St Cuthbert’s Way Coast-to-Coast

For the walking route click here – St Cuthbert’s Way.

This 200-mile coast-to-coast cycling tour is inspired by the St Cuthbert’s Way walk. It also takes some inspiration from our Scottish Borders Coast-to-Coast which we cycled a few years ago.

St Cuthbert’s Way is a 62-mile long-distance walking route. It is one of Scotland’s Great Trails and one of the most beautiful, varied and enjoyable routes in Britain. We have, therefore, created this 200-mile coast-to-coast cycling tour by taking the best of our Scottish Borders Coast-to-Coast route and fusing it with the best of the St Cuthbert’s Way route.

Beginning at Gretna, we followed the Scottish border through the small market town of Newcastleton, the textile town of Hawick, and on to the historic royal burgh of Selkirk. From there, we visited Galashiels before cycling to Melrose, the start of St Cuthbert’s Way. This cross-border route spanned the national border between Scotland and England, linking Melrose in the Scottish Borders, with Holy Island off the Northumberland Coast.

The original St Cuthbert’s Way was a pilgrimage route. Today, it is of course, far more than this. For those interested in religious history our cycling tour visited the abbeys at Melrose, Kelso, Jedburgh, and Dryburgh. While, for the more general historian there was a Roman signalling station and a Roman road, not to mention the border itself, a violent battleground in the Middle Ages.

Finally, we had the excitement of cycling across the causeway, only passable at low tide, onto Holy Island itself.

This tour was organised as a challenge to celebrate Nicholl turning 50. There will actually be two tours taking place at the same time! There was a walking tour and a cycling tour, with the two groups meeting up for the evening at the end of each of the final three days. Sarah, Neil and Nicholl walked the official St Cuthbert’s Way, while Andy P and Andy S cycled a Borders coast-to-coast inspired by St Cuthbert’s Way.