Crossing the border into Scotland today. After a long day and a hilly day, it will be interesting to have a border crossing day. Gretna Green is featured in romance novels as the place where the young lovers escape to so they can be married without a license.
Weather is 10-14 degrees today, winds with south in them, rain this morning and fining up in the afternoon. Will we have the fabled tailwind?
As we travel further North, the routes become fewer, until when we get to the furthest points where there will only be one road and route to take. Aside from the odd city / large town, the navigation duties will be greatly reduced - which will be refreshing compared to some areas in the South where at times I felt like I was spending more time looking at the screen than the scenery!
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| U.K. National Cycle Network routes |
Had a conversation yesterday, as we were pedalling uphill and sheltering under trees from the rain, about whether we would do this trip again. The answer is no - not because we haven’t liked it. In fact, although it’s been really hard, we’ve loved it! However, not being morbid about it but practically, in looking at our physical capability span and annual time available, we could do a big bike trip 20ish more times? If that is the case, then there’s so many more to do - it’s not yet time to be repeating our pedalling journeys! EuroVelo / wine regions of France next perhaps?!
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| EuroVelo |
That is a digression and the big focus is cimpleting THIS trip as we’re not done yet!
And on that note, stop press, as of 1:30 today we made it to Scotland!!! That is 697 miles so far!
Today, after leaving the ‘least good’ place that we’ve stayed in so far (there is NO way that place got so many ‘real’ 5-star reviews!), the route was absolutely fantastic. It was fairly fast, no tow paths, quiet roads and beautiful scenery. We even enjoyed the ‘roller coaster’ roads - steep downs with enough momentum to get us at least half way up the next steep up. Also, enjoyed Steve singing Scottish songs along the way. Getting through Carlisle was quick and easy on the cycle paths into, through and out of town. Winds stayed from the north and there was no tailwind, but it was a nice autumn day.
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| Last of the Lake District hills in the distance |
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| Another farm - we see 10-15 of these an hour |
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| Photo taking patience |
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| Day breaking |
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| Cow-jam |
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| Watching as they all head up the path, all 140 of them |
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| Rose Castle |
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| Carlisle Castle |
Had a good second breakfast in a little ‘front room’ cafe - they’d taken the downstairs of a 2-down / 2-up house and made it into a cafe. We walked in, through the kitchen and into the front room where there were no tables so we were going to leave when a group of ‘likkle olds’ insisted we sit with them.
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| Haven’t seen one of these before |
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| Front room cafe |
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| A ‘can’t finish it all’ breakfast |
We picked up the signs to Gretna, 3 miles. Hey, wait a minute, the gpx route says 11 miles! Compared both. The gpx route did a big circular before heading into Gretna. Google bicycle maps took a left on a B road and went directly into Gretna. We’ll take the direct route today, thank you!
Two ongoing ‘challenges have been resolved - the princess and the pea pain on the ball of my foot and the mystery squeak, squeak, squeak that we’ve had on every pedal rotation for the past 3 days. The Engineer will cover the squeaking. The foot pain resolution turned out to be quite simple, I was pulling the 2 Velcro tabs across my toes too tight. If I leave those loose and only tighten up the ankle strap, no ball of foot pain! Thank god for that.
There’s an outlet mall here, but no room for shopping ☹️. Dinner at the hotel, it’s a small town, mostly chippies.
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| Counties in Scotland |
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| The estuary pouring into the Irish Sea |
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| Our first Scottish county |
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| Gretna, famous for weddings, Old Toll Bar Cafe - over 10,000 weddings |
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| Lands End, John O’Groats - the short route |
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| Gretna pub |
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| Penrith to Gretna |
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| First Scottish pint |
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| We made it, to Scotland that is! |
Never having been to Scotland, and with my obvious inclinations and catchy nickname from you two, what's the beer like there? The first pint looks more amber than I'm used to seeing in England...bigger taste? Higher alcohol? Ya can't just tease with a Pic (see what I did there?) of such a beautiful pint!
ReplyDeleteIt’s what the Scot’s would call “a pint of heavy”, this gives some indication of its strength, so that’s about 4% abv, they also do “light” which would be c 3.5% abv and “export” which is c 4.5% apparently there is “wee heavy” which is more than 6 %. You don’t see as much cask ale here as in England, the pint in the picture came from a keg. You will quite often see men especially with a pint and a “wee dram” ( a glass of whiskey) they will drink the two together, a gulp of beer and a wee sip of whiskey. They are renowned for being heavy drinkers but with some exceptions make happy drunks!! Will try to include more pictures as we progress through Scotland. The most common drink I think is Tennents which is an inexpensive lager. I am not a fan of it.
DeleteSorry Brian didn’t add the name though I guess it would be fair to assume it was me given Katherine’s love of all things beer!!
ReplyDelete