Scotland 2005

Sunday - Over the border

Wed - Thu - Fri - Sat - Sun

After breakfast at Comrie Croft Bill entertained our fellow inmates with tales of the far North.

 I'd left my right hand pannier lid down during the night to get rid of the smell of curry, by morning there was 1" of water in it, but no smell :)

Just a bit of filming to do before we hit the road for the last leg home.

On the way through Glasgow we stopped for a closer look at the Fourth Rail Bridge. It was completed in 1890 and made from 54,000 tonnes of steel and 7,500,000 rivets, its a magnificent sight.

Luckily we found the Queen's Gait Cafe open just by the bridge (multimap).

But this was the bridge we went over, the Fourth Road Bridge. Its just to the right of the rail bridge and you only pay a toll if your going North, so it was free for us :)

After weaving our way through the heavy Edinburgh traffic we picked up the A68, the scenic road home. From the outskirts of Edinburgh to the Scottish border the A68 is smothered with speed cameras, at every point you might be tempted to speed up a little, there's a camera, it didn't really make much difference to us, but it does feel intimidating, none the less, it is a brilliant road and great scenery.

The burger van at the Scottish Border (multimap) passports not required :)

And from the Borders south on the A68 I didn't see another camera, which says a lot for so called 'safety cameras' more like revenue cameras I think.

Our last stop was Wear View Diner (multimap) where incredibly we meet up with Patto and his wife enjoying lunch, we joined them and had Jam Roly Poly and custard, what a treat!

I'll end here, I hope you enjoyed reading this travelogue and perhaps it's given you some ideas of your own. We had a good trip, the weather could have been better but this is Scotland and you do have to expect a little rain at times :) My thanks to Bill for organising it, the route and accommodation in particular were brilliant.

And this is Nick playing with his R100RS on my driveway before the prang. He was out of hospital a few days after we got home from Scotland, but he's going to be off work for at least two months, he's in good spirits :)

The last route with 202 miles travelled

Garmin trail and waypoints download for today

Summery and Stats

Miles travelled (including home to Scotch Corner)                 1107 miles

Average miles per day                                                               221 miles

Average speed                                                                           44.6 mph

Total travelling time                                                                     24.51 hrs

Average travelling time per day                                                 4.9hrs

Dry days                                                                                       Nil

Best Hostel                                                                                  Sleeperzzz - but they were all very good

Time taken to assemble and write these pages                     At least two full days!

All the hostels and many more can be found here: Scottish Independent Hostel a very useful site.

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