Bicycling in Scotland

DAILY JOURNAL OF BICYCLE TRIP TO SCOTLAND TAKEN BY JIM D OF CORBEIL, ONTARIO, CANADA JUNE 2001

INTRODUCTION
The bicycle trip was a major event in my life and one which I shall always remember even if I never do another one. It took a great deal of planning and some serious physical conditioning. I decided to write about it for the benefit of my friends who might be interested in making such a journey or just reading about it. I apologize for any spelling mistakes or mistakes in grammar. I am not a writer by profession.

PREPARATION PHASE
I discussed the trip with my nephew Bryan who had taken a journey on a bike through the north of Scotland in 2000. He was helpful in his comments and warned me off the idea of travelling extensively in the Highlands due to inclement weather and steep hills. Another source of information was from a man named Tony at the Sport Connection in North Bay. He advised me which one of the two machines, that I had to choose from to take on this trip, would best suit me. The road machine ( racer) would be his choice over the mountain bike. Pedalling effort was the big difference and for paved surfaces the racer bike is the way to go. I believe he was right. The bike moved easily on the flat and on moderate hills with very little rolling resistance. It proved to be comfortable with a special seat and handlebar mods which allowed me to sit in a more upright position. It carried the load well.
Physical conditioning was a definate consideration in the planning. I spent the previous six weeks prior to the trip riding the loaded bike for ten to fifteen miles each day. This allowed me to hit the ground running so to speak when I arrived in Scotland. I was used to the effort by that time and therefor suffered no aches and pains.
The bike was gone over by the Sport Connection and tougher new tires fitted along with the necessary hardware accessories for carrying pannier bags. Also splash guards, light, bell etc.
Telephone calls were made to Air Canada regarding the packing of my bike and the allowable amount of checked baggage. Two pieces of checked luggage ( one of which is the bike) and one carry-on bag was allowed.
Loner clothing and equipment was arranged from my friend Lloyd Argo. Some new clothing was bought in accordance with Lloyd's and Tony's advice. Mostly wet weather stuff.
An Ordinance Survey map ( 1 inch to 4 miles) was ordered over the internet from the UK. covering southern Scotland and Northern England. A Glasgow city map also bought.
The bike was disassembled at home with a careful view of what tools it would take to reassemble and maintain it in Scotland.(things get loose and need oiling from time to time)
My sister and my wife drove me to the airport in Toronto and helped me to the departure counter and from there I was on my own. My wife tells me that my sister cried after they left me because she was very fearful of what might become of me, going off with two wheels, a couple of suitcases, and a bank card. She need not have worried. The Scots are very welcoming and helpful and my planning had been pretty complete.
TUESDAY, JUNE 5TH, 2001
Arrived in Glasgow via Air Canada on time at 09:30 local time after leaving Toronto's Pearson airport 7 hours earlier. Rachel, the young lady who sat two seats from me on the plane was from Louisville Kentucky. She had many relatives on her father's side still living in Scotland. She studies photographic art at one of the colleges in Glasgow. She was kind enough to give me a list of things to see during my full day ( Wednesday) in the city. These were mostly art related things as I might have expected.
I found a big space in front of the car-hire kiosks in the arrivals section of the airport to put my bike together. I had checked the bike as one of my two pieces of baggage and thus it went for free. Nobody bothered me and I was at the task for about two hours. I had a couple of frustrations trying to fit things back on the bike the same way I had removed them but it all worked out in the end. I think that I was pretty tired and that didn't help with my mental processes. The lady at one of the kiosks gave me directions on how to get on my way into Glasgow. I think that if I had to do this over again I would have left the bike in its disassembled state and taken a taxi into the city and put it together after a good night's sleep.
The ride into Glasgow was pretty uneventful except that the bike was pretty heavily loaded and tended to shimmy or quiver a bit. Some of things I was carrying would have to be jettisoned in Glasgow somewhere.
I decided to ask my B&B hostess if she would keep them for a month until I returned. I am hoping that she will be receptive to that. Stopped for a sandwich at a mobile lunch caravan and when the lady gave me back my change from a L20 note, it was all in coins. I then turned around and asked the guy behind me what the coins were and he told me they were L1 coins. He had seen my Canadian flag on the back of my jacket and had seen my bicycle. I got my first dose of Scottish humour when the guy said I was going to need a "crash course" ( in the coinage) and then added the comment chuckling " metaphorically speaking of course".
They are very amusing people, the Scots.
Glasgow's west end which I saw on the way in from the airport looks pretty depressed. Quite a few down-and-out types walking the paths or sitting on benches. I biked beside the former shipbuiding area on the Clyde and this work has all but dried up now. I had to wonder whether some of these lost looking older guys were thinking back to their glory days prior to the 60's when all kinds of ships were built and launched here. When I got to the city centre things definately looked very upbeat there. A real beehive of activity. Looks like a pronounced amount of economic stratification here like everywhere else these days. Old heavy industry has died or gone somewhere else and new kinds of skills are now held in high value. It must be very hard for these guys to comprehend. Hell, it's hard for me to comprehend!
While I was killing a bit of time riding around the city core, I visited the area of 451 Argyll St where my great-grandfather William had a cabinetmaking business prior to his emmigration to Hamilton, Ontario about 1860. Alas, this was a bit of a disappointment because the old building had long since been knocked down to make way for modern development. I did however stand on the spot on the sidewalk very near to where the buisness must have been and noticed that across the street and down one block were old buildings of the vintage I was looking for. I was satisfied that that was roughly what it must have looked like in great-grandfather William's day.

Phoned home to my wife and left a message on the answering machine that I had arrived safely. Found the guest house where I had booked two night's accomodation after many references to the Glasgow street map. The roads seem to change their name at every second intersection. ( I later found that this is indeed often the case). I was greeted at the door by Vivienne the owner and shown to a tiny room on the third floor. She is allowing me to keep my bike inside the front door in the hall. A very nice lady. I will ask her to keep my excess baggage ( duffle bag, suitcase, Sony Walkman etc).
Ate Italian food with Messina beer at the Casa Mancini near the guesthouse. I talked with the waiter who had noticed my Canadian flag and asked where I was from. He had spent a year in Ottawa and a year in Vancouver after completing school. Very nice young fellow who would again recognize me as soon as I walked in the door of the restaurant one month later and asked me how my bike trip went. I told him that anyone who is that good with faces and that interested in people should defintely be in sales. He had never thought of that before and was actually taking flying lessons to become a pilot.
I am searching for dates on cornerstones of buildings but find none. Strange that they don't seem to date their structures. I also notice that the thrifty Scots have constructed their church spires entirely out of stone; no copper sheathing that might need replacing. And these spires are very tall and very steep; not squat at all. Great stonemasons.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 6TH, 2001 Cool, cloudy, some light rain
Chatted with an American woman from Rochester at breakfast. Her daughter, who was very quiet and sitting with her, had been going to school in Glasgow and the two of them had just returned from two weeks on the continent. They were heading back for the States that morning. She was very nice and soft spoken.
Vivienne encouraged me to take a Glasgow bus tour to get a good overview of the city. I told her that I wanted to see the Hunterian Art Gallery first ( one of Rachel's Recommendations) so she showed me where to walk to from the house and where to pick up the bus tour afterward. The art gallery, like most museums and galleries in Glasgow is free although they have a donation box at the exit should you want to contribute. The Hunterian which is on the campus of Glasgow University, has the largest collection of the American artist Whistlers' paintings. The guide told me that the reason they have so many Whistlers is that the artist was very grateful to be presented with an honorary degree from Glasgow University. Following his death around 1900, his relatives donated a very large portion of his work to the university. She told me that they are the envy of the Freer Gallery in Washington which also has a large collection of his work including the well known painting "Whistler's Mother." But the Hunterian has the not so well known" Whistler's Father". I saw it.
I joined the bus tour just outside the gallery and was greeted by friendly bus driver Chas and the very entertaining tour guide Caroline. She had a very good way of presenting the history of the city so that I found myself listening to her every word. She recommended a pub right at the bus stop in George Square for lunch and it was very good.
Today is the eve of election day in Britain and there is an open top double decker bus driving around with party supporters and balloons and loud speakers in support of the Labour Party. They are very animated and noisy.
I rejoined the bus tour after lunch and got off at the Glasgow Museum of Transportation. It was very interesting with its displays of cars, motorcycles, bicycles, streetcars and steam locomotives. Glasgow was the site of BLW ( British Locomotive Works) which built thousands of steam locomotives for the world between about 1830 and 1950. They went out of business after the advent of diesel power because their management persued the diesel-hydrostatic drive design (which was plagued by reliability problems) instead of the diesel-electric drive combo that was a successful design and is used everywhere today. I have to think that the loss of that business and the shipping business has to be related to a profound inertia and lack of foresight in the system in the 50's and 60's. Probably labour was as much to blame as the owners.
Ate italian again tonight but down the street a little way from the Casa Mancini of last evening.

