Wednesday 5 October 2016

Strollers Walk No. 210 - Wednesday 19th October 2016, Peebles, Venlaw Hill, Janets Brae

Walk No. 210:   Peebles, Venlaw Hill, Soonhope Burn, Janet's Brae
Date:                Wednesday 19th October 2016
Distamce:         6 miles approximately

Started and finished at:     Edinburgh Road Car Park, Peebles

On what was supposed to be a sunny day but was a bit overcast, fourteen strollers met up for a walk round Venlaw and either a stroll down Soonhope Burn or a longer walk through Glentress forest. Walking up Venlaw, and passing the quarry from where the stone was quarried for a lot of the houses in Peebles, there was a slight flurry of rain but luckily it wasn’t heavy enough to expand the many puddles from the previous night’s rain. The slope down to the Soonhope Burn seemed steeper than last time but at least there was now a fence to hold on to. Crossing the burn and going up the hill to the path also seemed steeper, is this a memory or an age thing, or both? A couple of strollers elected to go back down the path by the Soonhope Burn passing the holiday cottages built after the Second World War and make their way down to Peebles. The rest declined the offer of going straight up the hill from where we were into Glentress and Janet’s Brae, and instead we followed the path up the Soonhope Burn and then cut off to follow the forest road into Glentress. It seemed to keep going up for a long time. Keeping our eyes peeled for cyclists we worked our way ever upwards to the Buzzards car park and a break for lunch. We didn’t see any buzzards just lots of happy cyclists on their school holidays and the ingenuity of one being pulled up the hill by a car and a tow rope. From there we made our way down Janet’s Brae and past Peebles Hydro back into Peebles and time for a snack before going home. Looking forward to a flatter railway path walk in November!
Many thanks yet again to Drew for arranging our walks. Hope to see you all in November.