That perfect moment when you reach the best viewpoint on the walk just as the light comes good.
Scott’s View, a few miles east of Melrose in The Scottish Borders, was a favourite of Sir Walter Scott - arguably Scotland’s greatest writer - and it’s said that his horses were so used to stopping here that as they drew his cortège on his final journey they stopped here automatically, allowing the funeral party to take in the view.
Of course, they probably set out a bit earlier in the day and weren’t only half way round their planned route, so didn’t end up a couple of hours later stumbling along an icy path next to the river Tweed in almost total darkness, wondering whether they might be lucky enough to:
1) See some wildlife and then, in the absence of anything interesting other than a few irritated ducks, having to Google whether otters hibernate and then discover that they don’t and are probably just asleep in strands of kelp, according to Wikipedia, which seems, frankly, unlikely.
2) Not slip into the water and become a paragraph in the local paper beginning “Police have reminded walkers to pay attention to the time of sunset after the tragic and entirely avoidable death of a local photographer whose body was found washed up in a bed of kelp, badly nibbled by otters.”
Still, it was a lovely view. And you can book to stay in The Five Turrets right right now if you want to see it for yourself. It's otterly fabulous...
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