We went walking most weeks and discovered areas that we had never been to before that were accessible from our respective homes. This then developed into an embryonic idea of walks from the local stations on the newly opened Borders Railway.
There was a lot of time spent pondering over OS maps, drinking tea and looking for new areas to explore. By getting our boots on the ground we discovered new places, rediscovered previous walks and learnt a lot about the history and folklore of the area.
As the project gathered momentum, we realised that nobody had written a book about walking from the stations in the Scottish Borders and we were keen to share our knowledge so that other people could benefit from it.
After two and a half years our vision became a reality when we self-published Border Station Walks in 2020 and were surprised, and flattered, that people wanted to buy the book and even shops wanted to stock it!!
Inspired by this success we embarked on doing another book, Midlothian Station Walks which is currently close to being finished and will be published early next year. It is covers walks from the Shawfair, Eskbank, Newtongrange and Gorebridge stations and again has been a voyage of discovery in an area that we had never previously walked.
On a cold day in February, we were out walking in the Gorebridge area when we got chatting to a lone mountain biker who had stopped to look at an unusual breed of goats at Camp Wood Farm.
It transpired that John Nicol, was a design director at Industry Cottage Ltd, based in Gorebridge and we were researching walks for a book. This was obviously serendipity at work and with his enthusiasm for our project we started working together which has taken us far from our humble beginnings.
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