Melrose and north Berwick

Our first walk from the Melrose site took us to the Gattonside Chain Bridge, a pedestrian bridge over the river Tweed that was built in 1926, and renewed in 1985 to link the villagers of Gattonside with the town of Melrose, there is still a sign on the bridge saying that no more than 8 people should be on it at a time, but a bunch of ramblers coming the other way ignored it and there must have been 15 of us! We were lucky to survive! We continued up the river to the road bridge, spotting several herons and a buzzard on the way, and then crossed the bridge and headed back into town on the other bank. Once back, we headed for the ruined Melrose Abbey where we had a nice wander around and even went up onto the abbey roof via a tight spiral staircase where there was a great view over the town and surrounding hills. After tea Phil went off to Innerleithen, taking his bike with him. The track at Innerleithen is one of the 7 Stanes series of tracks all based in the Scottish borders, Innerleithen is the first of the set I have ridden and it did not disappoint. Tough, rocky climbs preceded excellent flowing descents with drops and jumps. The black rated sections were very good with some real tricky rock sections to really test your ability, and the downhill back to the car was just immense with its big drop offs, I just had to go back up for another go! 19km in total meant that by the time I got back and showered I was ready for bed!

After breakfast the next day we headed out for a walk from the site. Melrose is dominated by the Eildon Hills, a set of 3 hills all next to each other ranging in height from 1,180ft to 1,340ft. We went out through the town and headed up the nearest hill to us which towers over the caravan site at 1,300ft, the walk started off up a 140 step wooden staircase and got steadily steeper! It was a scorching hot day so we had to keep stopping for breaks, and we said ‘hi’ to a number of walkers coming the other way. Once we reached the cairn on the top of the hill Phil spotted a squirrel on it, we chased him around the cairn taking photos for a while before he scampered off for cover! After a while a mountain biker huffed and puffed his way up, and when we got talking to him he said he was a local lad who worked in the forests with his dad, he did this ride most days but also raced downhill and had been to Leg Gets and Morzine several times (like us!). He whizzed off down the hill one way and we headed down the other. A very steep descent brought us back into the town and we headed to the van for some much needed R&R.

The next day we went to Grey Mare’s Tail, a waterfall which the mountain biker we met yesterday recommended to us. The path that runs alongside the waterfall is a very steep climb up and rises 1,000 feet in just over a mile, we had a few stops on the way but when we got to the top we were rewarded with a lovely view of Loch Skeen, which at 1,680 feet is the highest loch in Southern Scotland. We sat at the edge of the Loch and had our lunch, Prince went for a swim (well, he was pushed in!) and we then headed back down the steep descent appreciating the great views on the way down. On the way back we stopped on the side of the road at St Mary’s Loch where there is a café which sold some lovely Orkney ice cream, which we had to try! Back at the van Phil went out on his bike for a 7.5 mile ride up in the Eildon Hills which we walked up yesterday, again he met someone on the top who he got chatting to, he was from a nearby village and was walking a couple of the hills in the afternoon. Back at the van there were scores of people lining the sides of the street so we dashed out to see what was going on, it was the start of the Melrose festival, and there was a big ride-out through the centre of the town. There was well over 100 horses and riders streaming past us and into the town centre before heading out of the town for their ride..


Next up, we went to Glentress forest by Peebles which is another part of the 7 Stanes network of mountain bike trails. The drive took about an hour, but then the drive up the forest track to the car park seemed to go on forever.. Phil headed out for a ride, first having a bit of a play in the bike park which is full of jumps, drops, wall rides and berms and is great fun. Then it was off to ride the black route, a 30km waymarked trail that takes you up some very big climbs and down some big descents. It was a very hot day, so the route was quite tough, and the descents were rocky and gave no places to rest, I think it may have been classified as black more due to the level of fitness required rather than the difficulty of the terrain though. Back at the car 3 hrs later Linda was just back from her walk with the dogs. She followed 2 waymarked routes which totalled 5.5 miles and had some great views over the town of Peebles and the Tweed Valley. Back at the car we had a bite to eat before driving/riding down to the bottom of the forest where the visitor centre and café are, we had a cake each sat outside in the sun before going for a look in the Osprey centre. A very enthusiastic lady came over to us and was talking us through the live footage of the chicks and parents in the osprey nest as well as showing us some highlights of last year!