THURSDAY JUNE 7, 2001 Weather: Cloudy, cool, some scattered light rain
After booking the nights of July 3rd and 4th with Vivienne for my return to Glasgow, Ileft the guest house at 8:30 AM,; destination Loch Lomond. She has kindly agreed to keep my duffle bag and soft suitcase etc for the month. The reduced weight has made quite a difference in the way the bike handles. It was overloaded before. I think I am down to about 50 lbs of load now which is probably about maximum for such a light framed racing bike. The bike itself is only 24 lbs.
Riding on the same bike path out of Glasgow that I came in on two days before from the airport, I am aware that I am riding beside the dockyards on the Clyde where so many ships had been built over the years. The Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were built and launched there at the John Brown shipyards in the 1930's. These ships served as troop carriers during the second world war and were so fast that the U-boats could not keep up with them to attack them and their zig-zag patterns made it impossible to track them. They could not travel with convoy protection either because the other ships in the convoy could not keep up. I took a picture of the huge buildings and the massive cranes. It was just in time too because a man in a car parked nearby told me that the whole John Brown Engineering complex was about to be levelled for a government sponsored housing project. I had to think that the sound of the rivetting hammers would have been deafening around here years ago. Now it is all silence; a casualty of the jet plane and cheaper off-shore labour and probably some amount of bad management and union bullheadedness.
I rode beside a canal for part of the way between Glasgow and Dumbarton. A workman told me that they were dredging it to put it back into navigable condition after about 35 years of neglect after it had fallen into disuse. The money is coming from the Millineum Lottery Fund. It will eventually allow small boaters to move across from the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth. It is called the Forth and Clyde Canal and was used for commercial barge traffic into the 1960's. He told me that it was ironic that it was being reopened with such enthusiasm because years ago when it was being used, there was all kinds of public pressure to close it and fill it in because of the accidental drownings of young people in the canal that happened from time to time. I guess memories are short.
On the way up to the youth hostel I stopped to ask a couple of men if I was on the right road. They turned out to be vacationers themselves from London England. They told me about the beautiful view at Duck Bay Inn just up the road. By an extreme coincidence, I met these same two guys, Peter and Les, in a pub called the Hungry Monk about 8 miles away that same evening. They had covered the ground on foot since I last saw them and told me of getting bad directions from a local resident regarding the location of the Hungry Monk. They did not realize how far it was until they had gone too far to turn back. They were going to take a taxi back to Balloch where they were staying. They were bushed. Peter looked just like Allister Simm of Dickens' Christmas Carol (the movie) fame. Les told me that everybody tells Peter that and the two of them are concocting a scheme where Peter will dress up in a white nightshirt for the next company christmas party and hand out humbugs for the amusement of the arriving guests.
I met a German lad named Holger from Cologne when I wheeled into the Loch Lomond youth hostel. We agreed that we would chat later which we did over a beer at the nearby Duck Inn. He is a very nice young man. He is politically aware and concerned about skinheads and any sign of neo-nazism in Germany. He rode a Honda sport machine like so many other motorcyclists I saw. I told him I had an older BMW motorcycle at home. We exchanged e-mail addresses.
I met a Mr. Lothian Barclay trimming his hedge on my way to find a pub for supper and he recommended the Hungry Monk. We got talking and he asked me to drop back for a cup of tea if I wished after dinner. I was unable to do that because I got talking at some length to Les and Peter as explained above and had to make straight for home when we left the pub.
The view from the Loch Lomond hostel is quite spectacular. It overlooks the Loch with Ben Lomond in the distance. The purple rhodadendron are in full bloom and are quite beautiful and are all over the place.
Met Graham from Adelaide, Australia at the hostel. He is travelling around the UK and the continent for the best part of a year. Really nice fellow. He reminded me of my late brother-in-law Graeme in his outgoing and engaging manner.
Rode just 23 miles today.

FRIDAY JUNE 8, 2001 WEATHER: Sunny and cool.
Departed Loch Lomond about 8:00 AM on Sustrans Bike Route #7, the Glasgow to Inverness route. Beautiful morning although rain had been forcast. Cool, wonderful weather for cycling.
I didn't see Mr. Barclay at the end of his driveway this morning trimming hedges as I went by and I decided not to go in and present myself for tea this morning. He might have been a little offended that I hadn't shown up last evening and reference to the map has shown that I do have a long day of hilly cycling ahead of me today. This turned out to be the case since I arrived at my destination in Callander late in the afternoon.
Traveled lovely country roads north of Balloch; quiet and not too hilly at this point. High Dumbarton Moor rises off to my right and I can see Loch Lomond off to my left with Ben Lomond (the mountain) in the distance in the north. It is the highest peak although there are many smaller ones all around.
Reached the village of Drymen mid morning which is a pretty place built on a sloping main street. This should have been an omen for the long climb (push) which now awaited me. The next 1-1/2 miles were a steady climb of over 600 feet. I finally crested this about an hour later and talked to a man in a Trossachs Search and Rescue vehicle who was waiting for his charges of young backpackers to get to his checkpoint. He was involved some kind of Royal Challenge to Youth to walk distances with a backpack this time of year. He told me that Canada has a similar thing going on and he thought that it may be called the Governor General's Challenge to Youth ( or something like that). I heard a Cookoo's call for the first time in my life in this section. I assume it was real and not some human mocking me from the bush.
Reached the small village of Gartmore at noon after a very quick downhill run ( what goes up must...). I asked the man at the Black Bull if they did a Ploughman's Lunch and he said they would put one together. It was the most elaborite P.L. I had ever seen. Barely got it all down. I understand there are hundreds of pubs called The Black Bull in the UK
After passing Aberfoyle I was faced with another major uphill push. This time 700 feet in 2 miles. This may not sound like much but it is a major amount of work to do this with a loaded bike. I was almost tempted to try to flag down a Dept of Forestry truck to give me a lift up at one point. They had a flatdeck truck that looked mighty tempting. I wished at this point that I had my motorcycle under me as I looked up the next curvy uphill section. I shed my longjohns and sleeved undershirt about halfway up and felt better but was soon too cool because the wind built up as I clmbed. Two ladies in a car stopped momentarily to see that I was OK after passing me and seeing me bent over my handlebars to reach something from my front saddlebag. It must have seemed to them like I might be having a heart attack. They started moving as soon as I straightened up.
Very quick descent around Loch Achray and this was followed back a pleasant ride along slightly rolling terrain of the north shore of Lochs Achray and Venecher into Callander. A visit to the the TIC ( Tourist Info Center) directed me to the Independant Youth Hostel being operated in the area. This turned about to be much nicer accomodation than the Scottish Association of Youth Hostels location at Loch Lomond. It was slightly more money too but not much more. ( L13 vs L11)
I met an East Indian at the TIC who told me that he and his family had driven past me pushing my bike uphill above Aberfoyle and that he was surprised to see me here in Callander. He told me that I must be very fit. I actually felt quite worn out at this point after a long day of exertion.
Had dinner at the Raj in Callendar; an East Indian restaurant. Had a Prawn Bhuna which was as good as the Shrimp Bhuna served at The Kingshead in North Bay. An unusual person was sitting across the empty room from me and I thought it was an aging male hippy type with greying straight hair. It turned out that this person was a woman name of Margaret but she did have a low voice. We had exchanged a few pleasantries across the room when she asked if I would join her at her table. She turned out to be a very unusual dinner partner indeed but I was kind of wishing I had declined on her offer to join her. She really was an odd little individual, soft spoken but very world weary. She told me she had been seeing a psychiatrist for her problems but that it didn't seem to be helping her. She kept saying that she had made a bad job of her life and thought that her kids were now ashamed of her. I don't think she had likely been immoral, just completely unlucky and misguided. She seemed like a nice person underneath all that beaten down exterior. When I went to pay my bill I told the waiter I would pick up her's also. She looked like she needed someone to give her a break. Maybe she pulled this line on stangers all the time and ate better that anyone in Callendar but I don't think so.
The first mayor of my city ( North Bay, Ontario ) John Ferguson was born in Callander about 1855. He emmigrated to Canada as a lad of 18 years old and through a lot of hard work became a successful businessman. I am wondering whether the town of Callander which is 10 miles south of North Bay got its name in this way. I'll bet it did.

