Day 22: Beattock to Ecclefechan

Distance: 19.0 miles
Time: 5 hrs 20 mins
Weather: Rain, clearing later
Cumulative distance: 377.2 miles

Groudhog Day. More rain, similar route.

After the best night's sleep to date,  largely due to a very comfortable king size bed and total silence, I had a leisurely breakfast and chatted to some fellow guests from Ross on Wye. I checked out of the B&B and Sally kindly made a donation to CRUK.

The rain had arrived on schedule, but was expected to clear by midday. Most of my route followed a safe cycle track on the verge of the B road, with my close colleagues the A74(M) and the railway ever present. In many ways it felt like a repeat of yesterday's walk, but with a little more civilisation sprinkled in.

I skirted the town of Lockerbie, where in December 1988 Pan Am flight 103 bound for New York and Detroit was destroyed by an explosive device and crashed to the ground, killing all 259 on board and 11 local residents. It remains Britain's deadliest aircraft incident and deadliest act of terrorism.

A few miles later I arrived in Ecclefechan, the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle, the historian. He apparently left home aged 13 and walked 84 miles to go to university in Edinburgh.

I checked into the Ecclefechan Hotel and chatted with the owner. He was from Salford, near Manchester, had bought the hotel with his parents and is gradually refurbishing it throughout. My room, with another welcome bath, is certainly very comfortable.

Dinner was remarkably good value - macaroni cheese with chips, salad and garlic bread, Ecclefechan tart (raisins and nuts in pastry!) with custard, washed down with a couple of pints of Greene King Bohemian ale.

So England beckons tomorrow. I really can't believe that the Scotland stage is almost completed.