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!