Tag: walks

Chess Valley Walk

On By Carol HenshawIn England, walksLeave a comment

While visiting friends in Hertfordshire it was a warm sunny day, so we had a walk on part of the Chess Valley Walk. Our friend is the vicar at St Lawrence Church in Bovingdon

so, before setting off for the walk we had a wander around the churchyard and I admired the invertebrate hotel which is under construction in the grounds. Mine is very small in comparison and constructed from a six-bottle wine box, not pallets.

The River Chess is a chalk stream. It arises in the Chiltern Hills and flows for 11 miles through Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire in Rickmansworth. We parked near Chenies Manor which was built in 1460 by Sir John Cheyne it soon became the seat of the Dukes of Bedford. It was closed on the day we were there, but you can visit and it is also a wedding venue. The Chess Valley Walk is 10 miles. We walked a section of it along paths and some lanes.

We passed some horses in fields but also saw some ragwort in nearby fields. It is toxic for horses.

The walk passes through Frogmore Meadow which is a nature reserve. There are wildflower meadows

and further on, farmland.

Historically, the water of the River Chess, together with the fertile land, was ideal for growing watercress. This industry flourished in both Chesham and Rickmansworth in the Victorian era and supplied London. It was transported on the newly constructed Metropolitan Railway. Today the only working watercress beds are at Moor Lane, Sarratt which we passed. In 2014, persistent overflows from Chesham Sewage Treatment Works forced the watercress farm to cease sales, and to continue operation the farm now uses well water. We could not see the watercress fields from the path but this was close to them.

After a cold beer in the grounds of a nearby inn we returned to Chenies to pick up the car and return to our friends’ home.

The Forth Ferry and a Walk

On By Carol HenshawIn Beaches, Ferries & boats, Scotland, walksLeave a comment

The Forth Ferry is run by Sula Boats between North Berwick and Anstruther. It does not run every day but only 2-3 times per month in the summer because of the tides. We were down at the harbour in North Berwick a while before it sailed so I had a wander around and saw some Eider ducks.

Our boat was soon ready and we set off.

There were only six of us, including three women going to do some wild swimming at Pittenweem accompanied by their dog.

There was also a guy with a bike who was going to cycle to St Andrews. The captain said that in high season there could be 50 people on board. We passed by Craigleith Island which we can see from our house.

In summer, puffins and gulls nest there.

We also saw several flying gannets with seaweed in their beaks. It was being taken back to their mates on the Bass Rock as a gift. After almost 45 minutes we were approaching Anstruther.

Entering the harbour, we passed the Chalmers Lighthouse which was built in the late 19th century in memory of Thomas Chalmers a native of Anstruther who died in 1847. We disembarked nearby.

After coffee we walked a section of the Fife Coastal Path eastwards towards Crail. The trail is 117 miles in length and runs from Kincardine to Newburgh in the Firth of Tay. We walked through eastern Anstruther and then through Cellardyke where there is a harbour now used for drying washing.

On the other side of the village is a tidal pool.

The path passes a campsite and then runs along the coast with views towards the Isle of May.

There were beaches with lots of shells

rockier ones

and one with some sand where we ate our picnic lunch.

There were several examples of fly tipping.

We passed by Caiplie Caves which were a site of early Christian worship by St Ethernan, monks and pilgrims. St Ethernan moved to the Isle of May to establish a monastery there. It was ransacked and they were killed by the Danes in 875AD.

Street artists have decorated the cave. We then retraced our steps back to Anstruther to give ourselves time to sample the fare at the well-known award winning Anstruther Fish Bar and Restaurant. Afterwards I had time to walk along the western beach. Here and on the path, I had found quite a lot of sea glass including some very small, coloured pieces.

Our boat was then approaching so it was time to return to North Berwick on a slightly rougher sea.

Soon we were almost home

and walked back to the house in the rain.

Memories of the Himalayas

On By Carol HenshawIn India, walks3 Comments

The recent floods arising from the collapse of a dam in northeast India reminded me of an experience with floods in the Western Himalayas over ten years ago. My son and I had arranged to go trekking in Ladakh in Kashmir with some people I had met the previous year on a fundraising trek in southern India. We had a few days in Delhi before flying to Srinagar. Here we began our high-altitude acclimatisation. Srinagar is at 1585m and while staying on a houseboat on Lake Dal

we visited three Mughal Gardens and had a walk up to 2,000m.

Time had come for us to leave and travel overland in a bus to Kargil and then onward to Leh.

