All Things Scottish, Day 2

Fresh from a night's sleep and full Scottish Breakfust courtesy of The Meadhon House B&B in Jedbugh, I decided to catch some of the scenic southern coastline while there was the appearance of good weather (the forecasts were not optimistic.) So I headed over the St. Abb's and St. Abb's Head and Lighthouse for some sea cliffs, moor walking, and similar unwinding to get settled in.

Abb's Head is a very nice walking area and for the most part it was sunny and blue skies -- but overall it could be sunny one moment, then raining hard for a minute or two, then cycling back to beautiful. All the time, the wind was tremendous -- not gusts, but consistent. Standing on a ridge, you had to brace yourself.

The wind managed to blow the sunglasses off the top of my head at one such point. I didn't realize it until about 1km later in the walk. Proud of myself -- I was able to backtrack to two specific points that were very windy, between the Last Known Position of Sunglasses Possession. Because these were high points and barren areas, I was able to find and recover them blown about 20' off the path. Yay me.

After this excursion of getting to be one with nature, I decided to spend the rest of the day visiting the famous Border Abbeys in this area of Scotland. Once the pictures are posted you'll see some of them, but you can look them up as well. I visited, in order:

• Kelso Abbey
• Dryburgh Abbey (favourite)
• Melrose Abbey
• Jedburgh Abbey

From a purely architectural point of view, you can see all of them in a day. They're the famous ones -- but there are certainly lots of chapels and abbeys in ruins dotting the entire Scottish landscape. Early in the day, I realized that the paying 3-5 GBP for every Interesting Place would quickly add up during my 16 days (This realization eluded me when I paid to visit Rosslyn Chapel) so I bought the annual pass to Historic Scotland.

The end of the day saw me return to Jedburgh to spend another night at the same B&B.