Long distance walks
Click on the name of the walk for more details of each route.
A 100km (62.5 mile) route between Melrose, the location of St Cuthbert's early monastic life and Lindisfarne (Holy Island), the area of St Cuthbert's later ministry and death. The walk links to the Pennine Way at Kirk Yetholm, the Southern Upland Way, the Sir Walter Scott Way, the Borders Abbeys Way and the new Roman Heritage Way at Melrose.
It can be divided into five separate day walks of around 12.5 miles, with stopping points at Maxton, Cessford, Hethpool and East Horton.
The route starts at Moffat and reaches the coast at Cockburnspath. The walk can be divided into six sections, each about 15 miles / 24 km.
The 65 mile / 105 Km walk connects the four ruined Border Abbeys of Kelso, Jedburgh, Melrose and Dryburgh, and an earlier but short lived Tironensian Abbey in Selkirk.
Although all are now ruined they remain spectacular reminders of the monastic communities who lived in the Borders until the 16th century. (See
Places to go).
The John Buchan Way runs from Peebles to Broughton, a distance of approximately 22km (13miles). It is named after the writer and diplomat John Buchan, author of The Thirty Nine Steps, who has many associations with the area. The route mainly follows long established hill tracks through the Peeblesshire countryside.
It can be completed in one day by strong walkers, or can conveniently be split at the halfway point at Stobo.
From its source at Tweed's Well, near the Lanarkshire boundary, the River Tweed runs east to join the North Sea at Berwick upon Tweed. Flowing past Innerleithen, Galashiels, Melrose, St Boswells, Kelso, Coldstream and on to Berwick upon Tweed, it reaches a length of some 156 kilometres (97 miles) and forms, for its last few miles, the border between Scotland and England.
On the way it passes many of the finest historic houses (see
Places to go) of the Borders. The many and varied
Bridges of the Tweed are an interesting walk in their own right.
