St Cuthbert’s Way Day 1 would see us walking from Melrose to Newton St Boswells – a distance of about 3.5 miles.

We had travelled up to Melrose on Saturday and stayed over so that we would be ready to start our St Cuthbert’s Way walk on the Sunday. We had booked the train to get there but certain health related issues meant that at the last minute we had a change of plan and drive up. It did mean we had a nice break at Tebay Services on the way up.

Sunday we started out on our St Cuthbert’s Way adventure. The walk starts outside Melrose Abbey.

From the Abbey we walked past the entrance to the National Trust Priorwood Garden.

We walked up Dinglewood Road before turning off down an alley on the left hand side.

We were almost immediately out of town and started climbing – first by a series of wooden steps and later along a path.

We were climbing up to the Eildon Hills and we soon got our first glimpse of them ahead of us.

As we continued to climb, the views behind us were very impressive!

After a brief break, we continued up, following a path that would take us between Eildon Mid Hill and Eildon Hill North.

Our path then contnued down the other side between the two hills (Eildon Mid Hill and Eildon Hill North).

The path took us through Broad Wood and on though Greenside Plantation.

Having crossed the style, we stopped in the field to have our lunch.

After lunch we continued up through another wooded area.

We passed through Bowden.

We headed out of Bowden towards Bowden Kirk.

Our path followed then became a lovely green track that more or less followed the Bowden Burn.

As we reached Newton St Boswells, we turned off the path slightly to the Dryburgh Arms pub, there we were staying for the night.

Having checked in to the pub, it was now time for part two of the days adventure. Neil and I ran back to Melrose, via a different and more direct route to collect the car.

When we returned to the Dryburgh Arms, it was time to uphold our cycle tour ritual of the ‘perfect pint’, which was very welcome after a warm day of walking and running!

You can view the our St Cuthbert’s Way Day 1 walking route from Melrose to Newton St Boswells below, which was 5.1 miles and included 782 feet of climbing.

Our return route back to Melrose was only 2.8 miles and only 265 feet of climbing.