Journal:
I had a bad
night, waking a number of times with pain deep
inside my bad right knee. I must have given it
a hard time descending from Eildon Hills yesterday.
Paradoxically, it continues to be more painful when
I'm in bed than when I'm walking. I got up at
6:45am and left the hostel at 7:15am with the goal
of walking to Galashiels, about 8km away, and
finding something for breakfast and buying food and
drink for the remainder of the day. Rather
than follow the rather fiddly guide-book suggested
path, I chose a route that was a mixture of roads
and a bike path on a disused rail line, and reached
Galashiels around 8:45am. On my way into the
centre of the town, I passed a Super Tesco store
which boasted a cafe and decided to get my breakfast
and supplies there. I felt quite alien
wandering around the aisles of the large
brightly-lit store with my backpack and more than a
little out of place in the very quiet mezzanine cafe
where I got a "Scottish" breakfast at a reasonable
price.
From Galashiels, my route
followed the Southern Upland Way which climbed
westward over a range of mountains on pleasant
pathways passing through conifer forests and along
treeless ridges, much of the latter over 400m with
just fantastic views in all directions. There
were also some well-marked mountain bike trails
which looked enticing. The climbs weren't too
steep and I made reasonable time and decided to
stick with my plan of making it a long day and
aiming for Peebles where I would have more
accommodation options and, hopefully, mobile and
internet coverage.
I left the Southern Upland
Way at Traquair, where I passed Traquair House,
supposedly the longest continuously inhabited house
in Scotland (more than 1000 years and visited by 27
kings and queens). The guide-book now
suggested some complicated off-road options for
getting to Peebles but, since they didn't visit
anything special and were longer and harder than the
road option, I decided on the latter. There
was a bit of traffic on the road, which made it a
bit unpleasant at times, and walking on tarmac for
12km can be tiring for the feet, but there were
views and things to see and I made good time.
I arrived in the
attractive Tweed River-side town of Peebles soon
after 5pm and, after walking up and down the main
street, picked the cheapest-looking hotel with
accommodation I could see and got a room. I
had dinner at a nearby pub, bought some food and
drink for tomorrow (no resupply options along the
way), and returned to my room to watch the Italy v
Paraguay match while updating my diary.
