Thursday, 14 July 2016

Day 11 – Wetheral to Abington

Posted on 14th July, but written on Tuesday 12th July


Well, WHAT A DAY!!

The day started off so well – we made it to Gretna i.e. SCOTLAND, at about 9am and took quite a few pictures – jubilant that we’d made it after 10 days of cycling. I think it was about 10 minutes later that we all suddenly realised we still had over 400 miles to go!!

So off we went on our way, travelling quite fast – we (Sarah and I) made it to Lockerbie at 11.45am and decided to have an early lunch. Lockerbie was 32 miles into the 66 total mileage for the day – so you can see why we thought we were doing so well.

Then it all started going downhill from there. I increased my pace and left Sarah only to discover that the going was decidedly TOUGH.
  • The wind was head-on (as Sarah has pointed out – hence why the Clyde Wind farm is where it is!!??)
  • The road surface was DREADFUL. Basically we were on the old “A” road which had a tarmac surface of extra-large chippings; and a white line drawn 3 foot in, to suggest a cycle lane. So the “cycle lane” was full of loose chippings, old tarmac and over-grown trees/shrubs….
  • The motorway was on our right and the train line on our left (most of the time) so lots of noise from the Motorway – no babbling brooks!
  • Scenery a bit boring in the Borders


And then to cap it all – my bottom started hurting from the “lumpy” road surface!! Oh No!

Then, with 6 miles to go, the batteries on my Garmin GPS died and my other Garmin told me I was off-course, so naturally I started panicking, even though I knew I was going the right way…

By the time I got to the hotel I was feeling really sorry for myself and completely shattered. In fact it’s taken about 2 hours to start feeling human again. Managed to speak to Geoff and off-load my awful day on him – what are husband’s for??!!



Soon be time for supper and a glass of white wine, methinks!

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