We passed the High Altitude Warfare School and drove over the Zojila pass at 3,528m. En route we stopped at Sonnamarg, an alpine meadow at 2615m with glacier and had to wait for a convoy before we could leave.

We were not far from the line of control. Near Dras the bus had a puncture.

We eventually arrived in Kargil for the night. Kashmir is predominantly Muslim so the muezzin is a reliable early morning alarm and we set off over the highest point on the Srinagar to Leh road: the Fotu Lah pass at 4,108m.

After another puncture and the bus getting stuck on hairpin bend and having to be dug out, we arrived in Leh at 10pm. Ladakh is 80% Tibetan Buddhist and before we left on our trek, we spent a day exploring Thikse Monastery, Leh Palace, Stokna Gompa and Shanti Stupa.The following morning, we visited Spituk Monastery and then walked to the pony meet at Spituk Bridge to join up with the pony train which transported our tents and all our camping equipment. Spituk Bridge is at 3,214m.

The first part of the Markha Valley trek was a hot walk in the sun.

After lunch we descended into Zingchen Gorge which was more sheltered and camped at Zingchen at 3,396m.  The following day we walked to Yurutse and I began to suffer from altitude sickness and central cyanosis so I rode on the horse for the last part of the day. We camped at 4,150m. Our third day was a very hot climb up to the Ganda La pass at 4,900m. I crossed this on the horse and sat at the top admiring the view before the others arrived.

After a long, slow descent we arrived at Skiu, a small village at 3,500m. We had a relatively lazy day with some yoga and a short walk to the local gompa.

Heavy rain the next morning flooded one tent and delayed our start. The following night there was a major storm and a mudslide. Getting to Markha was impossible as the river was now too deep to cross so we returned to Skiu. Storms continued and we had to evacuate our tent at 3am because the river flooded due to a flash flood coming down the gorge.

This swept part of the village away and some trekkers died in the gorge. We spent the next few days trying to keep a supply of fresh sterilised water when the spring was accessible, treating injured people and giving a hygiene talk to the assembled 150 foreign youth and 40 Kashmiri support staff living in very basic conditions which meant that any infection would spread quickly. One of the villages had a radio and we heard an English Indian News broadcast which said that flooding and landslides were widespread in Ladakh and that 150 had been killed and 800 were missing. We should have left the National Park but could not so would be counted among the missing. An attempt was made to cross the landslide to the next village where there was a satellite phone to make contact with our relatives. Many lines were down but contact was made with a couple of people. Later, contact was only with Leh and Srinagar but they could not call internationally. The floods had become much more widespread and Jammu and Kashmir had declared a state of emergency. Pakistan had over 10,000 dead. We were promised a food and medicine drop (we had enough for seven days in our group and had started rationing). One of the Romanians had died but we could not bury the body as one day was inauspicious according to the locals and there was not enough depth of soil in the valley to dig a grave. Air burials are the norm in Ladakh: the Muslim person in the village will cut the body up and it is placed on a stone altar in the mountains and left to the birds. This was not acceptable to the person’s companions. There were more storms and a further flash flood. At 5am one morning we were woken by the sound of a helicopter. It was too small to be a food and medicine drop and turned out to be a stripped-down Puma helicopter which could fly at high altitudes belonging to the Indian Air Force. It had come to rescue us. It took three of us at a time and we could only take a small rucksack. We got back to Leh; caught a plane to Srinagar and then to Delhi and managed to make our booked flight back home.

North Berwick Law

On By Carol HenshawIn Scotland, walksLeave a comment

Volcanic activity created many of the hills in central and south-eastern Scotland including those with Edinburgh and Stirling Castles on, the Wallace Monument, Arthur’s Seat, Traprain Law and the Bass Rock. North Berwick Law’s conical shape makes it conspicuous on the rather flat lands around it and identifies its origin as being the remains of a larval volcanic plug from over 300 million years ago. It sits on the south side of town and we decided to walk up it with some friends on the one dry day last week. The Law is 187m high and the path we took is a short walk from our house.

The John Muir Way runs around the west side of the lower slopes. It is said that John Muir used to climb it during his childhood in Dunbar. On the south side there was a quarry where the red sandstone that many of the buildings are constructed from was obtained. In the mid 20th century shells, animal bones, food refuse and prehistoric pottery suggested date of human occupation around the time of the Roman occupation. There are also the remains of Iron Age settlements on the southern slopes. Later, Berwick Law was owned by the Cistercian Convent and used as a lookout to warn of approaching enemies. It is said that a nun lit a beacon on the summit in 1544 to warn of the approaching English ships. It was one of several signal stations in East Lothian in the early 19th century when Napoleon was threatening Britain and the ruins of a building constructed in 1803 remains on the summit.

