Day 71 - Innerleithen to Peebles - 13.9 miles
Innerleithen (480 feet) sits on the Tweed in a narrow steep sided valley.
The hills are inviting and the town has become a hub for walkers and cyclists - the main street is lined with bike hire and repair shops.
Over breakfast I met Richard
who is walking from Aberdeen to his home in London in 6 weeks and doing a big mileage per day. He works for BP, is visiting as many independent BP outlets as he can along the way and is collecting for Alzheimers Research. Because of shortage of time, he's been walking as straight a line as possible and keeping to the roads. Not for me!!
I wanted to visit Traquaire - the oldest inhabited house in Scotland. We've enjoyed a number of family parties here over the years..
- especially Dick's 70th and most memorably and unforgettably Emma and Dave's wedding. I went to check on the health of their tree that they'd planted on their wedding day - it was flourishing!
The Bear gates at the end of the drive were locked in 1745 never to be reopened until a Stuart monarch returns to the throne.
Somebody needs to plan something pretty dramatic for the Windsors before there's even a chance of the main drive coming back into use in the forseeable!!
Mind you Scotland does at least have Nicola!!
Time for an early lunch before heading into the hills.
I decided that fortified with a glass of Irn Bru - 'made in Scotland from girders' should see me right.
Walking over a bridge I disturbed a heron which took off and landed nearby - a wonderfully primeval sight.
As I walked up towards Orchard Rig, I met and had a really interesting chat with Richard who is a native woodland ecologist for Forestry and Land Scotland.
Originally from Worcestershire, he has been living in Scotland for most of his profesional life. We talked about the wonders of living in such a beautiful place. Richard's ambit is to advise on the ecological impacts of FSL's operations across the whole of Scotland - it's a big job.
His research area has been advising on the reinstatement of a 'coastal rain forest' in North West Scotland.
He told me that he'd recently witnessed a mass migration of frogs from the pond in front of us and had recorded the most amazing sound of hundreds maybe thousands of frogs on the move - undeterred by a watchful otter seizing the opportunity for a feast! Nature at its most wonderful and raw! We could have talked for ages.
This is the Cross Borders Drovers Road and an ideal place for walking with views of rounded hills in every direction. Wikipedia says that for a hill to be a mountain it needs to be 300m (approx 1000 feet) higher than surrounding land. So, these are definitely mountains!!
Between Wallace's Hill (1510 feet) and Birks Hill (2050 feet) I met Helen.
Helen had taken her family on the the West Highland Way last year and her children had all wanted to go again this year.
We talked about the wonderful feeling of achievement that accompanies a day in the mountains and how the equivalent of a DoE scheme could be attractive for adults.
The trail then looped around Cardona Forest before climbing over Kirkhope Law (1750 feet) . As I dropped towards Kailzie Hill, I was enjoying the wonderful open views and the silence broken only by the sound of skylarks when suddenly, over the brow behind me on a parallel sheep track, a trail bike sped past, a bright orange streak, swerving its way down the hill.
Yesterday, I'd had to endure sharing a pub dining room with a noisy group of petrol heads, bragging about their trail bikes, what speeds they'd achieved and how close they'd come to near death experiences on mountain tracks here and mountain tracks there!!! As the alcohol went down, the voices became louder and the stories less probable. Not the best of my evenings!
The speeding motorbike came to a stop on a rise about half a mile ahead - a bright orange dot on the horizon.
Fuelled by thoughts of last night, I decided to walk on and if the orange dot was still there when I got to the horizon, I'd share my thoughts with the guy!
Never judge a book by its cover!!!
Martin and his father before him used to farm this entire area. 7000 acres of it as far as the skyline. He knew each part of the mountain, each field, each group of trees by name.
He kept over 1000 breeding ewes and at any one time he would work 11 sheepdogs to keep the flock moving.
He explained that flocks of that size needed a number of tups (rams) but that the rams would need to be kept apart or they could fight to the death. To avoid that risk, the ewes needed to be herded daily to different parts of the mountain to ensure the rams never met. He did this every day, working his dogs from his motorbike. As a result he'd developed quite some skill and in an "enduro" event a few years back he'd finished 4th out of 180 competitors.
Martin described the difficulties in earning a reasonable income today as a farmer. He has left farming and set up as a fencing contractor.
His farm was now owned by Willie Whitelaw's daughter and is used for shooting - no sheep there anymore!
Appropriately, we were standing on the route of the old Cross Borders Drover Road and the broken wall perhaps a graphic representation of the state of sheep farming as he described it.
We both continued on our ways - he artfully sped down the hill and quickly disappeared over the next rise. I walked down to the end of the drovers road where it entered Peebles passing
Emma had arranged for tickets to see Clive Myrie at the Borders Book Festival and before 20.00 I was back in Melrose to catch up with Jill and Donald and to hear his interview with Sally Magnusson.
A good evening and a full day.
Total distance walked so far = 917 miles
Total ascent so far = 109 785 feet
If you'd like to leave a comment, correct me on any detail or just nudge, it'd be great to hear from you. If initially it comes up as Anonymous, please just add your name at the bottom so I can see who it's from.
email: david.LL.thomas@gmail.com
mob: 07850109100
If you'd like to contribute to any or all of the great charities I'm supporting, here are the relevant links.
- Parkinsons UK - My dad had Parkinsons in his latter years and the research work this charity funds and the support it provides to patients and their families is invaluable. - https://www.justgiving.com/
- Just Wheels UK - this is a small charity set up to provide wheelchairs in a rural community in Tanzania. It does this through funding training, education and the local fabrication and servicing of bespoke wheelchairs. My nephew uses a wheelchair and as he grows I can see the life changing freedoms that proper wheelchairs can bring to both users and their families.-
- RNLI - these are the brave guys who selflessly head out to sea to help others. I volunteer at Littlehampton RNLI shop and often meet families of those who’ve had first hand experience of their loved ones being saved from the sea. Having sailed for years I can say thankfully we’ve never had to call on the RNLI's services but it’s amazing what it does to know they are there
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