We were out early the next morning as we wanted to do a local walk to the nearby Leaderfoot Viaduct, a former railway bridge which dominates the landscape at this part of the Tweed. The route took us alongside Melrose Abbey and out through the village of Newstead which claims to be the oldest inhabited village in Scotland. This is because it was found to be the site of a roman settlement, a fort called Trimontium (town of the 3 hills). As you walk around the site (which is now mainly fields) there are various information boards which tell you about what the archaeologists have found here and what life was likely to be like for the romans living here. We eventually reached the viaduct and were disappointed to find that we couldn’t walk over it as it was fenced off. Instead we made do with a walk down the little old road bridge sandwiched between the viaduct and the A68 bridge, this lovely looking bridge (now a footbridge) gave us a great view of the viaduct and had a nice stone beach underneath it which we went for a play on with the dogs. We then headed back to Melrose through the roman site on a (now closed) road which had further information boards as well as a recreated roman milestone. (We were a bit informationed out by now!)
We grabbed our picnic and headed out in Tonks to Newton St Boswells, a village down the road. We parked up and walked over a suspension footbridge to reach the tiny village of Dryburgh. We wanted to come here because hidden in the woodland on the side of the hill is one of the first statues of William Wallace, the Scottish hero. We walked up the hill through the trees until we came across the giant sandstone statue which stands guard over the Tweed Valley, it was quite a sight and makes you wonder how it got here! We walked back down over the bridge where we had our picnic next to the river and said hello to some of the donkeys at the nearby sanctuary before heading home. Phil wanted to get back to get back to watch England’s final game in the group stages, a must win for them after drawing the first two. 1:0 against Slovenia was enough to see them through.

The next day we upped sticks and moved home. We got on the road for a short journey to the next Caravan Club site at North Berwick. A very flat site with mainly grass pitches and a lovely welcome from the warden. We set up the van and had our lunch sat in the sun before taking the dogs for a walk on the beach next to the site. Lovely pale sand and relatively warm water meant we paddled our way down the beach ( watching out for the lots of small jellyfish beached in the shallows) for about a mile and saw Bass rock shining white in the sunshine from all that bird poo (10,000 gannets live there), with Prince playing stick all the way and even Smudge came in the water of her own accord (and seemed to enjoy it!).

Went to Dunbar the next day, the birth place of John Muir who went to America and persuaded US Congress that National Parks would be a great idea so that’s how they were invented! He also did lots of long distance walking and has a way named after him (not unlike St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne fame) which passes North Berwick Law (see tomorrow) We had a walk though the town and visited some great award winning toilets!! We had an ice cream each before heading to the harbour and having a look at the very ruined castle and watched some kids jump in the harbour, we think it may be the end of term here! We called at Belhaven brewery in Dunbar on the way home but the small shop had very limited stock as they no longer bottle the beer there.

Early the next day we went for a walk up North Berwick Law, A 593 ft hill which dominates the landscape of North Berwick. It is a steep climb to the top but the view over the town and surrounding area is excellent, there is a replica whale’s jawbone on the summit which was donated by an anonymous benefactor to the town, also a couple of ruined buildings, on top of one of them was a man with a camera on a tripod set up to zoom over the harbour and he said he was waiting for the sun to break through before he took the shot and had been waiting for two hours, shame he wasn’t there yesterday!. Then we headed into North Berwick, parked in the town and had a wander to the Scottish Seabird Centre where Linda had a mooch round the shop. Back at the van we popped down the beach for a walk, but it was cooling off so we didn’t get to swim, and there were even more jellyfish on the beach than on Thursday!

After a short stay we have now moved again. We arrived at the Edinburgh site before 12 and after a nice welcome we found a nice pitch by the dog walk. We set up the van and put up the awning before Phil watched England loose 4:1 to Germany while Linda read the paper (Phil wished he’d read the paper instead). Then we took the dogs for a walk down to the estuary and Phil and Prince had a play in the water. Smudge got dragged in too but was not as happy with this as she was at Berwick as the sea was cold and she didn’t get to paddle first!

Wooler, with visitors!