There has been a whale bone on the summit since 1709. The original one had been replaced in around 1789. This blew down in a gale in 1935 and its replacement became dangerous in 2005. A fibreglass cast was made and installed in 2008. There are 360-degree views all around:

Towards the town centre and Craigleith,
the west end of town and Fidra
Towards Milsey Bay and the Bass Rock
Edinburgh the Pentland Hills and Arthur’s Seat in the background,
and all the new housing being built on the edge of town.

There is an interesting message on the trig point

The Law was also used in both World Wars as an observation post and the remains of those buildings are on the slopes. In World War 2, Dig for Victory allotments were created on the slopes and lasted until the 1970s. A bonfire was held on the summit for the 1953 coronation and a beacon lit for the 2012 Diamond Jubilee.

There was a lonely tree on the slope.

The reservoir at the base of the western side used to supply the town’s water and the overflow becomes the Glen Burn which runs down the slope not far from our house and into Milsey Bay. Over time, growing populations and increasing demand meant that the water supply had to be obtained from further afield. The lower slopes can be accessed from other directions so there are several routes to explore in the future.

A windy walk in the Pentlands

On By Carol HenshawIn Scotland, walksLeave a comment

Having several weeks to wait until completion on the house we are buying happens means we have some time to spend exploring our local area. This has been limited by some very heavy rains but Saturday’s overnight heavy rain had ceased but it remained very windy. We had arranged to meet up with some friends for a dog walk because new pandemic rules meant that we could not meet up with them and another couple for a meal that had been planned for the following week. The Pentland Hills Regional Park is outside Edinburgh but the part we visited is only six miles from the city centre on the north slopes of the hills. There are access points from other places and a visitors centre at Flotterstone on the A702. Clubbiedean and Torduff reservoirs are close to Bonaly and south of the city bypass. They were constructed in 1850 and are managed by Scottish Water who have some works ongoing nearby. After parking, we walked up the path to the first reservoir; Tarduff.

As it was a weekend, the track was fairly busy with walkers and cyclists. At this time of year, it is also good place for foraging with blackberries, rowan and hawthorn berries and rosehips to be found by the side of the path. Wild camping is permitted and I spotted one tent on the other side of the water. The regional park is large and there are many other paths around it, including loops around each of these reservoirs.

Clubbiedean reservoir lies above Torduff; they are two of several in the park and the surrounding hills have views over the city, the River Forth and over to Fife. There are the remains of an ancient fort consisting of a ditch, stony bank and stone wall on the other side of the water from the track we were on. Fishing licences can be obtained and a number of people were fishing when we visited. There is a café next to Clubbiedean run by a relative of our friends which was a great place to stop before returning back to the city.

The Water of Leith

On By Carol HenshawIn ScotlandLeave a comment

The Water of Leith runs for 24 miles from its source in the Pentland Hills to the Port of Leith where it joins the River Forth. Historically it supported more than 70 mills producing flour, fabric and paper. Construction of the Water of Leith Walkway began in the 1970s and it officially opened in 1981. Over the years we have walked various sections; the last in 2017. We have never done the whole 12 miles from Balerno to Leith in one go but are now members of the Water of Leith Conservation Trust. Our most recent wander followed an afternoon which we spent walking around the Hermitage of Braid and Blackford Hill with some friends, clocking up 4.1 miles. The next morning walking down to Leith, the city centre was eerily quiet and it was relatively easy to keep a safe distance from others. The replacement building for the old St James shopping centre has progressed and the extension of the tramline to Newhaven is underway. On reaching The Shore, we had our first coffee inside a café since pre-lockdown in March. Afterwards, we took a quick look at the port which was filled up with static merchant and cruise ships going nowhere.

I read somewhere that six cruise ships are moored up at Leith. We certainly spotted a P&O ship and then began the walk. Buddleias line a lot of the pathway here

and also, the problematic introduce plant Himalayan Balsam which I photographed in 2017.

The Conservation Trust had a removal project in 2013 but it is incredibly difficult to eradicate completely because it shoots its seeds far away and additionally, they travel downstream on the water. Following the decline of industry along the river, wildlife has prospered. Today we saw gulls, mute swans and a grey heron but you could be lucky and spot a kingfisher.

Fish have returned to the river and otters have also been observed. There are several examples of street art along the path.

