

Day 18 - Melrose to Jedburgh 15 Miles

After yesterday's marathon, today was just what the doctor ordered, 15 Miles of easy walking. With Bob helping out again dropping our bags off at our destination, we had an opportunity to either get some extra miles in, or take it easy and let Tim's feet and my shin recover a bit.  A look at the map showed no real opportunities to get ahead, so we decided to have as close as possible to a rest day.  As it turned out, the route that follows St Cuthbert's Way, is a fantastic path, following an old Roman road, with tree lined trails that kept us keep cool in another baking hot day.
The 15 Miles passed quickly and we both felt significantly better than yesterday's thirsty mission.  As we stocked up on provisions in Jedborough, a crowd gathered in the centre of town and it turned out that a parade celebrating historic battles with the English was about to pass by, so we stayed to watch the popular local spectacle.  Hopefully the rest today will have repaired us sufficiently because we are currently in the eye of the storm, tomorrow we begin the next big challenge, the Pennine Way.

Parade day in Jedburgh.

Statistics

Distance: 14.8 Miles

Moving Time: 4 Hours 59 Mins

Cumulative Distance: 420.54 Miles

View the route for day 18 here.

Day 17 – Peebles to Melrose – 27.5 Miles

Today was a scorcher, the hottest day in Scotland so far this year.  We set off from the campsite at 6am in order to take advantage of some cool walking for an hour or so and for the first time, we had baggage assistance with Bob taking our bags ahead and depositing them at the B&B in Melrose.  This helped enormously and the long steep climb up onto Minch moor was much easier than it would have been with our big bags.

The route out from Peebles follows some quiet country roads, before starting on the Southern Uplands Way which is a beautiful walk with hardly a soul around for miles.  There were also no opportunities to stock up on food and water for the entire journey, meaning that we were very low on food and water by the time we closed in on Melrose.  We stopped for a while to cool our feet in the water of the river Tweed which also helped to ease the swelling in my right shin which has suddenly flared up.  A dose of Nurofen Express works wonders for killing the pain, but I’m not sure how many days it will be before the swelling disappears.

Tomorrow is in effect a rest day at only 16 Miles, so hopefully that will give our bodies time to repair a bit before normal service is resumed.

How to keep cool in a Scottish heatwave.

Statistics

Distance: 26.7 Miles

Moving Time: 9 Hours 10 Mins

Cumulative Distance: 405.74 Miles

View the route for day 17 here.

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.