Walter’s and Arthur’s Adventure in the Scottish Borders

*This week, our Golden Retriever tour guide, Walter, takes over the blog to share his recent adventure bringing his younger brother, Arthur, to some of his favourite places in the Scottish Borders.

It’s been quite a long time since my mom and dad let me share my first story on this blog. In fact, it has been over a year since I recounted my visit to Loch Katrine on the Lady of the Lake boat, and, boy, has a lot happened since then! One of the biggest changes is that I got a new baby brother, Arthur. Like me, he’s also named after a famous Scottish writer. For those of you might know, my namesake is Sir Walter Scott and his is Sir Athur Conan Doyle.

I wasn’t sure what to think about Arthur when he first arrived, but I must admit that it has been fun to have a brother to play with again. However, he sure has a lot to learn, and I’ve been very busy trying to teach him all I know (keeping in mind that I’m still a young lad myself. At least that’s what I’ve heard my Dad say). Therefore, I’ve taken it upon myself to show him the ropes. For example, we spent a week camping in Aberdeenshire last summer and visited so many castles and awesome historic places. It was a lot of work to try to teach my little brother what it means to travel around Scotland and go on adventures. By the way, we still need to share the stories from that trip. So, be sure to subscribe to our blog (you can click the button at the end of this post) because Mom and Dad said we will be publishing those stories in the coming months. I can’t wait for you all to see some of the epic places we visited!

As I’ve said, I have been busy and take my responsibilities as older brother quite seriously. Arthur turns one at the end of this month and I think I’ve done a pretty good job training him during his first year. Although, I should make it clear that he has a long way to go before he’ll get to my level. Not to brag, but I’m already helping Dad take people on our historic walking tours around Edinburgh. Arthur is still in training and hasn’t been to the city centre yet. Dad said that we’ll have to wait and see if he’s even interested in joining him on the tours. In the meantime, I’ve made it clear to Arthur that I’m head canine tour guide and he’s still in-training (if you don’t believe me, just look at what our purple vests say- the proof is in the writing).

Anyway, now that Arthur is almost one, I decided he was ready for an important trip- I wanted to take him to visit some of my favourite places in the Scottish Borders. I saw it as a bit of a pilgrimage because we were going to visit the home of my namesake, Sir Walter Scott, as well as some other places connected to him, but I’m not sure if Arthur was taking it as serious as I was. You see, I think it’s important to tell you all, dear readers, that the origins of my name, Walter, means ‘commander of the army’. Ever since I was a wee pup, I have tried to let my siblings know I was in charge. I even tried to do this with my older brothers, Finn and Sawyer, before they sadly had to go over the Rainbow Bridge. Therefore, I had no problem taking on this role when my little brother, Arthur, came along.

However, trying to coral Arthur hasn’t always been easy. He is certainly true to his name origin as a fluffy ‘bear’ (boy does he have a ton of hair!). But don’t worry, he is more like a cuddly, goofy, Winnie the Pooh-type bear and not a scary one. In fact, he’s a little too goofy for my standards, but I’ve learned to work with what I’ve got. After all, it’s clear that he worships the ground that I walk on and admires all I do. Who am I to argue with those points of view?

Despite the obvious challenges, I set out with Arthur (and with Mom and Dad in tow) on a gloriously sunny day with hints of spring everywhere. The drive from Edinburgh to the Scottish Borders is one of our favourites and the weather just made the trip all the more magical. On our way there, I tried to instil the importance of this journey to Arthur, but he seemed too busy snoring. While I love to pay attention to everything when we go on car rides, they always seem to lull him instantly to sleep. I didn’t mind too much as it gave me a break from teaching and more time to take in the scenery.

As we got closer to our first stop, I woke Arthur up so that I could prepare him and give him a little background on its importance. I let him know that we were going to the home where my namesake, Sir Walter Scott, once lived- Abbotsford. Now, I’ve been there once before with my brother, Sawyer, but I was still in training and not a fan of posing for pictures just yet. However, I didn’t share that bit of information with Arthur. He doesn’t need to know about my wild, early days.😉 If you haven’t already, be sure to read our article on Abbotsford so that you can learn more about its history and general information. I just hope that Arthur likes the place as much as I do!

Abbotsford

There is so much to see and do at Abbotsford- it’s a dog’s paradise. They are very dog-friendly, and we are allowed to go everywhere except, understandably, in the exhibition and house. Otherwise, we can go in the café (which you can see I was already thinking about in the photo below) and all around the grounds. In fact, there are an extensive network of paths throughout the estate.

One of the newer trails is Witch Corner, and my older brother, Sawyer, wrote about his visit to it. Sadly, it was the last major adventure he went on. However, to honour his memory, I took Arthur on the trail and told him all about how awesome Sawyer was and all I learned from him.

While it was fun reminiscing, it was time to head to the main attraction- the gardens and house. The gardens aren’t in full bloom yet, but they are still beautiful year-round, and I took Arthur for a wee walk through them. They also provide an impressive view of the house.

