Adventures in
Scottish Lowlands & Borders.

The 7Stanes mountain bike network is the headline — one of the largest purpose-built networks in Europe — with paragliding on the Lanarkshire hills, cable wakeboarding on the East Lothian coast and the gentlest of the four Scottish hill ranges to walk in.

The Scottish Lowlands and Borders cover the southern third of mainland Scotland — the Galloway hills in the south-west, the Tweed Valley in the centre, the Pentlands south of Edinburgh, and the rolling Lothian and Borders country down to the English line. Six spots in the directory cover MTB, paragliding and wakeboarding — the region punches well above its visible size.

Glentress, in the Tweed Valley near Peebles, is the flagship of the 7Stanes network — seven purpose-built mountain bike centres scattered across the southern uplands. Glentress alone has more than 50km of waymarked trail; the wider network adds Innerleithen, Newcastleton, Dalbeattie, Mabie, Ae and Kirroughtree. Together they form one of Europe's most extensive MTB destinations and the southern-Scotland weekenders' beating heart.

Tinto Hill in South Lanarkshire (Cloudbusters Paragliding Centre) is the region's longest-running paragliding venue — a perfect 707m Marilyn with clean prevailing-wind fetch and easy walking. Foxlake Wakeboarding on the East Lothian coast near Dunbar is Scotland's first dedicated cable wakeboard park — opened 2010 on a former limestone quarry, half an hour east of Edinburgh by train. Wild Shore Dundee, a cable park inside the city on a former dock, completes the wakeboarding triangle.

The Borders themselves are walking-and-cycling country — the St Cuthbert's Way (62 miles from Melrose to Lindisfarne), the Southern Upland Way (212 miles, the UK's only true coast-to-coast crossing of Scotland), the Tweed Cycleway, and a gentler set of hills than the Highlands offer. Quiet, well-served by rural inns, half the prices of comparable Highland stays.