The first morning we went on a walk that took us out of the back of the campsite and up to the summit of Gains Law, one of the Cheviot hills which stands at 1,030 feet and offers fantastic views over the Cheviots on the Western side and out to the coast on the East. We had our lunch by the trig point on the top of the hill and then headed back over Humbleton Hill, a 960 foot hill which has the remains of a fort on the top, we then finished our 5 mile walk by heading straight down the hill and onto the lane at the back of the campsite. That evening Neil and Phil headed into Wooler to watch the first England game of the world cup, 1:1 with the US, was disappointing.














Slightly hungover, Neil and Phil headed out on their bikes the next morning, the 16 mile route took them into the heart of the Cheviots with some excellent climbs and descents, we had a few stops for photos and Phil got a puncture at one stage. We were both surprised that despite being in a National Park on a Sunday we only saw 2 bikers and 2 sets of walkers! The weather and the views were perfect for biking and it meant our hangovers were soon cleared and we felt much more sprightly when we got back.
After lunch we headed out in Tonks to Bamburgh where we walked through the village admiring the huge castle. We headed over the sand dunes and out onto the long beach behind the castle. The dogs loved it, Roxy and Prince in particular running around like loons and splashing in the water. We went in for a paddle but the water was bloody freezing so after a while the shoes were back on, we had a play in the dunes before heading back to the village where we had an ice cream each!




Neil had to pack up his stuff and head off the next morning, he left early so that he could stop off on the way home to go for a ride at Whinlatter in the Lake District. Once we had waved him off we popped into the village for a mooch around while we waited for our next guests, Marilyn and Ian, to arrive.
They arrived at around 5pm and Prince gave them an incredibly vocal welcome! Ben (the dog, 16 last week!) came too and stamped his authority over Prince straight away as we sat in the awning and had a couple of drinks and a catch up.


Phil got up at very early the next morning so that he could go and check out the downhill tracks he had read about in the TIC the day before. I found 2 very steep and twisty narrow tracks which I rode several times before heading up to the top of the forest where I found even more downhill runs, these were much less steep but much faster, with hand built berms, jumps and drops amongst the roots and rocks. Again, I did several runs before it was time to head back. Showered and fed, we headed out to pick up the folks before we all jumped in Tonks and made for Holy Island. None of us had ever been before, so it was a new experience to be driving over the causeway with the tide completely out. We passed the emergency tide shelter which we have seen photos of people using when they have been stranded by the tide. We parked up in the main car park, and Mum and Ian decided to jump on the shuttle bus to the castle as Ben’s little legs might not make the walk (he’s over 100 in human years!). We went into the castle (Lindesfarne) which was originally built in the 1570’s to protect the harbour using stones from the previously dissolved priory. The fort had an uneventful military history and the soldiers eventually left in 1893 when the building was acquired by Edward Hudson, founder of Country Life magazine who then converted the castle into a holiday retreat. The castle is now in the care of the National Trust who have restored the decoration and furniture to how Hudson would have had it. We had a very enjoyable explore around the labyrinth of rooms, corridors and staircases, as well as a look at the view from the battery on the top of the castle before heading back down and out to have a walk around the grounds. The former lime kilns were built in the 1860’s to take advantage of the quality limestone available on the island, they were used for around 40 years before manufacture stopped and the kilns fell into disrepair. We also looked at the walled garden, designed in 1911 by noted gardener Gertrude Jekyll, and recently restored to its former glory by the National Trust, it is a summer flower garden so is best viewed at the height of the English summer.
We then headed back towards the village past a rubbish bagpipe busker and on to the Priory. The priory is now in the hands of English Heritage, but it was originally founded in AD 635, and St Cuthbert, prior of Lindesfarne, who died in 687 is still the most celebrated of the priory’s holy men. The existing priory was built in 1150, and a small community lived there until the suppression of the monastery in 1537, soon afterwards the priory was dismantled and the stones used to build the castle. We had a walk around the grounds of the priory and a look inside the nearby church (where they had a very spooky wooden statue of some monk pall bearers carrying a coffin) after which we headed back to Tonks to avoid getting trapped by the tide!