The walkway is closed in a few places. We had a diversion due to repairs underway on the Newhaven Road South Bridge which had become dangerous. Signposting of the diversion was not great but I managed to navigate us to rejoin the riverside walk. Near the Dean Path, there has been a landslip and other problems at other sites. After passing through Canonmills, we left the path near Stockbridge and found a seat to have our picnic lunch on. It was then time to return to the flat so we continued through Stockbridge, Hanover Street and tried to avoid the busier West End of Princes Street. Up Lothian Road and then along quieter Brougham Terrace to Bruntsfield Links, where I was very happy to see that sections had been left un-mowed and were filled with wildflowers for the pollinators. We managed to get back to the flat before a heavy rainfall mid-afternoon, having walked 10.3 miles. I am sure we will return to do another section or attempt the full length at some point.

Wanderlust in lockdown

On By Carol HenshawIn Flowers. plants & trees1 Comment

 

We are now several weeks into lockdown and wanderlust has to be contained. Spending so much time at home is vaguely reminiscent of writing my thesis and books several years ago. We are fortunate to have a large garden and live in a rural area so do have some space. I really feel for people living in cramped accommodation and no outside space.  After weeks of rain and flooding in February; warm sunny weather arrived and the garden is now slowly drying up. There is a lot to do out there and the spring flowers are a joy.

Our house was put on the market two weeks before lockdown and we had a few viewings but all that has now ceased. We do not have a deadline so we are now taking the time to do some packing, pile up donations for charity shops and stuff to go to the recycling centre when it re-opens. The need for exercise takes us out for walks. Fortunately, we are not restricted as much as some countries where the furthest you can walk from home is 1km. Most of our walks are 2-3 miles along the lanes. The only place where you cannot stay two metres from anyone you might pass is the path alongside the brook.

Two hundred years ago our lane was a through road with a ford across the brook. This was later changed to a bridle path alongside the water with no vehicular access. When digital maps came out, many still had it depicted as a through road so early satnavs were sending people down it, thinking they could reach the other end. Eventually the council were persuaded to put up no through road signs at each end of the lane.

The lanes were initially quieter than usual with the odd car and several tractors but traffic is now increasing. We have seen a little more of our neighbours who are walking and cycling and one recently had a frightening close shave with a speeding vehicle. We also met some very new neighbours.

Some houses had rainbow paintings done by children in the windows. One plus is that there is less litter in the hedgerows. I only picked up one bottle on one of our walks whereas there is usually plenty of litter. McDonalds in Congleton being closed will be helping but there has also been a lot more fly tipping in the surrounding areas. Sadly, there is no option of refreshments at our local pub.

I have been undertaking a photographic natural history of the garden and am now trying to finish this before we leave.

It will not cover everything: one wood louse will have to represent the 30 species of woodlice and some visitors we have had over the years including cuckoos, woodpeckers and swallows; are now rarely or not seen at all.

If we were not in lockdown and only leaving the village for a weekly shop/medication collection, we would have been continuing our coastal journey in the campervan; juggling this with the house sale. Not knowing how long it will take to sell meant we had no major trips planned for 2020 and so not having the problems with refunds that many people are experiencing. I have as always been planning future trips without knowing when we can get back on the road

 

Travelling with climate change

On By Carol HenshawIn IndiaLeave a comment

 

In the last 10 years we have seen several indications of climate change during our journeys. The first was the most severe and traumatic. In 2010 I went trekking in Ladakh in Kashmir, India with a group of people I had met the previous year on a fund-raising trek in Kerala. The tour company we went with have been running treks in Kashmir since 1874 and we had planned to do the Markha Valley trek. After a couple of days in Delhi, we flew to Srinagar with the first sight of snowy mountains peeping through the clouds from the plane. On Dal Lake we relaxed

before exploring the local area including three Mughal gardens, taking us up to 2000m.

The following day, woken by the muezzin and the cockerel at 5am, we were soon on the road to Kargil; stopping for a rest at Sonnamarg, an alpine meadow at 2,615m.

In order to leave we had to wait an hour for the convoy which we had to join in this disputed territory. We continued and passed the High-Altitude Warfare School, arriving in Kargil at 8pm.  The following morning, we left to continue on the road; crossing the Fatu La which at 4,140m is the highest point on the Leh-Srinagar Highway.

