Borders Abbeys Way 4
- hiking scotland
It’s day three, our longest day with 33 km / 20 miles. We’ll be walking to Selkirk first, which is where most people would stop for the day. But we’re going to continue on to Tweedback to catch a train home.
Vincent makes us a massive breakfast, and again, Joe helps me with the meaty bits of mine.
Leaving Hawick, it’s uphill for a bit and then on a minor road, but at some point we’re on a nice walking path again. We take a long break on a tiny footbridge somewhere in the bush. We need to get up when a Canadian/German group wants to pass. We meet them later in a cafe in Selkirk, where they feel sorry for us because unlike them, we’re not yet finished walking for the day. I don’t mind. I knew Selkirk was just a stop, so I’m happy to keep going.
Joe starts a chat with a guy who turns out to be a strip club manager. He says that some people think that this makes him seedy (I silently agree) but that it’s just a business. I watch Joe, who chats with anyone, for the first time struggle to converse. Oh Schadenfreude. Thankfully (or sadly?), the train doors open and we go in, making sure to find a carriage as far away from seedy strip club manager as possible.
It’s dark now, so no point looking out the windows and taking in the scenery. We eat all our remaining food and turn on phones and check messages. Back to the real world.
Vincent makes us a massive breakfast, and again, Joe helps me with the meaty bits of mine.
Leaving Hawick, it’s uphill for a bit and then on a minor road, but at some point we’re on a nice walking path again. We take a long break on a tiny footbridge somewhere in the bush. We need to get up when a Canadian/German group wants to pass. We meet them later in a cafe in Selkirk, where they feel sorry for us because unlike them, we’re not yet finished walking for the day. I don’t mind. I knew Selkirk was just a stop, so I’m happy to keep going.
Meeting Canadians sparks a lengthy discussion about the best way of eating maple syrup. In my view, it’s on Belgian waffles with bacon. It is important though that the waffles are not too sweet. Joe is more of a pancake and icecream guy. We reach Selkirk, and after a coffee break, where the friendly server offers to refill our water bottles, Joe finally gets his icecream he’s been thinking of ever since we had the maple syrup conversation.
The bit after Selkirk is a beautiful high level walk through the Selkirk hills with views over the Ettrick valley, and we meet a gang of inquisitive young cows.
In a little hamlet outside Selkirk, a woman in a garden, pruning flowers, sees us from afar and shouts ‘schnipp schnipp’ at us, and when we come closer, she says we look clean and if we didn’t want to stay in her house when she goes to Australia next year. I’m tempted to say yes, but she seems a bit crazy.
We pass a little lake with a beach, and I suggest we go skinny dipping, but I chicken out when Joe calls my bluff. We arrive at Tweedbank station just after 8 pm. We can see the train from afar but don’t know when it will leave, so we rush to it only to learn that we still have 20 minutes to go.
It’s dark now, so no point looking out the windows and taking in the scenery. We eat all our remaining food and turn on phones and check messages. Back to the real world.
Comments