First Leg - Route Catastrophe.

 

First Leg: Melrose to Kelso.

Distance: 16.8 miles.

Time: 7 hrs 12 mins.

Wildlife: Heron, Deer, Rabbits, Pheasants, Dead Pheasants, Dead Deer, Dead Rabbits.

Barnaby's Song of the Day: Rawhide.   

This morning I woke up to find that I had an achy tummy and knew that there was an eighteen mile leg ahead of me. We got dressed and went down for breakfast and I had a breakfast of sausage, bacon, toast and poached egg. By the end of it I was still feeling sick. We went upstairs, got packed, and decided that the best thing to do was to leave our bags at the Station Hotel in Melrose and walk down to the shops so that I could get a bit of fresh air. As we left the Co-op I was feeling much, much brighter. We walked back up to the hotel, packed our food for the day, and set off with Kelso in our mind.

    We set off and saw a sign for The Borders Abbeys Way. We followed a path for quite a while, until Daddy said, "Stop." He got out his map and said, "Oh no." He had realised that if we'd carried on in that direction, we'd have ended up in Selkirk, the opposite direction to Kelso! We went back and found a path that came off the path that we were already following, so Daddy checked his map to see if it would get us back on The Borders Abbeys Way. We discovered that although it was a longer route it was much nicer, as it went alongside the River Tweed. In my head I was thinking, 'Oh gosh, we've only just left and we've got lost, what could go wrong next?'

    When we stopped for lunch, Daddy looked at his map and saw that there was a bit more of countryside path walking and then it would go on to a road, however a very similar road could make the route a bit shorter even though it wasn't the actual Borders Abbeys Way. So as he walked on, Daddy told me very sternly to make sure that I should not tell Uncle Jimmy because he's often asking to find short cuts on walks but Daddy never says yes. So, he told me to make sure Uncle Jimmy never found out or he would never hear the end of it.

    We followed the shortcut to Kelso and we were so, so happy, although Daddy kept complaining about his achy, achy shoulders. Even though our day started and ended with aches and pains, everything in between was so fun and exciting, and it makes me definitely want to do this again.

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Daddy's Postscript:

I can't really better what Barnaby has written, but I thought I'd add one last reflection on the day. We've been sharing in the form of daily prayer that I put together for my 2010 pilgrimage, and which I'm very conscious that I first prayed with my Dad on Mull.

As I was rushing us out the room just now, for a quick pre-dinner G&T while we finished off this blog, Barnaby announced, "Weren't we going to say Evening Prayer before going for dinner?" We sat shoulder to shoulder on the edge of his bed and shared in prayer. He was right. Again.