Phil and first Scotland sight

Dear all.

I am in a beautiful B&B near Lanark.

Phil, having a rest.

After the extremely long update in Newcastleton library, we went straight for lunch in the village cafe. Baguette and scampi made it for us. More interesting talking. We solved some of the global crisis going on in the world right now...

.... by the way, my clothes and tent are hanging outside, drying, and it is raining so much, that I don't even think in moving form the sofa I am sitting on...

After that, we took the road that approximately in three hours would take us to Langholm. After a quick climb, we walked through a narrow road with almost no cars. The landscape was a hilly moor, that for some reason was part of a country that was not England. I did not rain, and world saving conversations continued. On our way, a lady stopped her car for a £5 donation

The camping at Langholm was just part of the grounds of the rugby pitch. In my opinion, "Skin so Soft" worked this time. I the trick is putting lots of it on, and making sure you cover every single bit of exposed skin.

We did not have any food. Many of you, Phil as well, know about my food requirements: lots and often. The fact of not having any food and not knowing what would be available in the village, made desperately hungry, and the short walk to Langholm town centre, was an agonising one not knowing if I would have to eat a local, or two. Pubs had just stopped serving food, and the bloody fish&chips we had been told about was not 100 yards away, actually did not exist.

I was about to die, depressed.... everything went back to normal when we found an opened coop supermarket. Cold dinner. One of the best of my life. Back in town we had a couple of Tennent's tops, and talked about music and science.

By the way: do you know the arquimedes principle? Any of the readers would be able to explain why the lifting force goes UP, and not in any other direction? Clue: it is curious, but the lifting force that opposes gravity is caused by one of the effects of gravity on fluids. (No kidding, there is a simple answer for the question).

"Happily", we left the pub and had another short night sleep.

Next day, Tuesday, up before 6 am. Went back to town for buying a generous breakfast, although the bacon baguette could have been more... full of it...

The walk to Eskdalemuir (you Spaniards, try and pronounce it, I still struggle) was made on roads again. The landscape has radically changed: isolated hills, with large conifer forests. No houses, and just a few cars a lorries in the road.

My new boots. They're ok, but hurted me a bit

Apart from that, rights of way don't exist up here, and there are just a few marked footpaths on the ground. My boots were hurting me a little bit, and after the walk, my feet were slightly swollen. It rained a bit, and kept on walking about own-life saving issues. Eskdalemuir is too small to call it a village, and the Budist monastery where we stayed were just a mile away from it.

Colours!

Seeing the monastery, with its colours and flags, in the middle of nowhere in Scotland was just weird. But I should say that I liked the place. The atmosphere was very good, quite, and calm. There was a cafe, with Internet. We got a couple of single rooms, simple but nice, and the best: the food was excellent. I, once more, was concerned about food supplies; you know, monks, trying to keep themselves away from sin, and I think, that the way I eat, it definitely is sinning; so there was my concern. But no, I was wrong. Plenty of food, and good too. And the bread, unforgettable.

Dusk by the river at Eskdalemuir monastery

Just after dinner, we went for one of the day prayers. I am not into Buddhism, and not any other kind of religion, but I found the praying relaxing, apart from not understanding a word of they were saying.

And then it happened. 5 years ago I had the only cup of tea I had in my life. And it was enough. On Tuesday evening, just before bed, Phil prepared for me a cup of tea. I will not say I enjoyed as much as one of my pints, but I drank it without any disgust feeling. unbelievable!

Cooling feet down in the river

Before going to bed completed my diary. On Wednesday up again soon for an amazing, sinning, breakfast.

It was time to go for Phil. We really enjoyed our time together, and for sure, the world is now a better place.

Phil's bus to Newcastleton

For the first time since I began the walk, I ran out of maps. I knew roughly speaking where I wanted to go; hopefully Moffat. The roads that safely would take me there, where a long way round, so I really wanted to use the tracks I could see in my map; tracks that would disappear at the edge of the map. I checked in the OS website to see where those tracks were going. After a while, the one I wanted turned south in the "wrong"direction. From the turn, to the Southern Upland Way (SUW), a long distance trail that would easily take me straight into Moffat, there were a couple of miles of first open fell up the hill, and then conifer forest down. It looked easy, so I went for the direct root.

