Ribs well-lined with a bowl of good Scottish porridge, we set off southwards from Lockerbie to continue along the Annandale Way, and soon found ourselves in Eskrigg Nature Reserve.
Leaving the woods behind, we crossed open fields where sheep continued to graze, heedless of our passage.
We soon came to the village of Kettleholm, where my father used to spend his summers as a boy. Here we veered off the course of the Annandale Way to poke about some of the places he remembered. We stopped for a delicious bowl of soup at the Kettleholm shop, in the former village post office, a stop I highly recommend for walkers on the Annandale Way! The friendly shopkeeper makes sandwiches to order and serves up bowls of piping hot soup and home-baked desserts. The only drawback: the shop is so small, only one person can sit down at a time! I ate my soup standing at the counter and chatting with the owner.
When we were tired out from exploring Kettleholm, we headed back to the bus stop in front of the shop, and just as we were wondering how long we would have to wait - along came a bus, full of students on their way home from school. It dropped us off right in front of our accommodations for the night, the historic Ecclefechan Hotel.
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| The Ecclefechan Hotel |
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| Thomas Carlyle's house |
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| My great-grandfather's house |
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| Ecclefechan churchyard |
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| Ecclefechan Tart |
Lockerbie - Kettleholm (with assorted wanderings) 17.5 km
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