Peebles to West Linton

4 June 2011 - Peebles to West Linton

Distance - 13.7 miles

Weather - Overcast

Today was achieved using two cars, leaving one in West Linton, then

Looking back to Peebles

driving the other one to the car park in Peebles next to the Tweed. Peebles is quite a nice little town, although a little less picturesque and a little bit busier than either Jedburgh or Melrose. The town itself was established by Royal Charter (King David II) in 1367 and has all the amenities a walker could require - bank machines, food shops and loos!

Border hills near Jedderfield

For the first half of our walk we followed the riverside path, beside the River Tweed, as far as Neidpath Castle. Then left the Tweed for the last time to cross the A72 and walk along a footpath past Jedderfield Farm and through Jedderfield Plantation. We then stuck to a valley path between Hamilton Hill and South Hill Head, passing through Upper Kidston Farm and contouring round the bottom of White Meldon hill. The End to End trail suggests you traipse all the way to the top of White Meldon (and at 427m it's not that much of a slog), but (and I'm going to be controversial here) the view from the top is much the same as the view from any other Border hill, so we didn't think it worth the effort.

Clearly not the Ayrshire town!

After crossing a little unclassified lane, we made our way up a farm track to a farm called Stewarton. We felt we needed to take a picture at this point, as Alistair's family live in the Ayrshire town of Stewarton, so it was a bit of a joke for us (albeit not that funny). From Stewarton, there was a climb up through pine forest to Courhope then down to Flemington Burn. After which, we skirted round Green Knowe and walked between Drum Maw and Hag Law until we joined the A701 at Damside.

The twenty minute walk along the A701 wasn't that inspiring, there were lots of cars, the drivers of which were clearly not expecting there to be any walkers on the road. In fact we caught up with a big group of them, all returning to West Linton. Al & I didn't want to be rude, so walked with them for a while, but couldn't really walk at their pace, so we left them halfway along the B7059, which we followed until we got back to the car on the outskirts of West Linton. I'd ended up having to park my car on a grass verge quite a way from the centre of town, as there had been some sort of fete or agricultural fair and the place had been absolutely packed. Even when we returened, there were still quite a few people, horse riders and dogs all milling about the streets.