It’s surprising how much you can manage to squeeze into a day with an early start. I’d left home the back of 4 this morning and was down, south of the border, in Berwick-upon-Tweed with the boots on by around 6.30 a.m. In Berwick there’s little chance of running out of things to do. A walk round the Elizabethan town walls and out to the end of the long breakwater was first on the cards.
By 9 o’clock, when the streets were starting to get busier, it seemed just the time to escape for a while and to enjoy a quiet walk along the banks of the Tweed. At Berwick, the Tweed ends its 97-mile long journey in great style as it flows under the impressive 28-arched viaduct of the Royal Border Bridge. A heron standing down by the shore posed for its picture.
The Riverside Path leads through part of the old 1297 defensive town walls and on for several miles into open countryside to cross the Tweed over the Borders Bypass Bridge before returning by the opposite bank and the 15-arched James VI Bridge.
Then, with a well-earned ice-cream in hand, it was off to explore a bit more of the town and its fine sandy beaches.
If stones could speak, what tales the stones of this old fortified town might tell. Few rivers and few towns have seen more a more turbulent past as the Tweed and Berwick and there’s no better way to hear these stories than on foot.
