Day: 023
Date: Thursday, 23 June 2022
Start: Innerleithen
Finish: Melrose
Daily Kilometres: 31
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 671
Weather: Mild to warm, cloudy in the morning and mostly sunny in the afternoon.
Accommodation: Hotel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Egg & salad rolls
Lunch: Tuna & cheese roll/Sweet chilli chicken roll
Dinner: Kebab & salad, icecream
Aches: Both tired.
Highlight: The early morning climb up to Minch Moor was relentless, but the views from near the top (we didn’t detour right to the top) were spectacular. We could see a very long way to the west, north and east - mountains and valleys, farms and forests, villages and towns. Added to the views was the sense of history, knowing this trail had been in use for over 1,000 years.
Lowlight: As we were going to bed last night, there was some kind of pump failure in the old hotel’s sewerage system and our bathroom was flooded with effluent (sorry if you are eating breakfast!). Another room was found, with difficulty (it’s a long story), and about 45 minutes later we were in a clean room with a working bathroom.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
As planned, we skipped the hotel breakfast so we could get an earlier start and bought fresh made rolls for breakfast and lunch from a bakery across the road on our way out of the village around 7:30am. There were a few runners about, but no mountain-bikers, despite Innerleithen being a big mountain-biking centre.
The first few kilometres took us through some of the forested ancient royal hunting estate at Traquair, before we joined the Southern Upland Way for the long climb on the ancient old road up onto Minch Moor (see above). Our route then mostly followed the crown of a broad open ridge giving us great views in many directions and a sense of having it all to ourselves. In fact, given we saw no other hikers or cyclists at all during the day, apart from when passing through villages/towns, we did have it to ourselves. It was a fabulous morning of hill walking and we felt lucky to be there.
Around lunchtime, we descended to cross the River Tweed and then were lucky enough to find a picnic table in the woods for lunch as we climbed back into the hills. More great scenery followed before transitioning from the sublime to the ridiculous as we passed through the town of Galashiels with its traffic, huge stores and people.
The Southern Upland Way then followed a boring bike path for a few kilometres before a lovely last short stint along the River Tweed to Melrose and our accommodation which we reached soon after 4:00pm. Yet another really good day.
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