SATURDAY JUNE 9, 2001 Weather: Partly Cloudy, cool, rain at times
Left the Callander hostel at 10:00AM after talking with proprietor Mark about the route I should take to Crieff. I showed him the picture I had taken of the hand painting on the clockface of my grandfather's clock. This clock had been made by my grandfather William Dickson in Hamilton about 1890 and the clockface and the clockworks were imported from Cumnock, Scotland at that time. The painting shows a view of Loch Earn and it is my plan to visit Loch Earn today to see whether I can determine where the artist was positioned for the view and of course to see if it looks like the same place. Mark said that he thought that the view was likely from the east end of the loch at the village of St. Fillans.
Unfortunately I took Mark's advice regarding the route to Strathyre and took the A-84 up from Callander toward Lochearnhead instead of the bike path which he told me was too rough for the sort of bike I have. The highway was curvy, hilly, narrow and busy; all adding up to a dangerous situation for me. Luckily I was dressed in my very visible flourescent orange road maintenance vest and I guess the drivers were patient and attentive and I wasn't hit. It was the most dangerous exposure I was to encounter on my whole trip. I would have been much better off pushing my bike on the rough bike path if that was what was necessary.
Stopped at Balquidder churchyard, the final resting place of Rob Roy MacGregor. He died in 1734 at 70 years of age. I was lucky to latch on to a tour guide's story which she was relating to her paying customers about the MacLarens, MacGregors and Campbells. I took a picture of the old kirk of the MacLarens to show my friend Larry how his clan had let the place go over a couple of hundred years. Trees growing right up through the middle of it. Shame on the clan.
Had a very nice shepherd's pie lunch at the pub back out on the mainroad near Balquidder. Started a harmless conversation with a lady sitting with her husband but he seemed somewhat miffed that I should be so bold as to ask her where they were from. I have since learned from my reading that these Scots from the more remote places are a jealous lot and don't like their women talking to other men. They were from Mull. I had better address my questions to the men if I ever go there again. On the other hand maybe I shouldn't; these guys need to be dragged into the modern world.
I took the cycle path from Balquidder to Lochearnhead and missed my turn onto South Loch Earn Road so after getting directions from some local hikers, I had to double back about a mile which included going back down a very nasty hill I had just pushed up. Beautiful drive along the narrow south road shore road of the loch which was probably a centuries old cartpath because the huge old oaks, maples and beeches came right up to the edge of it. I saw and photographed Edinample Castle which I believe is depicted on the grandfather's clockface. I showed my photo of the clock to a local gent about 2/3 of the way along the south shore road to St Fillans and he told me that he too thought the view was from St Fillans although he didn't think it was entirely accurate because of the high far off mountains shown in the background.
Raining steadily again by the time I reached St Fillans at the east end of the loch. I stood there looking at the view and I thought that my recently deceased father and my grandfather would be pleased that I was interested in doing this. The viewpoint in the painting was definately from this end of the loch but there had been some amount of artist's licence taken. Ths sailboats were still there but of course they are now of modern design instead of the catboat rigs shown in the painting. Edinample castle, although shown in the left foreground of the painting is actually several miles up the loch and cannot been seen from St Fillans. And there were no high peaks in the distance, just like the local guy said. At any rate I was satisfied I had visited this place.
Still raining and it is now after 4PM so I abandoned my plan to carry on to Crieff. I took a B&B for L16 in the village at the Tigh-Na-Mar (means house by the water). Number two son Howard had to quickly vacate his bedroom and sleep in the trailer in the back of the yard to accomodate me. The mother, named Ilene, made me a cup of tea and took my raingear to dry over her stove. She told me it was an AGA cooker and she was very proud of it.
I took first son Martin's advice and ate supper at the Drummond Arms Hotel and later joined him for a couple at his local ,the Achray Hotel. He bought me a bottle of Fraoch which is heather ale, recently being brewed again by a local brewery from an ancient recipe. It had an interesting flavour although I will not be converted to a steady Fraoch drinker. It had a slight hint of evergreen flavour about it; very slight.
A middle aged lady came out of the restaurant side to the bar to have a cigarette because you can't smoke in the diningroom. She finished one and lit another as we got talking. Her husband came in after about 15 minutes and gave us both a surly look and suggested strongly that she return to the diningroom where there were other guests in their party. She did not return and I expect she was getting the cold shoulder from hubby. She was an American who had been in the London area for 20 years and had married an Englishman. It sounded like she was here to stay.
I heard a story from a local about how the MacNeishes had been slaughtered in their island stronghold in the 1600's by the clan McNabb. This happened on their island just 200 metres offshore from St Fillans. The story goes that the MacNeish men had stopped a MacNabb cart loaded with provisions on its way back to the MacNabb stronghold on Loch Tay (which is in the next glen a few miles over from Loch Earn). They made the mistake of letting the Macnabb cartmen go away with their lives and when their chief heard about the theft he was furious. He sent his 12 sons to seek revenge on the MacNeishes. On a moonlit night they carried a heavy boat over the hills from Loch Tay to Loch Earn and launched it and rowed silently to MacNeish Island. The MacNeishes had failed to post a guard so the MacNabbs surprised them while they slept and killed all of them save one small boy who escaped by swimming to shore. Those Macnabbs were a mean bunch I guess but those MacNeishes really shouldn't have stolen those groceries.Rode 29 miles today
SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 2001 WEATHER: Sunny and warm (finally)
Left the B&B at 8:45 after a big Scottish breakfast which included oatmeal, bacon, sausages, eggs, toast, the lot. Traveled the A-85 toward Creiff. It is a beautiful scenic highway and not too busy with high hills both sides, green fields, and sheep and cattle grazing. Got on the wrong road out of the village of Comrie trying to find a small backroad to Creiff. A young guy and his mother told me where to go to get on the correct road but I elected to just get back on the "A" road and take it as far as Creiff anyway. Enough getting lost for this morning.
In Creiff I did strike off on a minor road which took me through the countryside all the way to Perth. Met a nice young 30-ish Englishman named Alan at the Tourist Info Centre (TIC) in Perth around noon. We were both confused as to how to get inside but he finally found a door on the opposite side to where the signs seemed to be pointing. He is a computer analyst from Stratford upon Avon. He used to work fulltime for some outfit but just does contract work now which leaves him lots of free time to travel. No mention of any wife or kids or any kind of commitment. There seems to be a lot of these kind of guys on the road nowadays. We had a pint of MacEwans 80 together at the Dickens Pub and then a light lunch at a nearby sandwich shop.
I rode up to the Youth Hostel and although reception was closed until 5:00PM, which is typical, I was able to offload my bags into a locker there. I then rode downtown and did some looking around on my now light as a feather bike. Perth is a pretty town set in a valley of course with a river running through it. One particularly notable feature is the stone bridge over the Tay River built in 1766 and widened in 1869. It was designed by famous Scottish civil engineer John Smeaton. It consists of eight arched stone supports and is very graceful. Arched supports made of stone were used in Scottish bridges for hundreds of years right up until the use of iron in the 1800's supplanted it. It is simple technology, in use since Roman times, and there were plenty of very good stone masons around and lots of raw material in the local quarries. These bridges are mostly still in use although you do see load limits on the smaller ones and sometimes just one way traffic. Stone has the quality of being very strong in compression and it lasts virtually forever.
Did a bit of laundry back at the hostel. I was glad I brought along a small container of Tide because all the other guys were washing their clothes in plain water and they were coming out looking pretty grungy.(there was no detergent for sale at the hostel and it's Sunday)
I met Gerry and his wife whose name I didn't quite catch. They were English and travelling by car but carrying bikes on the back. They gave me some tips on routes and towns in the Scottish Borders Region and some tips on pronunciation; like Berwick (pronounced Berrick).
I am sleeping in a dorm with about 10 bunk beds. Some young guys had come from Sweden and the USA to hear Belle and Sebastian ( whoever they are) tonight at the Perth City Centre Hall. They must be something because these guys were all excited about them. To their credit, when they came in about 1:00 AM they were quite quiet and had the light on only briefly.
Hostel is only L8.75 but no breakfast. Had supper at the Locklan Hotel right at the bottom of the driveway into the hostel. It was very good at L8.40. Rode 38 miles today.

MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2001 WEATHER: Mostly cloudy and cool with some sunny breaks
Left the Perth YH very early at 7:30 AM in order to get started on a long day through to Edinburgh. I am booked in Edinburgh YH tonight so I must make it there or forfeit the room fee which I booked a couple of weeks ago via the internet. I estimate it will be 50 miles. Picked up a juice and coffee at the sandwich shop and met the man who owned the place and who knew a Mr Leckie from North Bay from the postwar days. They had played amateur hockey together in Scotland.
Pretty countryside through to Aberargie on the A 912 but then there was not much to see through the woodlands to Glenfarg where I stopped for a mid-morning coffee and bun at the hotel. The waitress said they had no buns but she would bring me some shorthbread. I can see how this Scottish diet could lead to high colesterol. Everything they serve seems to be butter or fat related. I have since read in the newspaper where Scotland is the heart attack capitol of the western world. I sat in the lounge by myself beneath the high ceilings and the heavy curtains and enjoyed my snack. Very nice surroundings for a guy who swung in on a bike.
I decided to avoid the town of Kinross and go down the east side of Loch Leven. I am glad that I did because the A 911 was quiet and I got to admire the beautiful Lomond Hills on the way to the village of Scotlandwell. Dropped into a pastry shop at Lochgelly for lunch and had a delicious meat pie, coffee and something called a snowball for dessert. It was good too. I'll watch for this little goodie on the rest of my trip.
Carried on to Dunfermline ( pronounced Dunfermlie) where I stopped for stamps and postcards in the town and had a free 1/2 pint at Gallaghers, a pub under new management and celebrating that fact with a free first beer for everybody who came in. The people in there were very friendly and noticed my little Canadian flag on my shirt. One young fellow, out of the blue, asked me if Canadians disliked Americans. I told him that we didn't dislike Americans as a group; just certain individuals, like any group of people.
I picked up the signposted bicycle route # 1 which eventually took me to the Fourth Road suspension bridge which crosses the broad waters of the Firth of Fourth. This a huge modern structure about 2 miles long and looks very much like San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge. What was more interesting however was the railway bridge which was about 1/2 mile to the left of the road bridge. ( see enclosed photo). It is over 100 years old and is made up of three massive steel superstructures composed of formed steel tubing. The approaches from the shore to the centre section are supported by many tall stone towers at least 100 feet high. The bridge is still in regular use and I saw a passenger train go across it as I was crossing on the suspension bridge.
On the south side of the Firth I picked up the 10 mile long bike route into city of Edinburgh. I got to within about one mile of the end of the bike trail and stopped to check the address of the youth hostel to make sue I had gone past it. I stopped a man and asked him where Bruntsfield Crescent was and he said had a city map in his car. He showed me roughly where to go and then gave me the map which was a large 50 page booklet. He said that I should let people know that the Scots aren't all as mean (cheap) as their reputation held that they were. We laughed.
Found the YH after asking a couple of more people final directions and got into my room late at 7:30 PM. Good thing that I booked this one ahead of time because it was full up. Walked about 1/2 mile to a local pub and had a nice meal at L13.65. It should have been good at that price. ( about 30 bucks) I can see that Edinburgh is going to be expensive.Rode 52 miles today.
TUESDAY, JUNE 12,2001 WEATHER: Overcast and cool.
Up early and off to a sandwich shop for breakfast. Another high colesterol special involving bacon and fried brie. The fellow at the YH was quite helpful and suggested that I would see a lot more of the city if I rode my bike. I think that if I had it to do over again I would gone on foot and maybe taken a bus tour as I did in Glasgow. Every time you get off your bike you must lock it up and it gets to be a bit of a pain.
Rode up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle but decided to just admire it from the outside instead of taking the tour (probably a mistake). Too many people milling around and really no place nearby to lock up my bike. (see enclosed photo)
Took the Scotch Whiskey Heritage Centre tour which was on the Royal Mile just near the castle. I was admitted as a senior for the first time in my life which felt both good and bad.It was very interesting and involved a free dram of whiskey at the start of the tour. Rode down the length of the Royal Mile to its terminus at Hollyrood Palace. There aws no getting in there because there were police cars at the gate and I heard that they were preparing for the Queen to visit the palace soon. She stays there for a month between mid June and mid July each year.
I would have gone into the Dynamic Earth Centre to learn about land formation, mountain building and earthquakes if it hadn't been such a rip-off at L8.50. I decided that was just too much.
Had a pint of bitter and a bowl of soup at a pub called Jenny Ha Ha's near the palace end of the Royal Mile. Quite a name; there must be a story there but I didn't ask since they were so busy.
Climbed up about 50 steps with bike over my shoulder to the lane access way to Calton Hill, the high point in Ediburgh. I then rode the rest of the way up to the top. There is a nice 360 degree view of the city ( see enclosed photo) from there which includes the Firth of Fourth to the north and east, the Salisbury Craigs and the extinct volcano known as Arthurs Seat to the south and west. The volcano was last active 300 million years ago. Edinburgh Castle also sits on an ancient volcanic formation. Edinburgh is a beautiful city and contains many handsome stone buildings.
Phoned home to Betty from a phone booth in the downtown area. I leaned my bike up against a postal box just 6 feet away where I could keep an eye on it. I think that two young guys were very definately considering stealing it when they saw it standing there unlocked. It's a good bike; a Bianchi. They seemed to decide against it after they had looked me over talking on the phone and watching them. They probably decided that I just might be able to catch the one who would be left on foot. If I'd been a little older or a little fatter, I think they'd have grabbed it. Lesson learned the easy way; DO NOT LEAVE A BIKE UNLOCKED IN A CITY EVEN FOR A MOMENT. There is a real problem with bike thefts in the UK.

WEDNESDAY JULY 13, 2001 WEATHER: Cloudy, cool but pleasantThis will be my Edinburgh to Melrose day of travel. Got away early at 7:15 AM and caught a bun and cheese and juice at a sandwich shop.Stopped at the Scottish Museum of Coal Mining at the village of Newtongrange on the A 7 just a few miles south of Edinburgh.( see photo). got in for the senior's price again since they couldn't make change for a L 20 note but I had the L 2.50 for senior. This greying hair isn't all bad! The museum is situated at the former Lady Victoria Colliery which was an operating mine from 1894 to 1981. The steam engine which drove the winding wheel that lifted the cages of miners and the coal operated for all of that time. I had to think that it was in operation for all of my grandmother's life and for 14 years beyond that and she lived a fairly long life.( b. 1893; d 1967). The same engineer that designed the lifting mechanism for Tower Bridge in London was engaged to design the steam winding wheel system because he had done such a brilliant job on the bridge. The tour was largely self-guided for me because they had a school group going through and the guides were tied up with them. This wasn't too bad though because they issue you with a tape recorded tour pack that you start and stop at milestones in the museum. The steam engine was no longer operational of course but they had an unseen electric motor which they switched on for me to show how the two big steam pistons and flywheels looked in motion during their glory days. These were very large as you can imagine.( maybe 15 feet dia flywheels and 15 feet long pistons)Had l a nice pub lunch in Middleton; a ploughman's lunch but not as good as the one I had at the Black Bull in Gartmore last week. That was really something.Left the A7 main road at Heriot and travelled a parallel old road for a few miles. It was pretty but too many ups and downs. The A 7 is flatter but busier. The old roads just follow the contours of the land of course. The new ones were built with modern machines and dynamite. Many Kodak moments here in what they call the Scottish Borders. In retrospect, I should have put up with the hills and dales and stayed on the old road through to the village of Clovenfords because the A 7 is very busy through here and the old road is so pretty.( see photo taken on the old road, A 7 is to the left in the photo)Arrived at the YH at Melrose at 4:15 but had to wait for reception to open at 5:00. Two young sisters from Melbourne Australia were waiting too. One was a zoo worker and the other an environmental engineer. I told them about the colliery museum and they were definately going to go there on their way to Edinburgh tomorrow.Had a few at the pub and good conversation with the barmaid and a fellow customer named Andy, a one time auto mechanic and now a computer type. A good common sense sort of fellow. He said that he figured that he was just as smart as anybody in the computer game and so he made a career change some years back but he says he was wrong; it turned out he is actually smarter and a lot more sensible than most people in computers. I believed him too because my sister Marilyn also tells me that there are very few really good people in that profession but there are a lot of bluffers. She has been in it for twenty years and making a good living at it so she should know.Got talking to the three motorcyclists back at the hostel. They could all speak English; one very well. Not one German made motorcycle between them. Two Japanese and one one Italian made. Go figure!Rode 41 miles today.THURSDAY JUNE 14, 2001 WEATHER: Cloudy, whatelse?Paid to tour Melrose Abbey first thing in the morning after leaving the YH. I was taking a picture of the ruin through the fence before the tour ( see photo) when an old lady shuffled by with her shopping bags. I said "It's a shame about the abbey isn't it?" She gave me a quisical look as if to say " what's the matter with it?" I then realized she didn't know what the heck I was talking about. It had looked just the same all her life and probably all her great great gran's life too. There was nothing to regret about it in her viewpoint although she didn't say anything. It was last attacked and sacked in about 1500 and they just didn't bother trying to fix it again. It had been sacked many times between 1175 when it was first built and about 1500. It must have been a magnificant place at one time around the 1200's. The brutality of mankind!I was reminded that this sort of senseless destruction is still going on. It wasn't long ago I saw TV film footage of a huge and ancient bhuda figure on a cliff face being blown to smithereens by some ethnic cleansing bunch. Not much has changed; just the techniques have become more efficient.Went out of Melrose on the sign posted cycle path and happened to pass the site of a huge Roman fort called Trimontium ( 80-185 AD) named after the three extinct volcanic hills ( the Eildon Hills) in the immediate area. Nothing left of the fort but pasture now but quite a bit of info on several diagrammatic signboards placed along the roadway. One of the Scottish universities has been doing archeological digs lately at the site. This fort has got to be about 60 miles north of Hadrian's Wall which the Romans later built to keep the northeren barbarians out of what is now the north of England. Those Romans were everywhere. I have even learned that Pontius Pilate was born in Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland about on a parallel with Glasgow.Took a rather difficult diversion to go by Scott's View, a beautiful scenic lookout which was the favorite thinking spot of Sir Walter Scott, the Scottish Poet ( early 1800's). It was worth the long uphill push to see it. ( see photo with the Eildon Hills in background) The River Tweed winds in front and Melrose Abbey can be seen in the distance. Apparently when Sir Walter died, the funeral cortege wound its way past Scott's View on its way to Jedburgh ( pronounced Jeddert) Abbey. His own horses were pulling the wagon with Sir Walter's body on it and they stopped at the lookout just out of habit. That's where they always stopped when he was driving them.At the village of Clintmans I turned left along the B 6404 then took country roads through to Kelso but too late for a pub lunch. Had sweets and coffee instead. I had heard that Kelso was a charming place but it was too drab for me, all in tones of brown. It needed some Germans or Swiss to spruce it up with some colour. It did have a well defined central village square in cobblestones, probably largely unchanged from the middle ages.Pushed on towards Coldstream on the A 698 for it is my intention to follw the Tweed out to the North Sea at Berwick. ( remember, pronounced Berrick). Stopped at the Old Mill B&B at Cornhill just short of Coldstream. Carole is the hostess and owner. She is from Manchester and looks like a real ball of fire. She recommended the pub at the top of the hill for supper. It was pretty good.Rode 32 miles today.

FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 2001 WEATHER: Light Rain, Cool
Left the Old Mill B&B in light rain after a big breakfast. Carol is waving goodbye to me from the window as I pull out onto the road; a nice lady. Good thing I bought a decent Gortex rainsuit ($300) on a morning like this.By following the Tweed River cycleway, it is keeping me off the main road but I notice from my odometer that it has cost me an extra 5 miles to cover what would have been just 13 miles to Berwick. The cycleway zigs and zags through small villages on back roads. Crossed a small suspension bridge over the Tweed dating from 1824 called the Union Bridge. Just as I got across and looked back, five bicyclists started across towards me. They were doing the North Sea Cycle Route which is several thousand kilometres in length. A member of the Scottish CTC ( Cycle Touring Club) was shepherding them through her territory. I think the cyclists were either German or Danish. One of them had a bike much more heavily loaded than even mine. We parted company at the top of the hill and they went one way and I went the other.
Stopped on the bridge into Berwick to take pictures of the rail bridge and the old road bridge across the Tweed. Queen Victoria opened the rail bridge in 1850 and this 28 arched stone structure still carries regular train traffic between Edinburgh and Newcastle. The old stone road bridge dates from the mid 1500's and is only wide enough to carry one way road traffic which it does today. The story goes that a Scottish king ( I forget which one) was travelling from Edinburgh to England back around 1500 to go to some sort of big pow wow and he had to be ferried across the Tweed on a barge. He expressed his surprise that this mode of transport across the river had to be used and asked (roughly as I recall from my reading) " Is there not a man in Berwick who can lay a staen to build a brig across this water?" I guess this humiliated the locals and they started on a bridge forwith.
Ate lunch at The Leaping Salmon just across the river then went straight to the TIC to have them find me a B&B even though it's only 1:30 PM. I have had enough of this drizzle for today. Checked into a B&B just a few hundred metres form the TIC. The TIC charges a L 1.80 levy for this service but you get it knocked off the bill at the B&B. So instead of paying the regular L18 at the B&B, it cost me L16.20.
After meeting Michael the proprietor and receiving a cup of tea and a biscuit, I got settled into my room. I soon got bored and dawned my raingear again and went for a walk along the top of the ramparts of this walled town. I also visited a small museum where I read how this town was heavily involved in the Scottish-Anglo wars and was captured and sacked 13 times over 200 years between about 1200 and 1400. I notice that I am the only one protecting myself against the light rain save on or two I saw with an umbrella. The rest of them just carry on like it isn't raining. No hoods, no umbrellas; nothing. It's just the way it is around here a lot of the time I guess. The rain is not heavy, just a steady light drizzle.
Enjoyed a steak and ale pie for dinner which was a first for me followed by something called passion cake for dessert. The lady in charge of the little restaurant is very friendly which seems to be in somewhat of a contrast to some of them around here. You walk past them all alone and in an open isolated place where a friendly glance would be appropriate and these jokers don't even look sideways. Maybe I've been in so many smaller places lately that you get the feeling that all Scots are friendly but this is a larger town and hey, it isn't in Scotland come to think of it. It is couple of miles into England. Maybe they still don't trust anybody after all that burning and sacking 700 years ago.
Rode 18 miles today.
SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 2001 WEATHER: Steady rain all day again.
Had breakfast at the B&B and chatted with a couple from England up on holiday. We got taliking about the recent election where Tony Blair's Labour party had been re-elected. The lady was regretting the lack of any real difference in the politics of the parties today. She said, and I quote her exactly: " Tony Blair? He's no more Labour than pigs might fly! Tea with the Queen;... really."
The English and Scots have some priceless expressions.
Left Berwick in steady rain at 9:00 AM. Picked up a butane canister for my tiny campstove. It was actually cheaper than in Canada at L 1.60 which really surprised me when you consider they pay 2-1/4 times what we do for a litre of gasoline. And by the way, I noticed that a pack of 20 cigarettes is L 4.60; again about 2-1/4 what Canadian smokers pay.
Got down a wrong road right off the bat and had to backtrack about a mile of so. Should have listened more closely to my host Michael's instructions about the various turns to Scremington, Lowrick and Belford. Pretty unpleasant peddaling through the countryside in the rain until I got onto the coastal road east of Belford. From there I could see Holy Island off to my left through the mist. I don't know the story on Holy Island but I do know that if you go there, you had better read the tide tables because if go out there you can get stranded for 12 hours or so. If it hadn't been so miserable today, I might have gone there. Arrived at Bamburgh at 1:00 PM and had lunch at the Castle Inn pub.They are still taking Scottich notes here although one merchant warned me that they may not take them at par as you get closer to the Newcastle area.
The North Sea coast road is quite pretty in spite of the grey day. The rain finally let up about 4:00PM. I almost decided to pitch my tent at a campground in a place called Seahouses but it was only about 4:30 and what would I do until darkness fell at around 11:00PM. Pushed on to Alnwick ( pronounced Annick) and found the TIC. They found me a B&B at the Aln House for L 25.The room is superb and obviously a double room which I got for the single rate. Four friends of the owners are in charge of the place this weekend and they are having a good time playing hosts. Quite a shock to find myself languishing in a very large modern hot bath just 45 minutes after being cold and wet and peddalling along without a home.
On host Leslie's recommendation, I went to the town's live theatre and saw "Sherlock Holmes, The Last Act".It was excellent with a wonderful performance by Shakesperean actor Richard Llewelyn. It is a one actor play where Holmes remembers his life of solving crimes with his trusted assistant Dr Watson. Watson has recently died and Holmes is mourning his loss and telling little stories about him and how he appreciated him and his particular talents.
Rode 34 miles today.

SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 2001 WEATHER: Sunny, warm


Met a young Canadian woman sitting with her English male companion at the adjacent table at breakfast at the Aln House. She said that she was in the U.K. on a two year working visa. She had spent the previous year teaching in Bankok. Originally from Vancouver, she is now living in Hull. Very nice young woman.

One of the temporary B & B hosts Allan, a former highways engineer gave me his suggestions for a quiet road route today which will take me generally in the direction of Hadrian's Wall intersecting it at a point around about Hexam, west of the city of Newcastle. I have no desire to get into another large city at the moment. The route along the B 6341 turned out to be very hilly with some long slow uphill pushes and some very fast long downhill runs. I am trying to keep my speed down to a reasonable level on these downhill runs because the roads are curvey and you never know what is just out of your sight. The bike is heavy at 75 lbs gross and would be a problem to stop quickly. Nevertheless, I am sure I am reaching speeds of 25 mph downhill at times. My brake pads seem to be standing up to the job.

Just 6 miles out of Alnwick there is a spectacular view overlooking a huge valley in which can be seen the yellow gorse in the forground which is in bloom all over the place.( See photo)
While I was stopped checking my 1:250,000 O.S. roadmap, the wind blew it into the only puddle around me. Good thing I weather-proofed it before I left home. I learned a lesson here; look around for puddles when opening my map because Edsal Murphy lurks everywhere.( Sods Law to my British friends).

I am often passed by groups of 2, 3, and 4 motorcycles at a time which go by at high speeds leaning and weaving. I read in the local press where there have been complaints about these characters and they say they aren't locals. There have also been some nasty accidents. I saw one near Girvan about one week later which I will relate in a future instalment of my notes.

There is a great contrast today between being hot, pushing uphill and being cold on top of the moors adjacent to Rothbury Forest and Harwood Forest. I am continually putting clothes on and taking them off again. Had a bowl of soup and a pint in Rothbury which was all that I needed. I saw the town of Bellingham on the map and it looked about the right distance to end my trip for the day. The name struck me because I was reminded of the first episode of puppy love that I had ever experienced in Hamilton over 50 years ago. I had been quietly admiring a little girl in my class by the name of Sylvia Bellingham and either she sent me a note in class (or I sent her one, I can't remember which) which said "I love you". The return note was "me too". It never amounted to anything more of course but we fleetingly knew how each of us felt about the other, that week anyway. So now I will see where Sylvia's ancestors came from.

Long downhill run into Bellingham ( pronounced Bellinjum) at the end of the day. This is the usual situation to find yourself running downhill at the end of the day into a town and having to push uphill the next morning out of the river valley in which the town is situated. I guess that this should be no surprise since these towns were almost invariably located along streams for water power and for drinking and washing.

I found no answer at the first two B&B's I tried in the town so I went to the pub to take on fluids. I met Chez, a Polish war vet who had settled in the town after WW two. He was a character who was glad to find some fresh ears which had not heard his stories and he did have a lot of them. When he went to the toilet, the young barman said to me that now would be a good time to escape if I wanted and that " I wouldn't be the first". I told him no, that I would stay and finish my beer so I got to hear a few more stories.

Had dinner with fellow B&B-ers Karen, Sheila, Jean and Joyce who are four trail walkers on holiday. We had a nice dinner in the Cheviot Hotel on the main street. The ladies do this every year but were a little disappointed in their travels this year because the foot and mouth restrictions had them confined to the roadways instead of the cross country pathways but they were making the best of it. They planned to go to the Northumbria Coast the next day. I slipped by Chez on my way to the washroom without attracting his attention. He had moved location from earler in the day and was busy talking the ear off some other guy.

