These pics are (from the bottom): In the hills above Lockerbie, Moffatt, Scenery en route to Moffatt.
Day 33 - Thu May 7th. The rain continued into the evening, but the morning brought broken cloud with no precipitation, but it was still windy and cold for May (mind you, the Scots always say that - "Och it's offa cauld the day: ye should've been here...."). After breakfast I went on a hunt for a new fleece - mine was very old and it had suffered on this trip and Lindsey hates it . The only place open that sold them was the agricultural shop at the end of town, but the only one that fitted me was a ghastly brown. I bought it anyway as the best available,and it was cheap, but Lindsey will hate it even more. Lockerbie centre is built of read and grey stone, very much in the Scottish style, but has a rather dark atmosphere. It sits in the broad valley of the River Annan and has one of the most northerly Roman camps on its outskirts. It has the misfortune of having gained fame because of the aircraft bomb, but is otherwise a centre for this agricultural area and a staging post between Scotland and England.
We walked northwards out of town following a stream gradually uphill through attractive farmland with hills rising behind. This is charming countryside with views ever changing from fields to little woods, to great dark forests, tumbling streams and high bleak moorland. It is quite sparsely populated and all habitation in concentrated in the valleys with wide areas of inhospitable hills between. However we have learned that, although people are not concentrated in villages, there is a great sense of community and quite a lot going on if you can be bothered to find it.
The roads we were on got smaller and higher, and the land rougher, until the tarred road petered out and became a farm track. At that point, we met Willie, a huge local farmer who was setting up some pens on his land. He had an accent more akin to Donald's in Longtown than to Scotland and he told us that most of the farmers in the area came from England or Ireland! The farm track led through a hill farm who's fields were broken up with ponds and boggy areas, and the hills rose up steep and round in all directions. Sadly the views were somewhat disrupted by power pylons again that crossed and dominated the landscape sometimes.
A pain in John's left leg had been niggling since yesterday, and I was quite concerned. He was taking ibuprofen and continued walking at a good speed, but was not comfortable. We stuck close together in this remote country in case it became a serious problem, but I can now report that he did finish today's walk and feels a bit better, so fingers crossed for tomorrow!'
The weather cleared up as the day wore on, so we had a really beautiful, if breezy, afternoon descending back into the Annan valley towards Moffatt through a lovely combination of little corners of charm and beauty and wide landscapes rising up to distant hills. It was quite fun looking down on the M74 and mainline railway from a the calm of a quiet country road. Most of the farms in this region are beef, milk and sheep and some of the beef cattle are extraordinary - great beasts of pure muscle quietly sitting in muddy field chewing their cud. There are also some enormous commercial softwood forests that stretch for miles and miles, casting their dark stain over the high hills, dense and silent.
Moffat is a nice little town on the banks of the Annan, full of very Scottish buildings and shops with amusing names, like the cafe called 'The Rumbling Tum' (it does excellent scones or toasted tea cakes with a pot of tea). It is much more open and lighter than Lockerbie and the large number of hotels is testament to it's popularity. Our starter at dinner was Arbroath Smokies, apparently done in the authentic style. This is small smoked haddock cooked in a creamy sauce with an egg on top, and it was rather good.
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