Legs and Borders

After following St Cuthbert's Way and Southern Upland Way, I've spend majority of the afternoon following the nameless trail alongside river Tweed, I didn't meet a single hiker only few loggers who completely ignored me as I was trespassing on their logging site but since there wasn't an alternative route I just went for it and it was all fine. I've seen some of my favourite sites so far today, especially in the afternoon, beautiful, gently rolling hills with grazing sheep and cattle, a row of old oak trees running alongside the trail some kind soul must have planted here over 100 years ago, I kind of wish they could be here to see what a cool place they have created. I've passed through a town called Peebles which might have been my favourite so far as well, I've ate here a "lasagna pie" and it tasted really nice! I've also had several coffees and sausage rolls at Gregg's and hiked out well nourished and in good spirits. I've seen few ...

Second day of my Scottish National Trail adventure, I've caught up on my daily miles and I'm running on schedule as of now which is an amazing news. Terrain was definitely a helpful asset, trail was mostly flat and straightforward, I was passing (and snacking) though many little villages also weather was perfect, I'm crossing my fingers it will remain so for a long time. Halfway through the day I've meet a group of Americans from Vermont who didn't know how to call a taxi (typing in 0044 before the number was too much for them), eventually I've done it for them and 5 minutes later three small taxis arrived to transport them to their hotel. To be fair after they helped me so much during my American hikes I got all the time for Americans now and will try to help them when I can. I've also met first person who is hiking Scottish National Trail as well, his name was Toby but he was a man of few words so we didn't chat much, hopefully I'll see him later o...

25th May 2026 It's always encouraging when the local bus driver has no idea where your final destination is even though it's 15 minutes away from his usual route. It's been a long day sitting on trains and replacement busses trying to reach my starting point Kirk Yetholm, a twin village located on the English/Scottish border (Town Yetholm being it's twin on the Scottish side). It also happens to be a starting point of another well know trail Pennine Way, but I'm here to try and tackle the Scottish National Trail instead. I've arrived at Berwick upon Tweed at midday spend here an hour walking along the river and eating Gregg's sausage rolls before boarding a local bus 67 to Kelso where I would change to the bus 81 going to the trailhead. Immediately after leaving Berwick the landscape opened up and became very rural, bus was happily hopping along an uneven narrow country road passing tiny villages and ruins of various more or less historical buildings. Halfwa...

Day four started with taking a free ferry to Staten Island which gave me an opportunity to see Statue of Liberty again, most of tourists went on the ferry back to Manhattan straight away but I decided to have a walk on Staten Island, it was quite shocking just how empty the streets were over here, it felt like a sleepy town compared to a super busy Manhattan which was just around the corner, in fact I could clearly see its skyline from where I was walking. After an hour I also hopped back on the ferry. I carried on walking up the Broadway but the weather turned bad which gave me an opportunity to take refuge in the Peter Dillon's Irish pub where I had two (American) pints of Youngling beer and listened to some Irish American folk music. Once it stopped raining I went past the Rockefeller building again and took few pictures of the famous Atlas statue, then I went to the corner of Central Park where "Home Alone's" pigeon lady scene w...