Rode 34 miles today.

MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2001 WEATHER: Sunny and cool; very nice for biking.

Ken, my host at the Bellingham B&B did a small wash for me for L 2.00

Got on the road at 10:30AM after a walk around the town. I came very close to getting smacked by the wing mirror of a truck as it went by me as I was walking with my back to the traffic on the only sidewalk on that road. A man told me that he had actually been hit in that way and was still going to court over the issue. The roads are very narrow in places and I doubt if they will be widening them with all those huge maples, oaks, and beeches on both sides. I resolved to get way over on the sidewalk from now on when I hear a truck coming.

The day started as usual with a long push up the hill leading out of the town. It is a beautiful sunny day.
I got lost as I passed through Wark by not paying proper attention to the signs. I soon found myself on a lonely stretch of road with no cars coming in either direction. Luckily a Forestry services vehicle came along and straightened me out on my mistake. Then it was back to Wark where I had been 3/4 of an hour ago.

I rode alongside the ruin of Hadrians Wall for most of the afternoon on the adjacent old Roman road; the military road they call it. It is straight allrght, just like they say but it is very hilly because it does not attempt to skirt any grades. It is fairly busy with traffic and narrow but I have seen worse on this trip; and a lot more dangerous too. The remnants of the wall are only about 4 feet high or less do to pilferring of stone over the centuries. The wall was once 15 feet high with observation towers at regular intervals and a fort every couple of miles. Too bad about the Foot and Mouth because I can't walk along the wall. The wall is in farmland and largely excluded this year from foot travel. Tourism is a way down on account of it. Perhaps they are best observed from a distance anyway with liberal use of imagination.

People around here seem very friendly. One couple stopped to talk to me while I was pushing uphill just east of Wallwick to ask how I was enjoying my trip and to look at my bike and equipment. The man, who said he was 65, bicycles every year on the continent and has been to Italy, Spain, France, Germany,and a few other countries.He said he always takes too much stuff too.
Found a nice private campground at Greenhead.( L 3.00 plus 20 pence to use the shower). Had a decent supper at the local inn at the bottom of the hill and was into my sleeping bag under the twilight at 9:00 PM; nothing else to do. It doesn't get really dark at this time of the year until about 1 AM.

Rode 36 miles today.

This instalment takes a break from my journal and relates to the equipment which I took on my trip and should be good information for anyone who might be planning a bicycle trip of this kind.

THINGS I DID WRONG

I took too much stuff along. A very common mistake so listen carefully here.

I had a tent, sleeping bag and a sleeping mat which collectively weighed probably 15 lbs. I used this equipment about 5 times and that did not justify taking it along. The villages in the UK are so close together and the accomodations so plentiful that a tent is almost never required. You can always get a B&B for a fair price and you get a nice breakfast thrown in. There are many Youth Hostels and a little planning here can guarantee you a spot in the busiest ones ( big cities). Most of them are not busy.

I took along a small butane cook stove and used it once. Again, villages are so close together that it isn't worth the bother to take stove, fuel, pot, eating utensils. Emergency food can be "Power Bars" or tinned sardines or a piece of fruit. You can also pick up a bit of cheese, a bun etc for quick picnic type approach. Take a pairing knife.

I took two pairs of shoes. This was unnecessary extra weight. I had a pair of light weight rubber overboots called Totes with me which I kept permanently slipped on over my second pair of shoes for rainy days. Instead, I should have just taken the time to struggle and pull these Totes on over my only pair of shoes when the rain got heavy. My shoes were black Reebok walking shoes which looked half decent when I walked into a restaurant.

I took along too much printed material including a 2 lb book called Scotland, of the Lonely Planet series. This is a wonderful reference book but it should be read prior to departure, notes made, and then the book left at home. In particular, get the code for calling home form a foreign country which puts you right into the Bell Canada System with about 7 digits, then it's just a normal calling card call.


THINGS I DID RIGHT

I bought a good ($300) rain suit of the breathable Gortex type with a hood of course. This is a godsend on a rainy day. Plastic will not do because you will sweat like a pig.

I bought and borrowed enough equipment to allow the mounting of two sets of panniers. This balances the bike in weight and gives you lots of storage space so you are not having to fish around in a stuffed full bag.

I took a good bicycle with me ( $1000). It is a road racer type, lightweight, has low rolling resistance and was completely reliable. It should have had a couple more lower gears for hills ( it's a 12 speed) but I think with the 20 lbs I would now shed form my baggage on a future trip, it would be OK for hills. I installed a set of auxillary handlebars which allowed me to sit up straighter for most of my pedaling.( see picture). This posture is much more restful on a long trip than being in the leaned-forward position which a normal road bike has you in. The bike had a bell, front splash guard, front light, front and rear reflector, reflector pedals, odometer, air pump, cable type lock, water bottle, and an anatomically friendly seat ( grooved along the length and split at the back). I had the racing tires replaced with a slightly heavier tread for the trip and I never had a flat.

I wore some safety gear. My vest was an orange highway maintenance vest with green criss-cross which was highly visible and was light and cool. I always wore my helmet which saved me from getting a pebble imbedded in my head and my left ear chewed off in the one spill off I had. The bicycling gloves were good to absorb road shock though the handlbars and for grip and warmth at times.

I took very few clothes. The trick is to take material which can be washed out in a sink and hung out to dry overnight where it possible to do this. I would recommend the following:

2 polypropylene pull over shirts, one short sleeve, one long sleeve.
2 pair of lightwieght pants with the zippers in the legs converting them to shorts.
1 lightweight fleece shirt.
3 pairs of socks
3 pairs underpants
1 small container of Tide soap

The tools I took along fit in small seat bag and included:

tire irons
patch kit
cable ties and side cutters ( for packing bike for air travel)
a few open end wrenches
a few allen wrenches
a spare tube
a foldable spare tire
waterless soap
a rag
3 in 1 oil
tenacious chain oil
jack knife
screw drivers

I took a 1:250,000 Ordinance Suvey Roadmap for the area I was going to travel. I waterproofed it with map protecting solution.This map was alittle bit large but it was what I needed to see every little roadway.

Toiletries were minimal; razor, liquid soap, small shave cream, towel, toothbrush, headache pills.

Have a credit card, a bank card for accessing ATM's. Travellers cheques, forget them.
I never carried more that L 200 in cash at a time.


I think that is about it. Outfit yourself as suggested above and you are good for a month.

TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2001 WEATHER: Cool, overcast, light rain at times

Light rain started at about 6:00 AM, just enough to get the tent fly good and wet. I wiped it down with a towel and left the tent up while I went the 1/4 mile down the steep hill to get breakfast. Had to wait 45 minutes until the tea house opened at 9:30. This is one of the disadvantages of choosing to tent rather than taking a B&B. I was hoping it wouldn't rain again until I got through with breakfast and got the tent down because it was overcast and definately looking threatening.

Headed out of from the campsite at Greenhead toward Gilsland and stopped within 45 minutes at the ruin of the Roman Fort called Birdoswald. Here I was able to get a good close up view of Hadrian's Wall and the fort for L 2.50 admission. (See photos)
The wall was built over a period of about 100 years around 80 to 180 AD under the order of the Roman Emperor Hadrian to keep the barbarians to the north out of the Roman Empire, which by then had expanded north to Britain. The wall was once 15 feet high, about 5 feet thick, and ran about 100 miles across the breadth of England from what is now Newcastle, westward to the Firth of Solway. There were observation posts about every half mile and a fully garrisoned fort about every three miles as I recall. It was occupied until about 400 AD when it fell into disuse coincident with the fall of the Roman Empire. The stone, which is well cut and fitted, has been stolen over the centuiries to constuct field fences, barns and castles and there is little left of the wall in most places.

Pretty uneventful day cycling toward Annan. Stopped for a pint in a place called Longtown and asked for a packet of "Pork Scratchings" which I had overheard a teenager asking for in Rothbury a couple of days before. I just had to find out what the blazes these could be. It would have been better to have never known because these things turned out to be like salty greasy little wontons. I couldn't finish the pack. Crossed back into Scotland at Gretna.

Pressed on until late in the afternoon arriving in Annan at 5:45 PM and pretty tired. Found a nice B&B @ L 22 in the Old Rectory. Went out for chinese food at the restaurant recommended by Jim the B&B owner. I ended up drinking water by the quart to try and quench my thirst when I got back to my room. It was either the pork scratchings or the chinese food or both that did it.

Rode 37 miles today.


WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2001 WEATHER: Sunny and windy but warm


My host Jim filled my water bottle with ice water and had retrieved my bike from his locked shed when I came down the stairs with my bags. Talk about good service. He had also filled me in on the history of Annan at breakfast. Apparently, the area just east of here had been the site of major munitions manufacturing during both world wars.

Left Annan in the sunshine and headed into a strong wind from the west which unfortunately is the general direction I am going. Stopped at a historical water well near Ruthwell where Robbie Burns had spent a few days just before he died in 1796. His doctor had suggested that he come here to drink the water and to bathe in the Firth of Solway. It is now known that the cold waters of the Firth would have hurt him more than helped him and he died in Dumfries a few days later of a form of rhuematic fever. There is a plaque at the well which commemorates his visit and tells a few stories about that visit. Apparently he had asked a lady in the area whether she had any messages to be delivered to "the other world" because he knew he was dying. He was only 37 I believe.

