My Southern Upland Way Journey
Hello, I’m John and I live in wonderful, always sunny (well, nearly always), Bolton in Greater Manchester. Between late June and early July 2026 I walked the 214 miles of the Southern Upland Way (although I actually walked 225 miles!) from west to east in 14 days in mostly pretty dreadful weather. That at least had the advantage of keeping the notorious Scottish midges (those with 6 inch teeth) away but did nothing at all for my ‘zen’ en-route. It was the 8th complete multi-day long distance footpath I’d completed.
Each evening I jotted down a few notes and turned it into this day-by-day diary of a walk that, at various times along the way, I both cursed and loved!
The Southern Upland Way (or SUW as we in the know like to refer to it) is a 214 mile national trail, not too surprisingly in the south of Scotland! It runs north east from the seaside town Portpatrick in the west to Cockburnspath in the east, slightly away from the coast for some reason, starting in Dumfries and Galloway and ending in the Scottish Borders.
If you want to know all about the SUW with fabulous photos, videos – far better than any of mine – and a complete itinerary click here. However, the DG (Dumfries and Galloway) website seems to suggest that it should be done in only perfect weather and when all the footpaths are freshly mown and free from diversions and fallen trees. In other words, just a tad idealised!
It’s claimed that just 1,000 people walk the entire SUW per year compared with about 50,000 who complete the West Highland Way. Having plodded my way across the whole 214 miles I find the 1,000 per year finishers (3 per day) quite difficult to believe as the trail was generally in pretty poor, overgrown condition.
The start at Portpatrick
I set off from Portpatrick on 27th June and arrived at Cockburnspath on 11th July. For me the walks were a series of ‘day walks’ as I had my own personal Sherpa in my wife Noelene who ‘drove’ the SUW carrying my luggage from point to point. Yeah, I’m a wimp compared with proper long distance trail walkers who carry everything with them. Not only that but we stayed in decent hotels, pubs and B&Bs for the entire route. As Noelene said, ‘It’s my holiday too and I’m not staying in any ****holes!’
For navigation I did carry the two 1:25k OS maps from the National Trail guide, tightly wrapped in plastic and in the bottom of my rucksack. But you know what? They never migrated to the top once – except when I had to empty the rucksack to dry it overnight one evening.
I navigated the entire route using a combination of my Garmin Montana handheld GPS (my leaving present from work 11 years ago and still going strong) and the Outdoor Active app on my Pixel 6 mobile phone (more about that later!).
Here’s a day by day summary (click on any leg to go to that day’s walk and any GPX File Download for the mapping):
Leg From To Miles Time (hh:mm:ss) Minutes/mile (mm:ss) GPX File Download
0 Bolton Portpatrick 216 4:45:00 01:19
1 Portpatrick Castle Douglas 14.96 5:27:52 21:54 Portpatrick to Castle Kennedy
2 Castle Douglas Waterside 20.27 8:08:11 24:05 Castle Kennedy to Waterside
3 Waterside Loch Trool 12.30 5:18:21 25:53 Waterside to Loch Trooly
4 St. John's Town of Dalry Smittons Bridge 8.00 3:23:00 25:23 St. John's Town of Dalry to Smitton's Bridge
Day 5 Loch Trool St. John's Town of Dalry 20.60 7:38:06 22:14 Loch Trool to St. John's Town of Dalry
Day 6 Smittons Bridge Sanquhar 20.01 8:19:32 24:58 Smitton's Bridge to Sanquhar
Day 7 Sanquhar Wanlockhead 8.04 3:27:41 25:50 Sanquhar to Wanlockhead
Day 8 Wanlockhead Moffat 23.05 9:30:36 24:45 Wanlockhead to Moffat
Day 9 Moffat St.Mary's Loch 20.44 7:37:22 22:23 Moftat to St. Mary's Loch
Day 10 St. Mary's Loch Traquair 13.58 5:21:29 23:40 St. Mary's Loch to Traquair
Day 11 Traquair Melrose 18.35 7:11:07 23:03 Traquair to Melrose
Day 12 Melrose Lauder 10.71 4:18:56 24:11 Melrose to Lauder
Day 13 Lauder Longformacus 15.50 5:45:12 22:16 Lauder to Longformacus
Day 14 Longformacus Cockburnspath 19.49 7:46:54 23:57 Longformacus to Cockburnspath
Totals: 225.30 89:14:19 Average: 23:54
And here’s my finisher’s certificate:
