St Cuthbert’s Walk – Lindisfarne to home via Melrose – Day seven.

Today, there was very little walking to do. All we had to do was get back to Melrose to pick up the car and drive home, but we had to get there first.

Of course, there wasn’t a daily bus service to the island, despite all the numerous visitors. I had phoned a lovely lady at Borders Buses yesterday and had spent a considerable amount of time discussing the various ways of getting back. The buses served Lindisfarne on Wednesdays and Saturdays only (why are we so hopeless at public transport?) but she went beyond the call of duty with her research to get us to Melrose by public transport (bless her), informing me that we had to get a taxi to the A1, catch a bus from there to Berwick upon Tweed and then another bus to Melrose. With the information scribbled over three takeaway boxes, we decided that if we needed a taxi to get to the mainland anyway, we might as well go the full hog and get him to take us straight to Berwick. Let’s make life easy and less complicated. We had ordered one for 9:30 this morning.

So we rose early again and had tea in bed with biscuits. No need to snuffle today. We stuffed all our gear down to two bags – rucksack and suitcase – as we had a lot of lugging to do between here and Melrose and wandered down for our final English breakfast.

To be honest, we didn’t really want it, but as we had already eaten five, we felt it only right to have a sixth to celebrate again. We clinked our orange juice glasses together. The chap from the bar last night was serving breakfast and he was in the same clothes as last night – had he been up all night or had just collapsed on his bed for a few hours, too tired to undress? We didn’t enquire.

We bounced our bags down the stairs and went outside. Our taxi was already waiting which was perfect. We chatted to him as we drove across the causeway and looking at where we had walked yesterday. The sun still shone and it was beautiful.

He dropped us off at the rail station, busy with anxious travellers as trains had been delayed or cancelled. We stood by the bus stop in the sunshine and waited for our bus to appear. The bus finally chugged its way to where we were waiting and we climbed aboard, getting window seats. We had a delightful 1.5hour magical mystery tour of the Scottish borders, through towns and villages and lovely rolling countryside. The bus never got full at all and when people got off in a small sleepy community, you wondered what they were going to do there. Finally, we could see the Eildon Hills rise in the distance – it seemed we had climbed them years ago, but it was only 5 days ago. We looked at them through steely eyes – they looked small and unremarkable now after our hilly walks over the Cheviots. What a fuss we had made over them. The bus pulled off the main road and dropped into Melrose, stopping outside Burt’s Hotel. It was weird to be back. We dragged our luggage to the car, thankfully still in the car park untouched – no parking ticket, no wheel clamps and still with 4 wheels. We dumped the bags in the boot and headed for a coffee shop for sustenance, sort of reluctant to leave. The holiday was practically over and deep down, we didn’t want it to.

Eventually, we went back to the car and pulled out of Melrose. We took the A7 back to the M6, a very scenic route through Border towns and through a stunning valley of towering hills. The sun shone, but there were dark clouds all around. The three of us were quiet as we drove home, each of us in our own little thoughts.

We arrived back mid afternoon, our eldest daughter coming to visit us for the weekend and had the kettle on. And on the dining room table, she had bought two bouquets of flowers and a big box of sweets with a congratulatory message underneath. It was the perfect ending to a really fabulous week.

We used Walk With Williams who booked our accommodation and transferred our luggage. They offered an excellent service with a detail itinerary with the option of maps and a St Cuthbert’s Way guide book – which we never got round to burning…………….