Travelled along the B 725 toward Dumfries ( pronounced Dumfreese) ; traffic is very light. I have read where this region of Scotland called Dumfries and Galloway is a real jewel and is under utilized by tourists. Stopped for a bar lunch at Glencaple. Had a nice chat with a local couple who told of the devestation of the foot and mouth disease in this area. Although the farmers are compensated for their animals, it is very hard on them to lose their breeding stock and their whole herd to the imposed slaughter and burning.

I went to the Burn's Center in Dumfries which was free and enjoyed their wonderful exhibit on his life and work. Saw a poem written by him in pen and ink and learned quite a bit about his life in Dumfries where he was a customs and excise worker for a time. I learned that he was buried in St Micheal's churchyard in the town so I biked the short distance over there to see his gravesite. He had been originally buried ( pretty much unappreciated at the time) in a corner of the churchyard in 1796 but was reburied in a more fitting tomb in 1815 when the Scottish people realized what a national treasure he really was. ( see photo, it is the white structure).

Carried on southward to New Abbey and stayed at the Abbey Arms Hotel with a B&B arrangement. Met a character in the bar by the name of Cubby who eventually bought me a drink before he hobbled out on his cruthches as fast as he could to catch the bus.
I left enough with the barman to buy Cubby one the next time he came in ( which would be very soon I'm sure) with instructions to tell him it was from the Canadian.

Rode 36 miles today.


THURSDAY JUNE 21, 2001

Rode 39 miles from New Abbey to Kirkudbright ( pronounced Kirkoobrie) today.

Young Phillip, who was left in charge of the New Abbey Arms kitchen, made me a very decent breakfast this morning and I told him so.

Setting off on the A710 southward, I soon cycled past the mountain called Criffel.(1868 feet). I thought about the Burns poem I had read in Dumfries yesterday which related to the loyalty of Scots to their country. Burns had written a poem to the effect that Scots would be loyal to Scotland ....."until great Criffel fell into Solway ( The Firth) and until the Nith (a river running through Dumfries) ran to waterhead" ( in other words ran backwards to its source). I have taken some liberty with the line and I hope it still makes sense. Apologies to Robbie Burns.

Took a 1-1/2 mile diversion into the village of Kipford and saw the many sailboats in the harbour. A pretty little town and the kind of thing you just don't see unless you make the effort to divert to the coast from the highway. And it is an effort on a bike because it is downhill to the seaside but uphill on the way back out. Got talking to a retired marine engineering consultantdown from Glasgow on business. He was meeting a couple of locals regarding the design of a new pier in the harbour. He told me it was high tide and that they get 15 feet of tide here.

Stopped to admire the view of Auchencairn Bay and Hestan Island but unfortunately I had no more film left in my camera to record the wonderful view. I'll have to commit that one to memory I guess. Really beautiful with Holstein cattle grazing in the fields down below the road and the English shoreline some 20 miles away across the Solway. I made a mental note to always have one disposable camera in reserve ahead of the one I am using. I am using the one time use cameras on the trip and upon developing the film on my return home I find that the pictures are acceptable but somewhat disappointing. The cameras are OK for a snapshot close-up but they are unable to render a good image at long range.They seem to flatten the landscape too much at distance.

Upon arriving at Kirkudbright, I decided to tent again tonight since it is clear with a promise of good weather tomorrow.The fee at the tent and caravan park is too high at L 8.50 but it is too late to make other arrangements so I have decided to stay.The guy at the office agrees with me that it is too high for a tent site but there is nothing he can do about it. The showers are extra of course. I did a quick clothes washing in the sinks in the laundry room and paid to use the dryer. My fleece shirt resisted getting dry so I hung it out on the clothesline and hoped it will be dry in the morning. ( it was more or less). This is going to be a cool night with all the stars out in view.

Michael, a guy from Blackpool camped in a trailer near to me, has brought me out a cup of tea at my picnic table. In the evening as I write these notes, I hear the sounds of a pipeband coming up from the townsite below. It turns out that the local band is practising for a tournament of pipebands coming up in a few weeks somewhere in Scotland. I wrote a couple of postcards sitting at the pinic table but unfortunately did not have postal codes for all the addressees. I have since found that some were delivered and some were not.Something to remember next time; takes complete addresses.

Rode 39 miles today

FRIDAY JUNE 22, 2001 WEATHER: Sunny all day


Looking over the map I judge that I can make it to Wigtown today. This is about 40 miles. I find that I can pretty well tell how far I am going to get in a day's riding by spreading the fingers of my right hand on the 1: 200,000 map and from little finger to thumb is about one day's ride.

Michael from the trailer next to me had brought me out a bacon and egg sandwich and a cup of tea this morning to get me on my way. I think that he and his wife probably feel sorry for me in my little tent with my little wheeled conveyance. Very nice people.

I just about froze in my tent last night. I mistakenly thought that my light but thin sleeping bag would be all that I would need in the UK in summer. I was wrong!. I had to put on everything that I had with me during the night including my foul weather gear. That helped but my feet were still cold. I am resolved to buy a better sleeping bag today.

I decided to take the A 755 to Gatehouse of Fleet and to shortcut what would probably have been a prettier coastal route on the B 727. I am doing this because I can see that I am going to be on lots of other coastal roads today through Newton Stewart and on to Wigtown.

I saw an Historic Scotland sign a few miles west of Gatehouse of Fleet. It said "Cairnholy, Ancient Monument, 1/2 mile"
I decided to swing in for a look. Unfortunately the 1/2 mile was a steep uphill push and heavily treed on both sides. But the effort was worth it when I reached the small stone circle known as Cairnholy.This site was four to six thousand years old and was a burial ground for some ancient people. It was partially excavated by archeologists in 1949 and has been returned to its original form. I could tell that this spot was rarely visited by the fact that the long grass surrounding the stones had barely been stepped on. The biggest stones are seven to eight feet tall. It was a strange feeling to stand there among the stones all alone and only farmers fields around me. Only one small stone cottage stood far off within my field of view.

I did buy a new sleeping bag in Newton Stewart at L 30. ( apparently good for minus 7C). Had an ice cream cone and while I was getting it my bike fell over with a crash. One of the fellows who was walking outside the shop had picked it up by the time I came out.

The A 714 from Newton Stewart to Wigtown was narrow, curvey and fairly heavily travelled.I am glad I am wearing my dayglow orange safety vest. Without proper visibilty it would be dangerous to be biking in some places here. A note of importance to the reader here. It is necessary to keep your bike completely under control in a situation like this.This is not the time to be reaching down for your water bottle or switching gears when you can hear traffic approaching from behind you. Keep well over and going straight and keep your eyes straight ahead. The drivers will go safely past you unless you veer out into their path.

Pulled into Wigtown about 4:30 PM and it looked pretty dead. I looked at the map and learned that the nearest campsite was another 11 miles down the Machar Peninsula. Too far for this time of day. The sun has been shining brightly all day and I must take shelter from it. I went into a sweets shop for a couple of scones and tea. While in there I asked the three other customers if they knew who was doing a B&B in town. I was sent to the Nochlace Inn down the street a little way. Ask and ye shall find. The proprietor Bill was very cordial and showed me the room at L 19.50 and stowed my bike in his garage lockup.

Had a nice dinner in the downstairs dining room section where we were all entertained by a steady patter of jokes coming from Bill's son Joseph who acted as waiter and resident comic. I bought a dram of Bradnoch ( the local single malt whiskey) as an after dinner drink with my coffee. Bradnoch is the one and only Lowlands whiskey distillery and I have learned that I have missed my chance to visit it because it is shut up for the weekend.

While writing my journal in the B&B lounge after dinner, I got talking to Isabel from Glasgow who was in there for a smoke. Her husband Paul came in after a few minutes and not the least bit jealous. Glaswegians are part of the 21st century I guess; unlike some residents of the Island of Mull. We talked for a while and they said they were going out for a couple of pints and asked if I should like to come along. I agreed and we had a very nice evening of conversation; they telling me of Scotland and me telling them of Canada.They said that they had flown to Calgary and had driven with an uncle to Vancouver.( the uncle had lived in Calgary for 30 years). They told me during the evening that their uncle shared the same opinion about the Quebec situation that I did; a case of well orchestrated blackmail against the rest of Canada. All these years they had thought him a little unfair against an oppressed people. They told me that they thought of emmigrating to Canada but her family connections in Scotland had held them back. I told them that they would probably miss the British pubs. They looked puzzled at this and they rightly pointed out that Canada had pubs too. I agreed that we did have them but there was a completely different atmosphere in them; a lot noisier for one thing.

Got to bed at 1:00 AM , by far the latest on this trip.

Rode 39 miles again today; same as yesterday.




SATURDAY JUNE 23, 2001 WEATHER: Mix of sun and cloud

Rode 38 miles today around the Machars Penninsula from Wigtown to Auchenmaig ( near Glenluce).

On the road at 9:45 AM after another hearty Scottish breakfast of bacon, sausage, fried eggs, beans, fried tomato, toast, cereal and coffee. Bill must have thought that I needed an extra large meal because he brought me so much food I could not eat it all.
I am going to have to start asking for just cereal, toast and coffee for a few days and coast a little on the food intake. Too much of a good thing.