The next day we met up again and went to Dunstanburgh Castle. We parked in the car park by Embleton, and walked the 1 mile along the footpath up to the very imposing castle ruins (you can only access the castle by foot). It was built in 1313, and was subsequently strengthened and improved, the castle saw numerous military action before it fell into decay. We had a stroll around the impressive ruins (and even up to the top of one of the towers) and enjoyed the great views from the castle both out to sea and over the land below. Luckily the sun stayed out for the duration and for the mile walk back along the side of a golf course.
We then decided to make a trip to Alnwick to have a glimpse of the castle and to have a look at the bookshop. Barter Books was founded in 1991 by Mary Manly and her husband in the front room of his factory in the former Alnwick railway station. It is a bookshop based on the swap system and is now one of the largest secondhand bookshops in Britain with over 350,000 books. Even the listed station building it is housed in is impressive, and the shop has made a big effort to keep the railway theme running throughout the shop. A few books were bought by all before we wandered into the town centre where we had our lunch sat outside a café on the market square. Suitably refreshed we had a walk down the town and down the hill next to the castle entrance where we walked along the river bank which gave us a very impressive view of the huge castle which was used as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films and is still a private residence.


Mum and Ian had to leave the next day. They arrived at the van just before 9:00, and we piled their car full with some stuff we decided we didn’t need (thanks you two!) before reluctantly handing back Ben and waving them goodbye. We then headed out for a walk with the dogs into the nearby woods, Phil took his bike and we walked up the steep hill where he had a bit of a play on the downhill tracks being chased by Prince and Smudge, Linda sustained a major injury (scuffed knee) when she lost traction and had a crash, then Phil had a puncture which put paid to all the fun. On the way back we stopped where a stream went through a pipe under the road so that Prince could have a play in the pipe and the pool on the other side. Back at the van we were visited by the campsite ducks and their children on a few occasions, and they came over again to say bye.

We have now moved to Melrose Caravan Club site, crossing the border for the first time into Scotland!

Hexham and Hadrian's Wall

We were expecting rain for our first day in Hexham, so were pleasantly surprised to see there was none. Sharing the site with us were 4 other caravans and around 7 tents, I don’t know if it is something we said/did, but every one of them packed up and left this morning! Only one new caravan arrived, and even they just hurriedly put the legs down and the wheel clamp on and promptly left. We are now a little paranoid! Anyway, we carried on our day by first taking the dogs for a walk from the site up to the well preserved remains of Hadrian’s Wall we walked along the wall for a while before heading back to the van, it’s amazing to think that they built this huge wall, 80 miles long and 15ft high in places without a single JCB or dumper truck!.
We popped into Hexham in Tonks and on the way back we stopped to have a look at an English Heritage managed turret which was signposted from the road, but after getting out of the car we were disappointed to find that no dogs were allowed, so we jumped back in the car and headed for Chesters. Chesters is a roman fort which sat along the course of the wall just where it crosses the River North Tyne, it is managed by English Heritage and is a well excavated site that combined with the information boards and museum leaves little to the imagination. A garrison, officers quarters, commanders house, roman baths and turrets are all clearly visibly and well explained on the site. We spent a good amount of time exploring the site and the museum, and despite the fact that it started raining half way through we still stopped for an ice cream from the on-site café!

It was a bit rainy the next day, but it seemed to clear up later in the morning so we decided to head into Newcastle for a look around. It was only a half hour drive into the city, and we quickly found a car park by the Town Moor, an area of parkland bigger than Hyde Park and Hampstead Heath put together. We took the dogs here first, and had a little walk on the tarmac paths while trying to dodge the walkers, cyclists and cow pats (Freemen of the town are allowed to graze cattle on it). We then headed towards the city centre through Leazes Park, the oldest park in the town established in 1873, which has recently had a £3.7m refurbishment and boasts a lake, a maze, bandstand, sports facilities and lots of other park-type-stuff. We had our lunch sat on a bench by the lake before heading through the park to St James’ Park, the home of Newcastle United FC, and Mofasa’s stomping ground (we saw a few dodgy characters there, so that explains it!) we walked around the ground before heading off into Chinatown with its Chinese arch and many restaurants. While we were here Linda popped into the Chinese supermarket and got some bits and bobs. We then followed the historic town walls past the catholic cathedral of St Mary and made our way to the river. It was around here that disaster struck. We found a fountain where the dogs could have a drink, and while leaning over to encourage Smudge to have a drink Phil heard a ‘plop’ - the Ipaq pocket PC had dropped into the water. It was quickly recovered, was still on, and appeared to be ok. Soon afterwards though, it switched itself off maybe never to come on again. It was a sad day indeed. Still, we carried on past the railway station and on to the Tyne Bridge, built in 1928 and designed by the same people who later designed the Forth Road Bridge, the Tyne Bridge has become a defining symbol of Tyneside. While we were there hundreds of seagulls were nesting on the bridge, and as we peered over we could see numerous chicks in the nests, the downside of this of course is the layer of white bird poo that the bridge is steadily being coated in. After crossing the bridge we walked past The Sage, a theatre and events venue opened in 2004, it is a highly unusual stainless steel and curved glass building that looks a bit like a slug, but is very impressive nonetheless. Next up was the Millennium Bridge, a pedestrian and cyclist tilt bridge which was opened in September 2001. We were lucky enough to time it perfectly as the bridge was raising to let two Royal Navy patrol boats from HMS Calliope pass through. While we watched the bridge slowly rise and fall Phil asked one of the gate operators how often it opens, he said it’s only once a day unless there is a special occasion like the boat race on (it actually had to be raised twice this time as of the two boats that had gone through one needed to come back and was too slow the first time – this never happens according to the man Phil was talking to so we were very lucky to see it!). Linda was so excited by the sight of the bridge raising that she threw her phone on the floor, luckily it wasn’t as disastrous as the Ipaq incident and the phone was just scuffed. Once the bridge was down we realised we didn’t have much time to get back to the car park, so we hot footed it back past the castle keep, the oldest structure in the city dating back to the 11th century, and back to Tonks, 6.5 miles walked and we were pretty tired..

