A bit of a change this month, rather than a walk in the Lakes we visited the original “Man of the Mountains” Colin Lewis and his wife Kate in Scotland. I remember hearing tales of Colin walking in the Lake District when I was a boy – well maybe not quite but Colin started all the Lake District walking for us. Steve joined him in the early 90’s and then Peter and then me. He moved to Montrose – sorry Melrose (long story) about 5 years ago. So Steve picked me up about 12.30 and we went for Peter and pointed the car in the direction of Scotland. Just north of Jedburgh we got the first sight of the 3 hills we were going to walk on Sunday morning. Very pretty countryside with literally 3 hills that just stood out.

We arrived at Colin and Kates around 2.30, just in time to watch Soccer Saturday on SkySports and look at the scores coming in. Kate had prepared us a fantastic meal and then we went to the pub – well it was a holiday, it would be rude not to! Melrose is a very pretty Borders town steeped in history with only one issue as far as I could tell – the pub we were in could not look after Black Sheep bitter. That was easily fixed by going to another pub and going for John Smiths instead. We were back home in time to watch MOTD and have a few more beers – oh and a special guest appearance! Yes no blog article is complete without a mention of the Angus the Butcher steak pie (how many mentions do I have to give them to get a free one?)

Sunday morning started misty and wet, Kate had again prepared a great breakfast to start our day. We waited until 11.00am before taking a short drive to the foot of the Eildon Hills and the start of the walk. The first hill was the central hill and the highest and the steepest. After reaching the top we started to descend towards the next hill and the heavens opened and we got completely soaked. However as we reached half way between the first hill and the second it started to clear up and the sun made an appeareance so we carried on. As it got clearer and as we started to climb we could begin to see Melrose in all its glory, it was a great view from here. Looking from the top of the second hill, we could also see the site of the Roman Fort that was here in the 2nd Century. The last hill was the easiest and the lowest and we were back at the car just after 1.00pm. A good stretch of the legs to help compensate for all the beer and good food we had consumed.

Kate sent us on our way with another great meal and we were on the road south just after 3.30. A very relaxing weekend spent in good company and superb countryside. A big thanks to Colin and Kate for putting us up for the weekend, thanks to Steve for driving and thanks to Peter for putting up with my snoring! Looks like the next walk may not be until the end of September, looking forward to it.