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These miles of dry stone walls That hold in ploughed fields and kingly halls The dead of centuries in hills of sand The stones that bind them Are proud of what lies behind them And varied as the counties in this curious land. Pedaling into the wind and driving ran over the top of the Morfoot Hills towards Edinburgh yesterday, I finally understood that the "dry" in this lyric does not refer to the usual weather in the British Isles or to the usual condition of the walls. Although old, sturdy walls constructed without mortar are prevalent throughout Britain, this Gordon Bok song has always evoked Scotland for me. I had not expected to experience the iconic barren heather covered hills, miles of walls and sheep, and the feeling of ancient loneliness until we were several days north of Edinburgh. But, surprisingly, for me at least, this has definitely felt like Scotland ever since we crossed the River Tweed a few days ago.
We were pretty excited to cross the Tweed into Scotland on Thursday morning. This major milestone means that we have made real progress on our End-to-End quest. Also, between finishing
this ride and our explorations of the islands, we will be in Scotland for most of the rest of the trip. So it's about time we got here.
I had never thought much about the Scottish Borders, or the lowlands, for that matter, except that they were probably a lot like England and something to get through on the way to the really interesting Scottish countryside up north. How wrong I was. Certainly the accents changed, although this was gradual as we found the speech in Northumberland to be very different from that in the south and somewhat like the Scottish. If you hear a man address and older woman as "me love," you know you are in England; when you hear all older men referred to as "laddie," on the other hand, you know you are in Scotland. There are many other indicators of course.
Our route through the Scottish Borders followed the Tweed, which provided some incredibly scenic views at the tops of hills, which, while challenging, were not as frustrating as those in Cornwall and Devon. We spent part of a morning at the ruined Melrose Abbey with a very good recorded guided tour describing
the lives of the monks centuries ago in this remote part of the world. We also saw the famous bagpipe-playing pig gargoyle on the roof there and saw the site where Robert the Bruce's heart was supposedly buried in the Abbey.. On a side route in the hills we saw a much, much larger than life size statue of William Wallace looking out over the Tweed valley as well as the scenic view that inspired Walter Scott to write the famous lines:
Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said This is my own, my native land! It is said that when his funeral procession went by Scott's view, his horse, pulling his coffin, stopped out of habit because Scott always stopped at that spot to admire the view.
One additional small change we have noted from England is the increase in the variety, and quality, of the baked goodies, especially the scones. The first indication of this was the large number of bakeries in Kelso, the first town where we spent the night, including two bracketing the doorway of our hotel. Today at breakfast (in Edinburgh), we learned
to not automatically start eat toast at breakfast without first checking if there will be something much better, like fresh rolls or scones or something else "from the bread basket.
Our route north from Innerleithen yesterday, over the Moorfoot Hills in a driving rain, really brought us into Scotland. Jim will be writing about this rainy day in more detail.
-- Kit
Here is an update on our mileages and nightly stopping points from York to Edinburgh. Tomorrow we head north again towards Perth and eventually John O'Groats and the Orkneys.
York to Grosmont North Yorkshire 49.9
Grosmont to Whitby North Yorkshire 9.5
Whitby to Wolviston Durham 51.3
Wolviston to Whitley Bay Tyne and Wear 42.6
Whitley Bay to Bamburgh Northumberland 56
Bamburgh to Kelso Scottish Borders 46.3
Kelso to Innerleithen Scottish Borders 33.7
Innerleithen to Edinburgh Midlothian 38.2
963 miles so far altogether from Land's End!!
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John
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Looking at your photos, you folks are none the worse for wear. Quite the opposite, you group photo looks like life is treating you folks very well, hills or no hills. It's great to read about your adventures, thanks for posting so regularly.