I used the boots in the beginning of the walk, but I had to swap them for the sandals as my feet turned very sore. The day soon turned awful, and began raining, and it was windy, the charted track went up through forests, and finished soon according to my planned route choice. Boots on again. The next, was a hilly moor, that disappeared in the mist up the hill:

Have you seen Rob Roy???

So, what could go wrong? It was easy: just a couple of miles of no-path terrain. The climbing was not too hard, soft and wet but stable terrain. The rain and the wind though a real pain. I could not see much further away from my nose. Just compass and instinct. Reached the top of the ridge, jumped the fence, and just after beginning down hill, I saw the forest line. I closer look showed an impassable wood. Not too big conifers, but low branches that would have made impossible to walk through. So, no where to go. Remembering what I had seen on the computer screen in the morning, the forest edge would continue North (I needed to go west the reach the SUW) until it turned west at some point. So that was the way then. I walked by the edge of the forest, feeling more lonely than ever: unknown outcome for my little adventure in completely unknown terrain. To my relief, after a while, the mist cleared up a bit, and could see that beyond the trees there was a valley that contained the path I wanted o reach.

A tempting gap

There were gaps in the forest, and I was tempted to use them, but I could not see the bottom of the valley, so I could I found myself blocked on my way down, and climbing back would have been extremely difficult. I continued to walk in the edge of the forest; the hill became more steep and although not unsafe, very unconfortable to walk on.

After a small ridge, the edge of the forest turned 90 degrees left, and finally I could see I direct route, down the fell the marked long distance path.

A valley, descending to the SUW

From there, easy 3 hours walk to Moffat. I could finish the walk in the boots.

In Moffat, after the usual cleaning and feeding activity, went to the pub for diary updating. Too much (for a Wednesday) pale ale (that was almost as dark as Guinness) in the Black Bull.

Yesterday, Thursday, I got up and went straight to the shop for breakfast and food. And looked for maps for the following days. I tried to find a route that used mainly tracks, but all of them finished in a forest that could be a dense impassable one. So I opted for the easy route, and walked all the way in roads, by the A74 motorway. I had a little bit of sun in the beginning, but soon the day turned miserable and rained all that way to Abington

Moffat from the surrounding hills

Landscape continued to be round big hills with forests, but after a while the forest began to disappear and gave way to naked fells. My clothes were wet, and my tent too, so I looked for a B&B in Abington. There were not any, and the hotel was very expensive. Camping then.

Surrounding landscape

This morning, rained heavily, and had to wait to get out of the tent. At this point I would like to mention, that although the force of the rain was not less than torrential, not a single drop got in the tent. I am very happy with it. Condensation problem disappeared, maybe because nights are being windy and allow better ventilation, and although small, I have organise so that I have my bedroom, my kitchen, storing room, and even an office and bathroom. No kidding.

Some nice scenery on my way to Lanark

It was time for another walk mainly on roads. More naked fells, and plenty of sun in the middle of the day. The banner got me a couple of donations, and a finger up from a passing car... and it was not a thumb... wankers, they are everywhere.

Oh!, so nice

I walked quickly, and stopped just once before getting to the B&B. I walked all the way on boots, and they were not too much of a problem. Maybe feet and boot need to adapt to each other.

From Lanark, I expect to be in Glasgow on Sunday.

B&B landlady was reading my blog in other computer. She liked it! And thinks my spelling is terrible!!! :) I think there is some food waiting for me.

So I leave you with a sequence of images of the poncho-on action. It shows both natural and learned skill, and lots of fun. :)

Just had my dinner. Invited by the Faye, the lovely landlady, and cooked by Eliza, her helper from Italy. We had pasta, al dente. Delicious.

The best of the night, Faye's dog. She had a vampire puppet as a toy. She would bring it to you and as she squeezes it in her mouth, the puppet says: "I come to suck your blood" over and over again.... ha ha ha!!

That is all for now.

All the best

Carlos