TITLE: Weekend walk on the Southern Upland Way and John Muir Link
DATE: 2019-01-13
AUTHOR: John L. Godlee
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At the weekend, we made up a walk that took in some of the end of
the [Southern Upland Way] and some of the old John Muir Way, now
known as the [John Muir Link].

  [Southern Upland Way]: https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/borders/longformacus-cocksburnpath.shtml
  [John Muir Link]: https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/lothian/dunbar-dunglass.shtml

We set off from Abbey St. Bathans and over the Gurkha bridge, along
the river Whiteadder then up into the Lammermuir Hills towards the
coast. The first part of the walk was mainly through upland fields,
with a mix of little bits of plantation woodland and small roads and
tracks. Then as we descended towards the A1 and over the other side
(which required actually walking over the A1!) we entered Pease
Dean, which is a nice bit of woodland and pine plantation where we
spent the night.

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We both took bivvy bags and I set up a tarp over the top of us, to
guard against the rain but also to bring a sense of coziness. We
brought potatoes and broccoli which we fried in my trangia with some
leftover bacon grease, then in the morning we had some coffee using
the kettle. Leftover film canisters are my new preferred method of
taking small pots of grease, spices, coffee, etc. out on hikes.

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The next day we walked to Cockburnspath in the morning and stocked
up on food at the village shop, which was open at 10:00 on a Sunday.
On the cliffs behind Pease Bay we spent a good while watching the
surfers trying to beat out through the breaking waves. After
Cockburnspath the path is nice and varied through some woodland and
down to the coast, then it’s a mix of cliffs and beach to Torness
Nuclear Power Station. The power station is a weird feature of the
walk. There is a substantial concrete walkway all around the seaward
perimeter of the site and that is where the rout directs you. It’s
pretty brutalist in its appearance and it’s fun to get so close to
the power station, which I see from the train a lot.

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Trekking the last bit of the route is a bit boring. The golf course
at Dunbar goes right up to the coast and walkers are forced to skirt
around the edge of it. But then it’s an easy walk into town towards
the train station.

[Here is a shapefile of our route]. If you inspect the points you
will be able to see clearly where we camped on the Saturday night.
Also, my phone ran out of battery sometime on the second day, so the
last bit of the walk is filled in manually on QGIS.

  [Here is a shapefile of our route]: https://johngodlee.github.io/files/suw/suw.zip