Despite the date on this post reflecting the day it was written, I’m actually posting it on 22nd October 2026 – almost 18 months after I wrote this journal entry. It’s been sitting in my drafts folder for the whole time, but I’ve had absolutely no motivation to add the photos and post it, until now. I will update and publish the other journals from this walk over the next few days / weeks – some of the posts only need photos adding, while some are just bare-bones notes and will need quite a lot of work, but hopefully I’ve broken the dam and I can get these posted!
Thanks for your patience! Stuart
16th May 2025: Home to Stranraer
So here we are again. At the start of another long distance walk that I’ve already completed. Perhaps this shows a lack of imagination, or maybe my adventuring spirit is missing – maybe I should be off walking trails I’ve never done, or walking somewhere in Europe or even further afield? The truth of the matter is nothing else appealed to me. I looked long and hard for another UK trail to explore and found nothing that grabbed my interest, or was logistically doable for someone who’s no longer prepared to wildcamp.
I’ve picked off the best of the Scottish Great Trails that have good accommodation options, and even then, some of them needed the strategic use of buses, taxis or lifts from the B&B host. There are a couple of others that do hold some appeal, but they are logistically impossible without backpacking them, so they are effectively off the table.
I’ve done every English National Trail that interests me, and many other long distance paths that aren’t national trails, including three or four that I strung together myself. There are plenty left to do, but none that are particularly compelling. I have to factor in the cost of accommodation when selecting a trail and some routes are in prime tourist hotspots and the cost of a bed for one night can often be over £100 – a threshold I’m never going to be comfortable crossing.
So many people have suggested I start to look at some of the long trails on the continent, that I’ve lost count of them. But they just don’t spark any interest. I know you can normally expect consistently better weather on some of these and yet I just don’t hanker for walking anywhere other than the UK.
I write this as I sit in my B&B on Friday evening – at the end of what has already been an incredibly busy and tiring week! Last Sunday evening I drove from our home in Cheshire, to the outskirts of Paris – about 500 miles – non-stop apart from the enforced wait at the Shuttle terminal. My wife and I then tried gamely to keep up with our 4-year-old granddaughter as she bounced her way around Disneyland Paris for 10 hours on Tuesday, before getting back in the car on Wednesday afternoon and driving all the way home again. I worked on Thursday – trying simultaneously to catchup and close out various tasks before another week off. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I set out early this morning – trying to find a calm place and get my head into the right space for this walk.
Leaving home about 6.20 I took it easy up the motorway – stopping for a break at Tebay and spurning the seductions of a second breakfast. The place was almost deserted, and I was quickly back on the road. There was very little traffic and although I took another (bodily enforced) break at Annandale Water, I pulled into Moffat at 9.50 – well in time for my bus. I filled the car with fuel so I wouldn’t have to do it when I left and then found a parking space outside the Balmoral Hotel. Moffat is great for parking – there are hundreds of spaces right on the high street and it’s all free parking, so there was no issue with leaving the car there for 9 days – unlike the problem I stumbled across on the Rob Roy Way a couple of years ago.
I stopped into the Marchbank Bakery and picked up a couple of scotch pies and a thick sausage roll – this is a lovely place, discovered when I walked the eastern section of the Southern Upland Way a couple of years ago – and somewhere I’d promised myself I would visit again before I caught the bus. I had one of the scotch pies for my second breakfast – while it was still warm – sitting on the bench waiting for the bus, and it was as good as I remember, and ever so slightly spicy.
The first bus, to Dumfries, was actually a coach and you had to ascend to an upper deck, above the luggage storage to get seated. It was only a short journey of 20 minutes or so and it was smooth and uneventful, which is always nice on a bus! I had about 20-30 minutes to wait in Dumfries, but the next bus went from the same stand so there was no mad, cross-town dash to contend with. I took the time to ‘pay a visit’ before the next bus left though, as this journey was over two hours. I sat in the sun on the wall beside the bus stop, with the River Nith flowing silently behind me and the very impressive Devorgilla Bridge, which has a rich and varied history.
The second bus was also a coach, which was a nice surprise – the last time I took this journey (in 2015) it had been on a rattling, bone-jarring old POS that nearly broke my spine and left me with ringing ears after sitting over the heavily distressed engine for 2 hours. The only break from the uneventfulness of this journey was when the driver had to reverse around a corner, to avoid a closed road, and hit a road sign with his wing mirror, breaking it off. He had to get out of the bus, collect the broken mirror and stow it in the luggage compartment, before dejectedly getting back on and apologising for the slight delay.
I don’t know if it’s just luck, but it seems that buses are much more reliable than trains when it comes to getting to the start of these walks. Over the years of using public transport for walking, it’s nearly always trains that cause me problems. Which is odd considering that buses have so many more potential obstructions and delays to contend with – while a train just has other trains to worry about!
On arrival in Stranraer I made a beeline for the Grapes pub. I decided I needed a pint before heading to the B&B. I’d had a great experience in this pub on both of my previous visits to Stranraer – it was the only CAMRA pub in town – and may still be for all I know. The place had been a hive of activity, full of convivial drinkers and a very welcoming landlord – with a selection of three or four ales on tap. However, it’s not what it used to be and it now only had one draught beer. It was also completely dead – just two old couples chatting quietly in hushed tones in one corner, and the TV was tuned into some awful music TV channel – it wasn’t a patch on what I remembered – so I sank my very average pint of Orkney Sunstone and left.
I had to visit Morrisons for a couple of bits for tomorrow’s walk, and while I was there I decided to eat in the cafe and spend a relaxing evening in my B&B – saving me going back out again later. I had the all-day breakfast, which was pretty good for a supermarket cafe – and realised that technically it was my third breakfast of the day!
The B&B is totally impersonal – no host to meet you, no offer of tea or cake, no “what time would you like breakfast in the morning”, nothing – just a key box for the outside door and another for your room. I’ll be honest, this didn’t bother me and it was cheap enough to leave me with no regrets in choosing it. It did mean I had to make my own plans for breakfast in the morning though, but I was pretty sure I had that sorted.
The weather forecast for the coming days is (I think) completely unprecedented for one of my long walks. It’s wall-to-wall sunshine, apart from the last day, which looks like wall-to-wall rain! I normally get a mixed bag of sunshine and cloud with scattered showers, but the next few days look to be very warm and sunny. I always hold to the theory that weather forecasts are OK for a couple of days, and anything beyond that is pretty much a guess. but there are times when the forecasters are absolutely confident and this looked like one of those periods. The weather so far this spring has been warm and dry – one of the warmest and driest since records began in fact and I’d been hoping that would continue for my walk – looks like I was going to be in luck!