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Day 67: Innerleithen to Peebles (7.5 miles)

As I am now on my 67th day out of a predicted 100-102 days total, I am more or less 2/3rds of the way! At this point, according to the digitised route I have walked 804 miles however... according to my phone and some calculation from Maria, I have actually walked 929.4 miles! It will be interesting to see the difference in the final total. I’d love to know the total ascent - again the digitised route says it will be around 111,000 feet. That’s something I’ll have to check at when I’ve finished but it will be at least that I think. Again I must thank my daughter, Maria Kemp, for doing such a great job of keeping the blog up to date over such a long period of time without fail! (Note from Maria: Blogging is much easier than walking!)

A slow start today having made the decision to go for the riverside option today. I couldn’t resist popping into Coop to see how they were doing - the shelves looked rather more healthy than at Jedburgh a few days ago - but I just picked up an orange juice and Mars bar as I’d saved some cheese and oatcakes from my dinner last night (I’d had haggis for main course - delicious!).

A beautiful sunny day with no wind - at least to start with. And everyone was catching me out today, saying good morning (unlike Galashiels). A bus stopped right by me …going to Peebles. I had to use all my discipline not to get on it. It pulled away, removing the temptation - phew!!!

I continued to stroll along the path, keeping an ear and eye out for cyclists passing, checking stats on the walk, and admiring the National Collection of apple trees at the peak of their blossom. Although the road was close, I happily zoned that out focusing on the river which flowed calmly by.

I paused to admire two gorgeous foals that were proudly shown off as they walked up their field to greener pastures. I heard sedge warblers as I walked by the Catrona golf course, but they kept well-hidden in the may trees no matter how hard I looked.

I stopped at a convenient bench by the river for a break, not wanting to get into Peebles too early and miss the opportunity of simply being by the water. Immediately I saw sand martins dipping into the water before me, and a male mallard having a very thorough wash under the shade of a tree. 

I continued to follow the path until it eventually diverted out onto the main road before offering the option of a grassy track along the riverside which I took. I stopped at 13:30 for my cheese snack watching a lone sheep who’d gone through the fence trying to to work out how to get back to its flock. Needless to say it didn’t.

It wasn’t long before I reached the town, and headed straight for a coffee shop with an attractive little square covering shade, and ordered a clotted cream tea (but with a cappuccino as is my want!). Perfect. I would check in to the Green Tea Hotel later, but going inside on a glorious day like this seemed sacrilege.






Location: Peebles EH45, UK

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