Borders Abbeys Way Section 3 - Nisbet to Melrose (2016)

[nigheandonn]

Part 4b - Nisbet to Kelso
Saturday 10th December

Picking up from where I'd left off the week before meant an early bus back down to the Ancrum junction - early both because of the light, and because I was trying to get back for a friend's party by mid afternoon. From the junction, however, I was making a small detour, up to the Waterloo monument on Peniel Heugh - turning up a tiny road, and then up woodland tracks to follow a fence to the summit.

Penniel Heugh

It had been a glorious early morning, but it was just starting to cloud over now, with the layers of hills to the south vanishing into a bank of cloud.

Trig point and hills

The steep lane running down from Nisbet Hillhead brought me back to Nisbet and the bridge where I'd left the Borders Abbeys Way. This next section was easy walking, along a broad flat track which had once been a railway line, following the Teviot without often coming close to it.

Old railway line

A gentle landscape, but pretty enough, especially these stripy fields.

Stripy landscape

The track eventually ran out at a place where a bridge was missing, and started up again as a much smaller path along an embankment.

Embankment

This path draws closer to the river, and then turns aside to follow the river bank instead, up to the dramatic but disused viaduct at Roxburgh, once part of a branch line to Kelso from the old Waverley line.

Roxburgh viaduct

Roxburgh is a tiny place with an important name, which faded away in medieval times to leave a Roxburghshire with Jedburgh as its major town. The path turns from the river to pass through the current village, but then follows the riverbank again to the main landmark, the remains of the old Roxburgh castle on a narrow neck of land between the Teviot and the Tweed.

Roxburgh Castle

According to the information board there, the castle was 'doung to the ground' in 1460 by a Scottish army after James II was killed by an exploding gun, while they were trying to take it from the English who held it at the time.

This is the edge of Kelso, but it still seemed a long way into town from here, across the first river and past a park where some kind of show was held, and over a second bridge and a second river to finally reach the abbey - I had a bus to catch, and was expecting it to run out past me, but it turned out that it ran along minor roads to the north, and I had to make my way right into the town, missing that bus and having to wait for the next one.

Part 5 - Kelso to Melrose
Tuesday 27th December

I had left myself an interesting challenge - an 18 mile stretch on one of the shortest days of the year. And my early morning journey could only have been done on this day - a neat change at Earlston which only existed because the company running one bus was working on a Saturday timetable, as it was technically a bank holiday, and the company running the other was working on a weekday timetable, since it was Tuesday!

I was in Kelso before sunrise, back beside the third abbey of the route, which, unlike the others, really just stands in the street, open to view. It's the least complete, but what is there is impressive.

Kelso Abbey

By the time the sun came up I was walking on a flat stretch by the river, and it was showing good signs of turning out to be one of those perfect winter days which are almost more breathtaking than the summer ones.

Sunrise by the river

The route swings through the town in an odd kind of S-shape - up to the road somewhere near one of the entrances to Floors Castle, up by a park, back onto a path through a wooded strip, and then left onto the kind of narrow path which cuts straight through everything to come out on the road again near the golf club and racecourse, and another monument on a hill.

Courses and a monument

Beyond the town it was a zigzag of minor roads and farm tracks, still never heading straight for anywhere, but including a lovely avenue of bare sunlit trees.

Avenue

Further on there is finally a straight stretch, more or less - road becoming track becoming road again, with only one pair of sharp bends in the middle section. The road runs roughly parallel to the Tweed, a mile or so away, but well above it, and the Cheviot and its satellites stand up on the horizon again.

Cheviot skyline

Beyond the junction at Haymount, an impressive white house, there was a village name without much village - Makerstoun, with an oddly square Georgian church, and not many houses around it.

Makerstoun church

Quite suddenly now I was turning back towards the Tweed in its valley and back towards the Eildon hills - they'd seemed a long way away, not very far back.

Eildon country again

Some more zigzagging led to a downhill stretch beyond Dalcove, with an unexpected northern view up to Smailholm Tower on its hill.

Smailholm tower

The path goes on dropping towards the river, which comes round a bend to meet it, and leads along the bank for a while - the second river of the day.

Back to the Tweed

Beyond that it climbs back up to a road and a junction where the third way leads over a bridge to join St Cuthbert's Way, now running along the opposite side of the river.

Meeting of the ways

Clintmains, just beyond, was slightly more of a village, with a cluster of houses and some ancient petrol pumps, and then the path dropped again to the great bend in the river which leads on towards Dryburgh.

A bend in the river

I just about had time to squeeze in a visit to the abbey buildings, and it had to be done in any case. Dryburgh is more or less the opposite of Jedburgh - not much of the church, although it does have another beautiful rose window, but a fair amount of the monastery buildings

Dryburgh Abbey

I know all about a cloister garth from having read the Abbey books in my childhood - in any case, it's an impressive space.

The cloister garth

The abbey also holds the graves of Walter Scott and Douglas Haig, among others - only certain families have the right to be buried here.

The abbey is really just off the route, which climbs up the road, and then drops steeply down again, and the Eildon hills were now looming close, although still beyond the river.

Nearing the hills

Dryburgh is an odd spot, almost beside Newton St Boswells, but tucked into a bend in the river, and miles away from anywhere by road. For walkers it's not quite so bad, as an impressive foot bridge spans the river, but it still has the feeling of being a very unexpected angle.

Crossing the river

On the other side of the river the path finally meets St Cuthbert's Way again, after stalking it for a while, and the two routes run up together through a strip of scrappy woodland to the edge of Newtown St Boswells, and split again. St Cuthbert's Way sneaks up on the hills from the back and comes over the gap between the two highest, but the Borders Abbeys Way heads up through Eildon village and onto a closed off road which leads from there to Melrose.

Closed road

Partway over this hill is the Rhymer's Stone, where Thomas the Rhymer is said to have met with the queen of the fairies.

Thomas the Rhymer's stone

In the inscrutable fashion of long distance paths, the route turns away from this road, which is heading exactly towards where to wants to be, and heads down a smaller path to Newstead - I wasn't paying enough attention to manage that, however, and ended up coming into Melrose by road, and with the very last remnants of the light.

Melrose

It had been a wonderful day, and a very satisfying effort to get to the end of the route before the end of the year, after a not very efficient start - it's a very nice path, even if it only leads back to where it started.

[china88]

My family are from the Borders. This is such a beautiful report and lovely photographs.

[nigheandonn]

That final day was one of the most perfect walking days I ever remember having - cold, of course, and short, but just beautiful.