After getting stuck on a hairpin bend and a puncture, the bus finally arrived in Leh at 10pm. We spent a day sightseeing and then met the pony train at Spituk bridge. Our walk from there to our first camp was long and hot in the sun. Camp was at 2700m at Zingchen. The next day we climbed to 3900m and I started to become centrally cyanosed so completed the last 45 minutes on horseback. Day 3 began the ascent to the 4,900m summit of the Ganda La. I did the last bit on horseback and even the horse was struggling for breath. There were great views from the top.

Descending the gorge, we reached Skiu: a small village at 3400m and set up camp in a field by the river. During our rest day, we did some yoga, walked to a gompa and relaxed. Ladakh gets all its water from snowmelt and it had not rained in summer for 100 years. However, that night it rained heavily in the early hours. This delayed our departure the next day but we reached Hamunsho in the afternoon. Our leader was beginning to wonder if we would be able to get to Markha as the river may have become impassable. There was a major storm overnight and another which had swept away some campers. Markha was inaccessible so we turned around and took a shortcut back to Skiu. That night we had to evacuate our camp as the river rose and flooded it.

We moved our tents to higher ground in the village and spent the morning filling bottles with spring water and sterilising it. We assisted some Romanian trekkers who had got caught in the gorge by the flash flood and had sheltered overnight on a ledge scraped from the cliff face. One Romanian and one Danish woman had died. Later some French guys arrived covered in mud and hypothermic having lost everything and one of their group had died. They had cuts and abrasions which needed dressing. One of the villages had a radio and we heard an English language Indian News broadcast saying that flooding and landslides were widespread and that 150 had been killed, homes demolished and 800 were missing. We would have been counted among the missing as we had entered but not left, a National Park. Even in Skiu, the stream that bisected the village was now a muddy river that had destroyed houses and some people did not know what had happened to their relatives on the other side.

Later that day, another flash flood came down the gorge. We climbed up the scree until it was clear that the waters were receding. We had hoped to be able to walk to Chilling and return to Leh but learnt from a French trekker who had come from that direction that a landslide had blocked the Chilling to Leh road. That night we slept fully clothed with our boots on in case we had to evacuate quickly. We woke to more rain and the news that our ponies would not be able to get over the landslides to Chilling so that even if we got there, we would have no shelter and there were many tourists stranded there. Two of our guys made two attempts to get over the landslides to walk to a village which had a satellite phone to try and let our relatives know what was happening. Another two rainy days followed and we set up a management group to figure out how to deal with 150 foreign nationals, 40 Ladakhi support staff, 31 ponies that needed feeding and traumatised villages living in very basic conditions. I did a drug inventory, some was in charge of sterilising water, my son checked the tents and fly sheets, I have a health talk to the youth to ensure handwashing, using the composting toilet, keeping eyes clean and avoiding fungal infections in flexures. Another doctor and I dealt with some wounds and minor injuries. We learnt that the floods were very widespread; much of northern India was affected; Jammu and Kashmir had declared a state of emergency and 10,000 were dead in Pakistan after a French guide managed to get to the phone and speak to his office in Leh. We were rationing food but were told that a food, water and medicine drop would come soon. The dead Romanian had still not been buried and the Ladakhis said that it was not an auspicious time. There was not enough depth of soil in the valley to dig a grave and in Ladakh air burials are the norm. The Muslim person in the village cuts up the body, it is taken into the mountains to a stone bier and left to the vultures. This was not acceptable to the deceased’s companions.  An American couple in our group did their washing and hung it on a prayer wall next to their tent. Incense had to be burnt and prayers said to atone for this. We were woken at 5am by the sound of helicopters. They sounded too small to be dropping off supplies and turned out to be the stripped-down Puma helicopters the Indian Air Force fly at high altitudes.

We were being rescued and got back to Delhi in time to get our flight home. The following year we went on a walking holiday in the outer Canaries.  They were having their wettest spring for 25 years. You are supposed to be able to see North Africa from the top of La Gomera but cloud removed any views. When our ferry returned to Tenerife, the beach at Los Christianos was flooded and seagulls were wondering where the people were.

In 2017, while touring New Zealand, we visited the Fox Glacier; somewhat smaller and quieter than the Franz Josef Glacier. You walk up a lane which marks where the face of the glacier was in 1915 and 1935 and it had retreated. It advanced between 1985 and 2009 but since then there has been a significant retreat.

In Iceland in February 2017 there was not enough snow to do a snowmobile drive which was on our itinerary. We are now trying to reduce the impact of our travels on the climate. In Western Europe we drive, take the train and/or ferries. With our campervan we are exploring more of our own island and limiting long-haul travel to one big trip per year. The coronavirus pandemic has had little impact as this was the year, we planned to sell our house and therefore had not booked any major trips.

