Walking Lands End to John O'Groats 2025 for Alzheimer's Society

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 a...

Nearly 2/3rds of the way! I left the accommodation at 7:15 to go to Starbucks for breakfast and lunch supplies. I left there at 8:10. According to the BGS app I would be walking over Silirian sedimentary rock “Wacke” - sandstone, siltstone, mudstone (443-433 million years ago). I needed to check the geology more going forward. The path took me through the Galashiels park - a pleasant and gently inclining path which I enjoyed as it gradually joined fields of sheep and then climbed up to Hog Hill 301m which I reached at 9:10. I reflected on the goodwill of the trails and the people I have met. This was partly prompted by the manner in which Galashiels women my age had walked past me without acknowledgment even after greeting them. Only on the really busy trails would you get this - although this is normal in any town it was notable how accustomed I had got to the friendliness of the trails. Coming down from Hogs Hill to Yair I heard a classic owl hoot as I entered the woodland descending...

I left at 9:40 with breakfast at 8. I had chatted with a German mother and daughter walking St Cuthberts. The mother had walked the Pennine Way. The daughter was a flight attendant with only a week’s holiday so they were walking the way in 6 days. They took the link for my fundraising. Immediately on leaving the village the path descended into woodland with carpets of wild garlic along a deep ravine cut into the red sandstone. This led to the River Tweed, a stunning way to start the walk. As for yesterday, the nature of the walk changed depending on where I was on the meander - outside of, and I was climbing up and down the river cliffs, inside and I was walking in the river meadows. Along with the river was the return of the back headed gulls and the sentinel figures of herons poised waiting for a fish to spear. Even running low, the power of the river was impressive and the flood flotsam hanging on the tree branches was testament to its strength in flood. The flowers along here were ...

For my first rest day I had a quiet day washing all my clothing, reading a book and exploring the old abbey.  Wonderful! On Day 64 I didn’t rush in the morning as I knew (well, apparently I didn’t…..) this would be a short day and checkout for the homely apartment wasn’t until 12. I set off at 11 and walked along the Jedfoot to re-join the Trail under high redstone cliffs and attractive flower beds on my side of the river. A heron, untroubled by my passing quietly preened itself while mallard dabbled in the shallows below it. I walked up through mixed woodland dominated by mature beech and what I now realised were lime trees. I hadn’t been able to decide that coming into Jedburgh along Dere Street the day before yesterday. The view from the path extended to the Waterloo monument, and I descended back down to Jedfoot river and walked through woodlands filled with wild garlic. At the meeting of the waters was another heron with a hornbeam planted as part of the Teviot Water, part of ...