Rain, rain, rain. It rained all morning so we stayed in the van until around 2:00 when the rain had become lighter, so we decided to head into Hexham. We parked up in Tyne Green Country Park on the outskirts of the town next to Hexham Bridge, the bridge was built in 1793, following two failed attempts in 1770 and 1780 to build bridges on the site both of which only lasted a year before collapsing! The present stone arch bridge has 9 spans and has faired much better than its predecessors. We walked through the country park between the river and the golf course before crossing the railway line and heading into the town. We soon stumbled on Hexham House which is now the home of the local council, but the gardens at the back of the house are open to the public. We had a stroll around the garden and over the stream until we found ourselves in the Abbey grounds, which we crossed over to the 11th century Abbey. We then headed into the town as we needed a Post Office, Phil had become an uncle again for the 4th time on Monday 31st, and his new niece Sophie needed a present which we posted off.

Rain, rain, sideways rain is what we woke up to the next day, so once again we hibernated in the van until the afternoon. While we moped about I got the Ipaq out of intensive care and gave it a try to see if there was any life. None. It was a very sad moment, and through the tears we decided to prepare for the funeral. I fully assembled the stricken body so that it would look nice for the coffin, and gave its power button one last prod. That’s when the miracle happened, the screen flickered, it blinked, and Ipaq went into boot-up mode! Before long Windows was up and running and the GPS was telling me where we were! Jubilation! Celebration! Joy! The brave little soldier had been for a swim, died, and come back to life, yippee! I put it in our tin of dry rice for the day to make sure it was completely dry.
Anyway, in the afternoon we headed down the road to the Twice Brewed Inn, where we had soup (cream of carrot and ginger – yum yum!) for lunch and a real ale each before heading up the hill and on to Hadrian’s Wall where we walked for about a mile along the wall to a trig point before about-turning and heading back to Tonks. We drove a couple of miles further where we stopped at Cawfields to have a look at one of the milecastles on the wall, a little walk past a former quarry which is now full of water took us to the wall and the milecastle ruin, it was in a field full of very nosey cows, so after a quick look around we made a sharp exit and headed home. Back at the van we had an “Ipaq is alive” party before bed!

We headed out to Bellingham up the road today and did a walk up Hareshaw Lynn which is a beautiful walk up to a waterfall. On the walk we saw a few nice footbridges, lots of waterfalls, a red squirrel, and a dumper truck moving huge rocks to shore up the river banks. Once back at the car we had our picnic before heading to the farm shop up the road, chatted to the farmer about how hard farming is before we saw the sheep being moved down the road and the pigs in the field opposite. We then headed over to Wark forest and parked up in a small village called Stonehaugh, where we did a 1.5 mile walk which was waymarked by the Forestry Commission, it was a lovely forest walk, very peaceful and at the start we saw some deer having a drink in the river.

We have now moved to Highburn House, a private site in Wooler, and following a nice welcome from the owner and we followed him in his car up to the pitch which was a great spot at the top of the site with a good view.