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Link to part 3:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=35083_____________
Edinburgh to MorebattleWhen my host left for work, I set off on my journey again. The day off had been useful and I felt pretty good when I walked out of Edinburgh, heading South to the Pentland hills. The sun was shining and I was excited to finally get away from civilization and into the hills. This also meant that I would need to start carrying food again for multiple days. I wasn’t keen on the pistachio idea anymore so I stopped at a Tesco and filled my bag with Jaffa cakes. They take up quite a bit of space, but they provide a good amount of calories per gram and space wasn’t an issue. I have always been a Jaffa addict, and they would become my main food source for the rest of the trip, usually eating two packets a day.
Once I got out of the city, the scenery changed very quickly. After a short stroll through a forest, the view opened up to large grassy valley with roaming sheep.
I bumped into two really friendly elderly ladies who explained to me that I was walking along an old drover road that farmers from as far away as Isle of Skye used to use to herd their cattle all the way to the London market once a year. This made me feel a bit strange, considering how much attention my walk was getting, yet in the past people would walk similar journeys every year. We really have become quite lazy!
Soon the path started leading uphill and I had fantastic views from the various peaks along the Pentlands.
I felt fit enough to blast on, but seeing those views, I really wanted to spend a night sleeping in the hills, so I looked for a nice spot and set up my camp. Despite the beautiful day, it suddenly got very cold, so I had to retreat into my sleeping bag. As usual when bivvying, it started raining shortly afterwards, so yet again, I had to zip it up and get ready for another uncomfortable night.
When I got up in the morning it was still raining and incredibly cold. I had to take several breaks from packing up my gear to warm up my fingers in between. My bivvy and sleeping bag got soaked again but I was in a great mood and got moving quickly. I was lucky enough to find a pub once I got down the hill and stopped for a couple of Guinness to warm me up. When I came out of the pub, the sun was out and I had yet another fantastic day, heading to Peebles.
Walking into Peebles, one of the first buildings I came across was a B&B with vacancies. This seemed a good opportunity to stop and give my gear a chance to dry out a bit.
The following day I set off towards Galashiels. For a while my route led me along country roads before I got bored of that and decided on a detour through a forest with a hilltop ruin.
Shortly afterwards my route joined the Southern Upland Way, which I would be staying on for a while.
As the day went on, I planned to sleep in a forest outside of Galashiels that I had seen on my map. Once I got there though I realized that the whole forest had been cut down. It had been raining on and off during the day and it looked like more rain was about to come down. I didn’t feel like sleeping outside in rain yet again without the cover of trees, so I looked up B&Bs in Galashiels on my smartphone. This meant a long walk for the day but I felt up to the challenge and booked a room. I had underestimated the time it would take me though and it got dark before I reached Galashiels
I enjoy walking at night with my head torch on, but I was worried that by the time I arrived the B&B wouldn’t let me in anymore. I broke my record that day, covering 25 miles and finally arrived after 11pm. Luckily the B&B owner had waited up for me and still let me in for which I was really grateful, I didn’t think I could have walked much further.
While I had breakfast the morning after it started chucking it down again. The nice B&B lady told me she would have to leave for the day, but I could just stay as long as I wanted and wait til the rain stopped. I gladly accepted the offer and went back to bed for a few hours. When it stopped raining in the afternoon I continued my journey and had pretty decent weather the rest of the day. I switched from the Southern Upland Way to St Cuthberts Way, which I would follow all the way to Kirk Yetholm, the start of the Pennine Way. With such a late start though, I only made it as far as St Boswells.
For some reason that day I started thinking about the future ahead of me and I got really quite grumpy and moody at the thought of going back to Luxembourg. At times so bad that I even sat down, looked back and considered just heading back to Aberdeen. The only thing that kept me going on was the walk itself, I enjoyed the whole experience far too much.
The following day I decided to not let these thoughts ruin my day again and just focus on enjoying my walk.
St. Cuthberts Way turned out to be really beautiful and my progress was great.
Kirk Yetholm would have been quite a long way to go though, so I stopped at Morebattle, a few miles away from Kirk Yetholm. I was pretty excited to do the Pennine Way. According to some websites it is supposed to be the toughest long distance walk in the UK. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I had no real long distance experience, so I decided to have another rest day in Morebattle before taking on this challenge. Overall I felt confident and ready for it, the walk from Edinburgh had been very smooth and blister-free, compared to the 13 blisters I had had between Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
The food was stunning in the B&B I stayed in so I didn’t mind getting to eat there for an additional day. My day off was spent reading. I had bought a Pennine Way guide book for my kindle and planned ahead a bit. It was just a bit irritating reading the book backwards since people tend to start the walk in the South and finish in Kirk Yetholm.
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Link to part 5:
http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=36692