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.