After last nights sunny views of the beef tub this mornings were a bit damp in comparison, but that's what non stop rain will do to you!
I got a bit lucky packing up in a dry spell, so getting off worked well, the Annandale way path cuts out a loop of road going up and over a soggy lump of hill, not a huge gain from dodging the traffic!. Straight off of the road again and down a long soggy (spot the theme here?) track into the valley, plenty of cows galloping up expecting to be fed... Sorry girls!
At the bottom of the valley I join a nice single track road that runs all the way into Moffat, one last was doing multiple school runs past me so lots of smiles and waving going on! I do like how strangers can bond like this! It's one of those little things that gets you through the day :-)
Into Moffat I stop at the right cafe for breakfast, not only does it say walkers welcome but there's a pic of two border terriers up as well!, got served by a pretty blonde girl who got way to much attention from an old Londoner who comes in every day... Think I see why! Lol
Provisions topped up and out of town passing various gothic buildings! Under the M74 and I meet an old friend/adversary! the southern upland way! Distant memories of 2000 when I set out on what was then only my second long distance walk! How many miles I've walked since then!!!
Up hill and my brief filtration with the past is cut short as The Annandale way carries me away in a generally southern and definitely rainy direction! Keep having to check if I'm growing gills these days! Nothing fishy about me or the path or likely even in the murky Kinnel water river, up into Oldshields wood they are typing down the trees to stop disease in the Larches, so the usual forestry devastation is my surrounding until normal woodland swallows me, emerging onto a road I cross into normal farmland, it takes a while for it to sink in that I'm out of the southern uplands here, it's starting to feel English! With the beech trees thinning out and Oaks becoming more common, past a cow farm and the usual churned up fields, then east along a Lane, it's here I find today's curiosity two plastic chairs fixed to the fence called Nono's seat, complete with a visitors book and claims to have its own Facebook page!... I'll have to look it up.... I think?
South again and I'm into woodland called Speedlings flow and nearby Speedlings tower, but by this stage I'm just concentrating on finding a pitch, so into the woods and down for the night.
