LEJOG Day 65: Galashiels to Innerleithen

Weather: Cloudy with threat of rain, but again none

Distance covered today: 20.1km (12.5mi)

Last night's B&B: Watson Lodge (£50)

Cumulative distance: 1300.4km (808.0mi)/ % Complete: 68.0%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 65 (click!)

It all started well enough! The rain was holding off, I had found a really innovative and enjoyable route from Galashiels to Innerleithen and I made excellent time along the way.  I was even charmed by the lovely little village of Innerleithen when I arrived, but then the wheels started to come off! I had booked into a flea-pit called the Tweedside Hotel. When I got there, I was shown my room and for the first time on this journey, I decided it really was barely acceptable. I then found that the bathroom was two flights of stairs away, and the final straw was that the publican had recently dropped his router into the bar sink, which was full of water, so there was no internet!  I might even have accepted the poor conditions, but the absence of internet was for me the final straw! I used the fact that he had advertised the internet as being available as an excuse and backed out.

Fortunately, I found another very acceptable lodging just up the street, called St Ronan’s Hotel. It is pretty basic and quite inexpensive, but everything works and there is even an en-suite! He also had been having problems with his router, but I was in like Flash, and in no time, I was up and running at full power! Then came my next problem!  I had had an inkling of this last night, but something was going very badly wrong with my netbook!  I was able to receive emails, but not to send them! Catastrophe!  Both for business purposes and personal communications I am heavily reliant on my email application. I could of course have reverted to web applications, but I have a number of accounts and it would have complicated my life, not to mention terminated any offline work, which in this line of business is a constant necessity!  Anyway, with the help of the now excellent connection to the web at my new lodging and a few researches in the help forums, plus a new download of the email application, normal service has been resumed! And I haven’t even lost any information or connection settings, so that definitely is worth a tot of malt whiskey later this evening!

As usual though, I am getting ahead of myself. I faced a choice this morning. Either I could choose the Southern Upland Way as a means of getting to Innerleithen, or take the A-roads between the towns. The problem is that as its name suggests, the Upland Way heads straight for the hills, and though we are hardly yet in Highland territory, the hills looked both high and steep. Also the path involved a long loop on what was anyway a fairly lengthy day, adding at least 5-7km (3-4mi) to the journey.  The A-roads on the other hand, travelled along the valleys parallel to the River Tweed through what I imagined was spectacular countryside. I found a small back-road that would travel through the Plora Forest on the other side of the river and my mind was made up!  I would brave the A-road out of Galashiels and head eventually for the mountain side-road. It was the right choice.

For some reason, known only to Scottish officialdom, there was a cycle path/pavement along the entire length of the A-road which I needed to use!  There was anyway little traffic along the road and the views of the surrounding hills were just as spectacular from below as from above. I made the mountain side-road by mid-morning and after that, the walk was just lovely, especially through the Plora Forest, which was apparently established by the monks of the Melrose Abbey way back in the Middle Ages. In fact St Ronan (he after whom my lodging tonight is named) apparently “took the devil by his hind leg and banished him”, which probably means St Ronan converted the locals to Christianity. Sir Walter Scott, who was particularly interested in the Border regions, wrote a novel about the place called St Ronan’s Well, and formalised an annual ceremony, which became the Borders Games, a 10 day long festival that I have fortunately missed by a week or I would never have found accommodation!

Apparently the festival is an important item in the town’s annual calendar. It is easy to see why!  There is very little evidence of any other source of income other than tourism. Apparently, there are two surviving mills which make high-value cashmere garments for export, but that is about it! On the other hand, we can’t be more than about 30mi (50km) from Edinburgh, so I imagine there is a fair amount of commuting. I noticed some really larney houses yesterday in the vicinity of the Eildon Hills which could only have been the properties of rich Edinburgh commuting refugees, so I suspect that I am moving steadily into that sort of country.

The other thing I noticed was the plethora of public service institutions all the way from Melrose, through Galashiels and into Innerleithen. It is well-known that the proportion of public servants north of the border is much higher than in England and in my tiny sample so far, I have certainly seen evidence of it. There also seems to be more spending on public goods. The roads are in excellent condition by comparison with much of the rest of the country, but especially Surrey, which is a comparable distance from London. The footpaths, footbridges and general public amenities such as the public loos, all seem to be well funded and in good shape. I do accept though that it is far too early for me to generalise on all this. For a start, this isn’t Glasgow!  It is a subject though to which I will return. I am particularly interested in how Scotland is facing up to the end of its heavy industry, and indeed how it intends to cope with the end of North Sea oil.

Meanwhile, my trip across the country towards Glasgow continues, but I will first get much closer to Edinburgh, no doubt continuing to make outrageous generalisations as I go, based on my usual method of one or two observations and a whole lot of guesswork!

My last look at the Eildon Hills, disappearing behind Galashiels

Even on the A-road, the countryside was still alive with colour; a sign that there isn't that much traffic?

The bicycle/footpath beside the A-road

The Southern Upland Way would have run along the top of the distant hills

Crossing the Tweed River to my little back road

A moth for Julian

Looking down at the Tweed from my little back road

"Droplets on grass leaves" by Kevin

My little back road winding its way through Plora Forest

The little village of Walkerburn signals that Innerleithen is nearby

And in near record time, I was crossing the old disused railway bridge, now an excellent footpath, towards Innerleithen

The lambs are all still the same age as in Cornwall in April!

He was here before me!