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Journal: |
Had a better night's sleep and, after my Scottish breakfast,
started walking around 8:30am down the main street of Peebles, which
was getting ready for the new day. There was bright sunshine
and there were a lot of people out exercising on the first part of
my walk which took me along the manicured parkland banks of the
Tweed River. One of my old blisters was hurting quite a lot
and I stopped on a park bench and did some dressing. It seemed
to settle down after that. When I reached the 13th Century
Neidpath Castle, my route left the river and began climbing, first
across a nice golf course, then through farmland, then forest, to
reach moorland. I wasn't following a long distance path today,
but rather an intricate route described in my guidebook and I had to
check it regularly. In some places, there was no path at all,
just some compass bearings across the heather-covered moors and the
going was often difficult and slow, giving my bad knee a real
work-out. However, the views were, yet again, grand and I
often had whole landscapes to myself (well, there were always sheep
somewhere).
Around 1pm, I descended from one set of hills and moors to a
valley and, after a 4km road walk, reached the cute village of West
Linton at 1:50pm, just in time to order lunch in the pub and see New
Zealand's overtime equaliser against Slovakia. I took my time
over lunch, not really being sure of where I was going to stay
tonight, and knowing I was ahead of schedule. I knew I had
another range of hills to cross before I reached some more villages,
but I wasn't sure how long it would take me, or whether there was
any accommodation available in those villages.
I left the pub around 2:45pm and walked past many wealthy-looking
houses on my way out of the village. After 5km of farmland, I
climbed into some more remote moors, but the ascent was gradual and
the walking generally easy and quick after the slow stuff this
morning. I began to think I could make it to the village of
East Calder where I believed there might be some B&Bs by 7pm, so
made that my goal. First, I had to climb over Corston Hill
(348m), much of it slow cross-country again, from where I had views
of the Firth of Forth Bridge and Edinburgh in the far distance.
I last visited Edinburgh in the couple of weeks before I retired
back in 2003 and the visit sticks in my memory because, as a
farewell gesture, one of my offsiders, Tom, who was on the trip with
me, had my PA write to the hotel in advance of our stay saying that,
following a recent kidney operation, I was suffering from
incontinence problems and would they mind putting plastic underlays
under my bedding and leaving plenty of tissues, etc., in the room.
I thought the receptionist took a long look at me when I checked in.
The boys told me about it the next day with much hilarity.
Anyway, after my look at Edinburgh, I began a slow descent, again
much of it cross-country, across moorland to a road and then walked
into East Calder around 7:30pm. It was in the lowlands, and a
much more built-up area, such as I will be travelling through for
the next couple of days. I walked down the main street, but
couldn't see anywhere with accommodation and resorted to Plan B,
which was to head down to the River Almond and try and find
somewhere to camp out of sight. The path was in a regional
park and there were some people out exercising. Eventually,
around 8pm, I found a corner out of sight and erected my tent,
hoping I won't be disturbed by early morning dog-walkers. I'm
even further ahead of schedule now, but will just play it by ear
tomorrow on how far I go. It's supposed to be easy walking,
mostly along canal towpaths, and will pass a lot of towns.
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