Saint Cuthbert's Way, Part Two: Melrose to St. Boswells, Scotland Melrose Abbey, Scotland David and I hike out of Melrose at 11:00, after a morning spent touring the ruins of the abbey. It becomes immediately obvious that the planners of Saint Cuthbert's Way, lacking a detailed itinerary of his journey, decided to indulge in a certain vindicative sadistic streak. The most startling of their sins is a tendency to send the trail switch-backing up the sides of every mountain between Melrose and Lindisfarne. The designers, presented with a choice between a leisurely stroll around the base of a hill and a path that ascends over a heather-clad peak, will invariably select the course with the greater scope for cardiovascular improvement. This nastiness becomes apparent in our earliest minutes on the trail. The smell of hot oil and cod, wafting from the last fish and chip shops of Melrose, has barely cleared our nostrils before we are forced into an ascent of the Eildo
