A708, Yarrow and Ettrick

Last weekend we took a trip up the A708, returning through the Ettrick valley. The weather was grey and cold, and we were both still recovering from winter illnesses (that's our excuse!) so a nice drive in the car was chosen as our outing for the day.

The A708 is one of my favourite roads; not by frequency because I've only been on it about 4 times; but because that normal-looking yellow line on the map hides the truth that it is a road with landscapes of epic proportions.

We travelled up the M74 and came off at Moffat (we'll have to spend more time there one day) and onwards up towards Selkirk. On the way we passed the Grey Mare's Tail waterfall and St Mary's Loch. There were some rather odd imprisoned Scots Pine trees:



The main reason for the trip was to visit the standing stones in the area, starting with the Glebe Stone , near to Yarrow village.

Yarrow Kirk, built in 1640, had a wonderful sundial


Snowdrops under the trees, and enchanted white horse as a "Neigh"bour (!)



There is a lovely churchyard, with very old gravestones including this fantastic skeleton, which was procariously holding up a horizontal tomb cover. For more info on Skeletons on gravestones see this page.



Another with a flower, carved in sandstone:



At Yarrow we turned south and took the little road which crossed a remote pass, complete with Pele Tower which has been restored and I think is now home to Lord Steele.


Here we stopped for lunch of chili cheese sandwiches and licorice tea. When we continued downhill we joined the B7009 and headed south again, through the Ettrick valley.

We stopped briefly at the Samye Ling Buddhist centre near Eskdalemuir, (I considered going inside to see if anyone there owned up to recently sending me a "Shout Gouranga Be Happy" message to my house voicemail, resulting in it being read by Tom Baker which was quite surreal! )



Then down to the M74 again, passing Lockerbie and thinking of the crash again. A future trip may be to visit the memorial there.