Melrose, Scottish Borders ~ May 2022

Here in Melrose for 6 nights for the first part of the ICA Scottish Odyssey meet. A beautiful small town in the Scottish Borders region. Flanked by big hills covered in bright yellow gorse and blue bells. It's very, very pretty here. 


Thursday, we all went for a lovely walk along the River Tweed to Abbotsford, home of Sir Walter Scott. The walk was very pleasant and the weather was very kind to us too. Arriving at Abbotsford, we stopped for a light lunch and then continued on our circular walk back to Melrose. 

This is the beautiful Abbey in Melrose



Friday the weather was looking likely to rain for most of the day, so Steve and I decided to go to Galashiels to see the Great Tapestry of Scotland. This was actually amazing. A totally dedicated building purpose built to hold the great tapestry in. The tapestry is made up of 160 individual tapestries each depicting Scotland's history right up to the current day. It really was very interesting and also amazing the texture and details of each panel.

Late afternoon, we all met up for drinks and a get together to catch up on what everyone had done during the day.

Saturday we all did the Eildon Hills path. It was a perfect day for walking, bright and warm and not too breezy. It was tough going to start with climbing up to the summit of the first hill, but once we reached the top, it afforded us lovely views all around. Here we stopped for lunch. 



We then split up some returning back to base, whilst a few others continued to do the two other hills. We were after all, half way there already, having done most of the hard work. The final hill, the highest of the 3 wasn't nearly as bad as we thought and again, once reaching the summit, gave us spectacular views and a great sense of achievement. A most enjoyable day.


Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day. Steve and I headed off for a long walk. We crossed the Tweed on the Chain bridge and took the path up and along a trail that led us through a mass of vibrant yellow gorse, then beautiful bluebell woods and then down to the Leader river, where we watched a heron stalking and catching a fish. We crossed the Leader which has now merged with the Tweed via the Old Leaderfoot bridge which also gives a fantastic view of the old viaduct. It was a long walk and we were totally shattered after it, but it was very enjoyable. Later in the day, we met up with the others for drinks and a catch up. 

Monday, we decided to take it easy. Although we did do a walk around Melrose, along the old railway line, past the Abbey, along The Tweed again back up to the town. A very pleasant stroll today. Tomorrow we move on to our next location and the 2nd part of The Scottish Odyssey.

Comments

  1. Martin9 May 2022 at 11:14

    Looks great! When are you back so we can book in for the Truk documentary viewing?

    ReplyDelete

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