We have arrived at the infamous Gretna Green, well known in the UK as the first place over the border from England where, historically, eloping couples under the age of 21 could marry according to Scottish law without their parents’ consent, which was a requirement in England from 1754. Sure enough, as soon as we walked into Gretna Green the first person we saw was a bride.

She looked like she’d also walked the 38km/24 miles we had done today, given the crutch, or perhaps as Mark suggested, she had had a particularly wild hen night.

That is pretty much the wildest thing we’ve seen all day though, if you don’t count the cows who all lined up to say hello to Mark.

This happens every time we go near a field of cows, they think Mark is going to feed them. Maybe this is because he grew up on a dairy farm, as there’s nothing more comforting than having over 30 cows staring directly at you. That’s the great outdoors for you.

Which brings me to the handy tip, or as the Scottish Outdoor Access Code says: Where to “Go” in the great outdoors.

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to get graphic, or at least the only image I’m going to show you is one copied directly from the Mountaineering Council in Scotland, so you get the picture:

We’ve never needed a trowel and I’m not going that far. However, getting caught short doesn’t have to involve a trowel, and let’s admit it, men are much better equipped to manage this scenario. So girls, this handy tip is really for you. You have three options:

1. I’m sure the festival-going demographic amongst my readers have been introduced to things like the she-wee for unsavoury portaloos, which makes the sweeping assumption that if girls were shaped a bit more like men, all would be fine. If I had access to running water to clean a she-wee out in the middle of the Highlands, I’d probably already be somewhere that has a bathroom though, so this invention is useless in northern Scotland.

2. Avoiding the challenge of 1., I am eternally grateful to a friend of mine who gave me the fabulous gift that is knowledge of the pee-cloth. It’s way better designed and constructed than the name implies: silver impregnated, super hygienic and, well you can follow the link yourself for more details, probably even on a work laptop.

If that handy tip doesn’t work for you, then you can always do what I did today when passing through Ecclefechan, one of Scotland’s tiny rural villages with option 3:

3. Use your own personalised public toilets.

Inevitably, today, we have also reflected on our 21 days of walking through the length of Scotland and what our lasting memories will be. Broadly speaking, north of Glasgow has been breathtaking, south of Glasgow, less so. To be fair we’ve only seen the tiniest strip of land south of Glasgow, almost exclusively the B7076 and its associated, phantom cycle lane and we will not miss it.

We will miss the Highlands though with clean air, majestic scenery, delicious raspberries in the hedgerows, birdsong being the only sound you can hear and proper geography in the land beneath our feet. It has certainly filled our senses. We’ve even forgiven it for trying to kill us with ticks, attacker gulls, rocky, precarious paths, boggy paths, coronary inducing food and one day of torrential rain.

We’ve covered over 400 miles, 663km and seen only a handful of people. It has certainly left a lasting impression.

So before we head off tonight to the local fish and chippy with hopes of  experiencing our first ever deep fried Mars bar, I’ll leave you with a couple of videos that Mark managed to capture of some of Scotland’s rarest wildlife.

Distance – spent the whole day thinking it was going to be 33km, actually 38km, should have been way less than either of these as we have to walk 43km tomorrow. Every muscle needed for walking hurts.