Jedburgh to Falstone

July 21, 2025

Today is our last day in Scotland and it gave us a wonderful send-off.

We had a ‘why we tour” ride with a little bit of everything: some climbing, some gravel, beautiful weather, mountain vistas, a lovely forest, a beautiful lake, hardly any people, and we arrived at a great little inn in Northumberland, England. We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. (Which we were, but it was also outside the village of Falstone, which itself is tiny.)

We felt sad leaving Scotland and had one of our nicest Scottish breakfasts, which was a poached egg, avocado and grilled tomato. Truth be told, I am getting pretty tired of Scottish breakfasts. At nicer places there is some variation, but the full Scottish - even when I leave off the sausage, haggis, toast, toasties, and black pudding, is getting a bit tiresome for me. A few times I have even resorted to forgoing the cooked breakfast in favor of yoghurt and fruit. Dave, on the other hand, continues to wolf down anything and everything with gusto.

We had a bit more of a ride than I usually plan: 54 km with some climbing at the front of the day and then 11 km of gravel at the end. Based on the weather report, we took off at 10 am hoping to get into Falstone before a predicted 2 pm rain storm. (We are once again obsesssed with the weather report. When we had Eric and Melinda on the ride with us, Eric took over the responsibility of checking weather and that made us stop thinking about it…but Eric is gone now and it's back to us! Not to mention that Melinda worked out dinner plans during their time with us, which was a break for me).

The first 22 km was on small country roads with two small climbs and then one longer climb. It was fun climbing on roads with no traffic and after we reached the top we rode along a ridge with great views. We entered the Kielder Forest which is described as a working forest, which means logging, and we saw evidence of clear cutting. It reminded me of riding in Oregon (except we don’t have as many sheep there). Kielder Forest was established in the 1920’s and in the 1930’s the British expanded plantings in the Forest with the advent of the Depression and the need for employment by the masses of laid off workers. It was originally established to be a reserve for timber but today it is managed in a multipurpose way with recreation being a prime consideration.

The weather was cool but pleasant with only a slight cooling breeze, a big change of pace in Scotland which has been consistently windy.

The day was beautiful, the building storm clouds ominous.

Komoot did a funny trick by suggesting a brutal shortcut up an overgrown goat path and over a steep hill. There was no way we could do that and fortunately we were able to ride further around the hill and join up with the original route, with an additional 3 km in riding.

This is where Komoot's suggested route rejoined the main road. Unfortunately, I failed to get a shot of the start which was even sketchier.

We were having so much fun we didn’t mind the extra kilometers. The single lane road ultimately took us through a long lovely valley (sheep galore - but what else is new?) until we reached the border with England.

Here is the sign for entry into Northumberland, England:

In our rear view mirror, had we been going the other way, is the sign to enter the Scottish Borders:

And looking back, we bid a wistful and found farewell to bonny Scotland.

We then reached the far northwestern tip of Kielder Water, the largest manmade lake in Europe. Kielder Water was constructed by the British government in the 1960’s, when it was thought the country would need more water to fuel traditional large industry. The creation of the reservoir meant many farms were lost and about 95 people displaced, as well as the elimination of a rail line easement running to the Borders region. As it turned out, the water wasn’t necessary due to the decline of traditional industry and the improvement in techniques to minimize water usage, so its creation is often criticized. Today it’s a gorgeous recreational lake and if our ride around it is any indication, it’s underutilized.

By the time we reached the lake we were hungry and stopped to eat our lunch, having asked Allerton House to pack us a sandwich. We found a spot on the lake by a dock and enjoyed total quietude while we ate. In general, British sandwiches don’t rise to the occasion the way French sandwiches do; the bread is bland and soft and the innards indifferent. In addition, there is an extreme fondness for mayonnaise which is a serious nonstarter for me. In this case we had specifically asked for a no mayo ham and cheese but we got mayo anyway. It seems to be second nature for them to put mayo on sandwiches (and many other things), just like they always give you two eggs for breakfast, even when you ask for only one.

Thus revived we embarked on the next stage of our journey, which was a gravel trail all along Kielder Water to the east side. The gravel trail was an alternative to the regular cycleway marked on the road adjacent to the lake. The road itself was fairly quiet but I had read the gravel trail was in good condition. It was one of the most enjoyable gravel trails we have been on, the gravel being in perfect condition, and the forest and lake were quietly beautiful. We met only a few walkers, and many dogs, but no cyclists.

The options for riding and hiking were many.

That is Belle, the puppy in the distance with her parent, Ian.

This is Ian, Amanda and Bell (the puppy) from Gretna, Scotland, a town on the border with England in the east. Gretna was famous because it historically was the place that English couples eloped to in order to marry quickly. Bell was on the trail with her human parents, and we had a nice visit while they corralled Bell. It turned out their daughter had just graduated with her law degree so that of course generated a conversation about what she planned to do - you could tell they were very proud of her. I learned that if you wanted to practice in Scotland you had to take an extra year to get a Scottish diploma, since Scottish law is different.

The mellow gravel trail turned inward away from the lake and we had some stiff and marginally less bucolic riding up and down a hill, on some gravel not in nearly as good of condition. Eventually the trail neared the lake again and we even opted to stay on the gravel longer than anticipated because it was so pretty.

We enjoyed the forest even though we knew it was planted and managed.

We ultimately turned onto the paved road and had a 3 km downhill ride to the Pheasant Inn, our accommodations for the next two nights. They allowed us to check in early, and it proved to be a charming English country inn, with the benefit to us of clearly having been remodeled, so it lacked the slight shabbiness we have grown accustomed to with many Scottish country hotels. (Admittedly, it was also more expensive).

Our room was small, and the king bed took up most of the space, but the windows look outside onto a pleasant little courtyard and we had a rare arrangement where we could pull our bikes and gear in front of our room, and leave the bikes there. It has been a long time since we didn’t have to haul our panniers up flights of stairs, and separately park our bikes.

That evening we went into the pub for dinner, the pub looking like a charming pub in an English movie. Dave wandered in earlier - the internet being a little sketchy in our room, or so he claimed. But I think it was to check out the whisky collection in the fine little pub. When I joined him we had a nice visit with the two young women working the front room. Alice was a recent grad from the University of Durham. She was planning to take a gap year and was excited to learn she had just been hired to work in Morzine, France next year. She was really looking forward to skiing there.

The dinner menu was very interesting and presented us with a rare evening when we really could not decide what to order due to so many attractive options. This was unfortunate in its way because we decided to order two mains - which always turns out to be too much food, and which Jill at least always regrets. My goat cheese/onion tartlet on salad was delicious, but I ate the whole thing. Dave had a lovely salmon wrapped in puff pastry.

There was no Tour de France this night to stream since it was a rest day, but we took the opportunity to watch TdF Unchained, the Netflix documentary series. The realized the TV had Netflix installed and was easily able to pull up the show.

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 2,928 km (1,818 miles)

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Karen PoretThank you for your thorough details of the histories and surroundings on your tours! It is truly inspiring and lots of fun..
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