 

Madagascar: Parc National des Tsingy de Bemaraha

On By Carol HenshawIn MadagascarLeave a comment


The National Park is a Unesco World Heritage- listed site with jagged limestone pinnacles known as tsingy. There are two options for visitors: The Grands and Petits Tsingys. The Grands Tsingys has vertiginous bridges and involves climbing and scrambling over rocks while in a harness clipped to the via ferrata and is around a 90 minute trip in a FWD from Bekopaka. Pulling yourself up rock walls and also crawling through caves is all supposed to be part of the fun. I am not one for huge drops or scrambling and crawling through caves so most of us opted for the Petits Tsingys. There are six routes ranging from 90 minutes to a six hour one with a 30m climb. We opted for the two hour hike and as it was close to Bekopaka which we left at 7.30am, we saw no other tourists until we were leaving. Some of the gaps the path squeezes through are tight

Tree roots hang down the cracks.

We saw several parrots who flew past too quick to photograph them in contrast to the galahs perched on the rocks in The Pinnacles National Park in Western Australia that we visited last year. We also heard a Madagascan Cuckoo. There are 11 species of lemur in the park but the only one we saw was a nocturnal one who peeped at as from his perch in a tree.

We spotted a millipede on the path and a few lizards.

There are a few viewpoints that you can walk up for a wider perspective.

A gorge can be visited but this was going to be in an open boat and it was now midday and very hot. We opted for a quiet afternoon back at the hotel with a dip in the pool to cool off and relaxing on the verandah of our bungalow. Mid-way through the afternoon it began to rain but at least we felt rested for the following day which would be much longer.

Diversions on the road to Edinburgh

On By Carol HenshawIn roads, ScotlandLeave a comment


Something we had been thinking about for a while was a slight diversion on our route to Edinburgh. This week we finally got around to it. After topping up the caffeine levels in Moffat we took the A708 towards Selkirk from the south end of the High Street. It is a quieter road than the A701 Edinburgh road but there are a lot of forests on the hillsides so large forestry trucks laden with wood are not uncommon. There are passing places where the road is narrow. The road follows the Moffat Water and then the Little Yarrow rivers through the valley. Our first stop was 10 miles up the road at The Grey Mare’s Tail Nature Reserve. It is one of the highest waterfalls in the UK, dropping 60m from Loch Skeen which is the home of a rare fish, the vendace. It is apparently a relic from the ice age only found in a few freshwater lakes in southern Scotland and Cumbria. There is a 2.75 mile walk up to and around the loch but it began to rain heavily so we contented ourselves with looking at the waterfall (while I tried to remember when I had last been here), views of the valley and the heather which was flowering.


There are a number of ancient sites along the valley including, at Chapelhope, the site of Rodono Chapel. Further on the road reaches the Loch of the Lowes and following a short stretch of river under the bridge lies St Mary’s Loch. At one point there was only one loch but stones and gravel washing down from the hills separated them.

There is a café next to the Loch of the Lowes car park and a sailing club on St Mary’s Loch. Nearby is the Tibbie Shiels Inn which used to provide accommodation for walkers, including those on the nearby Southern Upland Way and was named after a widow who ran it between 1824 and 1878. Sir Walter Scott was a regular visitor. The inn closed in 2015. A statue on the hillside is of James Hogg born in 1770: the Ettrick Shepherd who became a writer. His work was admired by Thomas Carlyle and Walter Scott who introduced him to Edinburgh publishers but he never really left his work of sheep farming.

There is a circular walk round St Mary’s Loch which we might do at some point in the future.

A minor road to Tweedsmuir leaves the A708 at Cappercleuch.

It passes two reservoirs. The first, Megget Reservoir was finished in 1983 and supplies Edinburgh with water.

A mile from Tweedsmuir is Talla Reservoir which was opened in 1905. Construction began in 1899 and a railway was built to transport the materials. It is still possible to see some of the rail route and some of the bridges alongside the A701. The railway was dismantled in 1912.

Along the roadside were rowan trees laden with berries and many wildflowers including rosebay willow herb. Talla and Gameshope along with two other sites nearby are restoring the landscape to its previous wilderness state and providing a haven for wildlife. Where the forests are being regenerated, grazing sheep are excluded. The 4.500 acres includes blanket bog, moor, heath, rocky screes, lochs and burns.

At Tweedsmuir we re-joined the A701 and were soon in a very busy Edinburgh.