We have a lot of fun visiting places on our ‘explore and discover’ missions, and that includes posing for the obligatory pictures that Dad likes to take everywhere we go. Therefore, we let him get some photos of us at various spots around the house.

I know that I said that I take my duties as older brother serious, but don’t worry, I also like to have fun. In fact, while it may seem that Arthur and I are busy posing non-stop for Dad, we also love to take time to run around and have fun whenever we are on our adventures. You can see proof of this in the video below of us goofing off in front of Abbotsford.

We adore Abbotsford so much, Mom and Dad got unlimited tickets so that we can go back and explore throughout the year. They also told me that we will be visiting again in April so we can go on a special ‘March Hare Trail’ that they will set up along the Witch Corner folklore trail. I can’t wait to take Arthur on this.

If you are in the Scottish Borders, we highly recommend that you visit Abbotsford. While the estate grounds are always free to visit (except for the Witch Corner trail), we encourage you to also explore the house which is an incredibly important historic landmark in Scotland. The money you pay to visit the house will help keep it available for future generations. In these difficult financial times, they need our help more than ever! Visit the Abbotsford website for more information.

While we had a wonderful time at Abbotsford, we still had a few stops left on our wee adventure around the Scottish Borders, and we needed to head out so that we had time for all that I had planned. The Borders are known for their once grand medieval abbeys, and I let Arthur know that we were going to visit two of them. First up was Dryburgh Abbey- the resting place for Sir Walter Scott.

Dryburgh Abbey

My parents have written about Dryburgh Abbey before, so you can check out that article for more history on it. For this visit, I tried to get Arthur to understand the solemness of the occasion (as you can see by my expression below), but that silly little guy never stops smiling and often has a goofy expression on display.

After paying our respects, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to show off a bit and demonstrate my agility to Arthur.

I must have provided some inspiration because he decided to display a little dexterity of his own when he posed with me.

After we let Dad take a few more photos of us, I signalled that it was time to move on. The next location on my itinerary was Melrose Abbey.

Melrose Abbey

There are connections to Sir Walter Scott all around the Scottish Borders as the region was such an important part of his life. This includes Melrose Abbey. My parents told me that he oversaw the restoration of the Abbey in 1822. He also famously wrote a poem, ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’, about it. Here’s an excerpt:

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,

Go visit it by the pale moonlight;

For the gay beams of lightsome day

Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey.

When the broken arches are black in night,

And each shafted oriel glimmers white;

When the cold light's uncertain shower

Streams on the ruin'd central tower;

When buttress and buttress, alternately…

Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit by moonlight, and restoration/conservation work is clearly a never-ending task as evidenced by the scaffolding all around Melrose Abbey. My Dad told me that Historic Environment Scotland now oversees the Abbey and the interior is unfortunately closed as a precautionary measure while they “undertake high level masonry inspections”. Fortunately, you can see photos of the interior from when my parents visited in 2020 in the article they wrote about it.

An important section that I made sure to show Arthur was where legend says that King Robert the Bruce’s heart is buried. We stopped at the stone marker and paid our respects. After that, Dad took pictures of us around the Abbey.

He also told us about the Abbey Museum. Dogs aren’t allowed inside, but he said it’s a lovely wee museum with artefacts from the Abbey as well as archaeological artefacts from Roman times in Scotland (speaking of Roman times, our recent visit to the Auld Kirk Museum in Kirkintilloch featured Arthur and I posing next to where the Antonine Wall once stood). Here are some photos Dad said I could share from his visit inside the Melrose Abbey Museum:

It was fun to visit the abbeys, but the next stop on our adventure was to visit a Scottish legend.

The William Wallace Statue

Now, my parents have visited the National Wallace Monument, and I definitely want to visit there with Arthur, but, for this trip, I wanted to show him another monument to the iconic Scottish hero- a statue of him nestled in the Borders’ countryside. We stopped in an unassuming small car park just off the main road and excitedly set off for a wee walk through the woods. I perked up my ears when I saw our old friend in the distance, just waiting for us to pay him a visit.

Along the way I told Arthur a bit about William Wallace. We also posed carefully for Dad so he could get some nice pictures of us.

After a bit of a sniff about, we eventually made our way back to the car park. As you can see in the video below, Arthur likes to pretend he knows where he’s going when he’s off lead but knows that he really needs me to help guide him on the right path. Once we got back to our car, I let Arthur know that we had one more stop to go before heading home.

Scott’s View

I saved the best for last and brought Arthur to one of my favourite lookouts in the Scottish Borders- Scott’s View. As the name implies, it said to be one of Sir Walter Scott’s favourite views as well. As we looked out over the picturesque landscape, Arthur was calm and seemed to understand the importance of our wee adventure through the Borders. I told him that this was just the beginning, and I had so much more that I wanted to show him. But that would have to wait for another day. In the meantime, we were happy to be together and enjoy the never-ending beauty that Scotland has to offer.

If you’ve enjoyed this wee adventure to the Scottish Borders, you can continue to follow our canine (and human) explorations around Scotland on our various social media channels- Bluesky, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Threads, and TikTok.

Until next time- Explore & Discover!

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