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Maybe not the longest of our recent explorations and certainly doesn't make it onto the "Scotland's Great Trails" compendium but the John Buchan Way looked interesting enough when made into a loop that we found ourselves parked up at the village hall in the hamlet of Broughton on a recent sunny morning.
The well signposted 'way' runs 22km over the tops from Peebles to Broughton (or in our case Broughton to Peebles) and immediately started upwards straight out the gate, up past the impressive looking Broughton Place and on up further onto the estate moorland.
The theme for the outbound leg was "undulating" as we descended on wonderful fast, grassy singletrack followed by climbing back high again. And then down again, catching views of Stobo Castle before crossing the Tweed and starting upwards once more and another drop to cross the Manor Water.
Next "up" took us over Cademuir and the final "outward" descent down into Peebles town.
A munch on a sandwich by the Bank House and it was about turn but we didn't want an out and back today so we headed out of town keeping the Tweed in sight as it flows toward Neidpath Castle. Onto the old Tweed Valley rail line and through the impressive Neidpath Tunnel. We stuck to the easy going rail line as long as we could until forced to jump on the B712 as we head back past Stobo toward Broughton.
We weren't quite finished with the railway yet though as we managed to pick it up again at Dreva and stay off the tarmac back into Broughton to end the loop with an ice cream at the village store.
Great day for it and set us up nicely for our next Long(er) Distance Path (coming to an STW post soon).
Cheers
Excellent! I can just imagine the fast grassy descents, looks like the Pentlands trails I cut my teeth on (well, for the few days a year they were dry and grassy at least).
Nice write up.
The tunnel section on your return will be "sanitized" and lit up in the (very?) near future as the "Tweed Valley Trail" gets built . This will be a hiking and biking trail from Moffat through Peebles to the coast following the River Tweed. Its said to be opening in 2 years time , but will probably be a lot longer in reality. Promoted as being for horse riders as well, so must be pretty much all off road? Sections will be a handy link for circular routes into the hills as well.
@Aggs2 - that sounds great - we have enjoyed riding trails such as the St Cuthberts Way, Southern Upland Way, Borders Abbeys Way so more routes in the area of this ilk is good by us. Cheers for the info.