Stopped at the port village of Garlieston on the way south down the Machars. This is one of the places where they trialed equipment for the Normandy invasion in WW 2. They built and tested floating pontoon bridges here which were used to bring supplies ashore from the ships to support the troops on the beaches in their advance into France. Thing thing was called Operation Mulberry and had been kept classified for 50 years. These bridge sections ( about 100 feet long) were towed across the English Channel and put into position quickly once a beachhead had been established and then equipment could be rolled in several kilometres from the supply ships. As luck would have it, the worst storm in decades hit the Normandy area within a few days of the initial invasion and destroyed the pontoon bridges but by that time, the bulk of the equipment was on shore and the invasion was largely unaffected.

Continued south to the Isle of Whithorn which is not really an island at all but is a little mainland port village. It has a pretty harbour with sailboats and small fishing boats with some putting out to sea to try their luck. I got talking to John from Shropshire in the English Midlands. He is the manager of a maintenance team at a university and he and his wife are up here for some R & R. He was a very nice fellow and after chatting for about 15 minutes, I told him I was going to have lunch at the Ship Paquet Inn which was recommended by B&B host Bill at Wigtown. He regretted that he could not join me because his wife was expecting him back at their rented flat for lunch. While I was eating lunch and talking to a couple from Dumfries who were down here motorcycling for the day, who comes in but John and ordered a pint and asked if he might join me. He had gone back to find his wife reading in the little bit of sun that was shining and he told her he had met a guy from Canada and she told him to go and join me at the pub. We talked about all sorts of things ( mostly politics) until about 2:00PM. I finally excused myself and paid my bill and bid goodbye to John. He seemed a little unhappy to see me go. I think he had fully unwound from the stress of his job and was a little bit bored by now at the pretty but quiet Isle of Whithorn.


I had planned to go the the ancient St Ninian's Chapel near the Isle of Whithorn but I forgot. I guess I'm just not that interested in pilgramages and that sort of thing. This was a favourite destination of pilgrims 1000 years ago. They would come all the way from the continent to visit this spot.

Took the A 747 across to the west coast and beheld a very dramatic view of the rocky beach coastline from the high cliffs at Monrieth. The rest of the day's journey was just too good to believe. The wind was at my back and it was either downhill or flat from there to my campsite at Achenmaig. I pulled in there for the night and paid L 4.00 and showers were 20p. It was here I used my small campstove fro the one and only time to heat soup. Too much bother to carry it, get it out and clean up the pot afterwards.

SUNDAY JUNE 24, 2001 WEATHER: Pleasant, mix of sun and cloud.

Rode 34 miles form Auchemaig to Girven (on the Ayrshire coast) today.

Finally got on the road at 9:20 AM after waitng around to get my L 3 deposit back on my washroom/shower key. The guy was still in bed when I rang him at 9:00 using the intercom phone system from outside the office. He came down fairly quickly looking bleary-eyed.He told me he was Londoner and he hated it up here in Scotland. His wife, who he has now divorced, made him come up here and then she got into mysticism, whatever that is. He got fed up and left her but he still hasn't gone back to England. He has the working at the campsite blues I guess. I bought 1/2 litre of milk and a Mars bar form him to get going on. I also bought a can of the best sardines I have ever tasted from him and am keeping them for a picnic lunch. Much better than the ones we get here.

Wthin about 10 minutes I came accross a mobile sheep shearing operation going on in a field beside the road. A gasoline powered generator was running the two clipper affair and two strong looking young fellows were making quick work of those sheep. They would drag then into the little elevated stalls and move them around in the most authoritative way and have them clipped very close within about two minutes. The sheep knew better than to struggle with these guys. They flipped them around like nothing and held heads between their knees or stepped on necks or whatever it took to keep the animal still enough to shear. The field behind the stalls contained about 200 sheep and it sounded like they were all bah-ing at the same time. What a racket. It must have been hard on the back though because these guys were stooped right over most of the time doing their work. You would have to be young to do that job.

I stopped for a proper breakfast about one half hour later at The Kelvin House in Glenluce where the owner, who normally didn't do breakfast for non-guests, fixed me up with biscuits and coffee. Ask and ye usually shall be given.

I decided to take the tiny backroad out of Glenluce to Barrhill instead of the coastal A77. I had heard where the A77 to Stranraer was very busy. Stranrear is where the ferries to Ireland depart and arrive. This choice turned out to be a good one because it wasn't too steep at any point and I hardly saw a car in 18 miles to Barrhill. There was one section of 5 or 6 miles where there were no fences and the sheep and cattle were free roaming. It looked a lot like some areas of barren ranchland which I have seen many times in Alberta. It struck me at one point that there may have been a bull amongst all those free animals and that he may attack me but that never happened. You must take care to let the sheep know that you are approaching because they will bolt in front of you if you don't ring your bell well ahead. They are probably used to cars but a bike is very quiet. One major regret I will always have of this trip is that I did not stop to talk to two young men with their kids as I passed through a little hamlet of 3 or 4 houses about halfway to Barrhill. We said hellos as I rolled past and one of the little kids was telling me something about the bike he was on was really his brother's. It struck about two miles later that I might have been a real novelty to this little group if I'd stopped to talk; a bicyclist all the way from Canada. Oh well, live and learn.

Had a bar lunch in Barrhill at the hotel. One of the young patrons was very friendly and he told me he came from Dunfermline, across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh. I remembered the other friendly people I had encountered in a pub at Dunfermline.
They must be a mostly friendly bunch there across the water from the big important city of Edinburgh.

I saw the aftermath of a motorcyle/ car crash in the hills on the A714 just south of Girvan. It looked like the motocycle had been going too fast on the tight blind curves and got over into the on-coming car's lane and had hit the right front fender. The bike was still lying there on its side and the police were guiding traffic past but the motorcyclist had been taken away. He would have been either killed or seriously injured by the look of the hood and fender of that old Jag. The old guy in the car was out talking to the cop and motioning with his hands how it must have happened. I am not surprised that this happens because I have seen just too many crazy motorcycle riders going into curves too quickly and too wide on this trip. Eventually the fickle finger of fate must catch up on some of them.

The town of Girvan had a summer fair going on this weekend but it was pretty much the usual sort of thing that we get in Canada. Loud rockbands, fast food, overpriced midway rides, the usual thing. The only thing that I might have been really interested in was the Royal Highland Fusiliers Display but by the time I got there at 5:00 PM, the troopers were taking it down.

Down at the docks, I talked to a nice Irish couple from County Tyrone who have been living in Manchester for several yaers but plan to retire in Ireland. They say they had to come to where the jobs were.

MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2001 WEATHER: Sunny, Warm


Rode from Girvan to Prestwick today; 31 miles.

Departed the Girvan campground at 9:00 AM but not before giving a little bit of "advice" to the lady in the office about how they could make a couple of basic improvements there. There wasn't even a mirror with which to shave in the men's washroom. She said some young people had broken it and that is why there isn't one. My other complaint had to do with the fact that the showers take only tokens instead of coins and that she hadn't bothered to tell me that when I pulled in hot and sweaty yesterday. By the time I got back to the shower room they had closed up the office and I was out of luck. I am pretty sure that this place will soon be out of business because of mismanagement. The place is only half full and several of the trailers parked here are damaged or abandoned. On the way up to the office this morning, I passed a forlorn looking groundskeeper cleaning up a mess of garbage. Some dope had put his garbage outside his trailer in a polyethylene bag before he headed for home last night and the ravens had got into it. no rules about trash bins to prevent this. The strange thing is that the washrooms are spotless so that they obviously have some good janitorial help here.

I took the back roads out of Girvan north toward Ayr via Old Dailly and Crosshill. Nice quiet ride through gently rolling terrain. I had left without filling my water bottle this morning which was pretty stupid on my part. As you can imagine, water is an absolute necessity for someone on a bike. I soon stopped at a farm where I saw a man walking accross the front yard area to beg some H2O. He was only too happy to fill my bottle and we talked for about 20 minutes. I think he was lonely. He is a bachelor Irishman who works 7 days a week for the absentee owner of this huge dairy and beef farm (2000 acres). He is farm manager and makes L2000 per month ( equal to $ 60,000 Can/ year). He was naturally very proud of that wage and he says that he is going back to Ireland to live someday. He told me that both he and the guy who looks after the beef side of things are Irish. He said the owner liked Irish farm workers for their hard work ethic.

The days ride was going along splendidly until I rejoined the main road A77 just south of Ayr. It was here that I met misfortune.
I had neglected to get onto the bike path beside the highway when I tee'd into the A77. So I was now riding along the paved edge of a major highway. As the traffic whizzed by me at high speed, I decided that I better get over to the adjacent bike path. Instead of stopping and lifting the bike over the low curb seperating me from the path, I attempted to jump the parallel curb at 15 mph and cross the grass onto the path. Big mistake. I was on my side skidding along in the gravel before I could blink. It was such a dramatic crash-up that two guys stopped their big truck and got out to see if I was allright. I was on my feet by the time they came up to me and brushing myself off. They looked me over and said that they couldn't see any major bleeding that I couldn't see for myself and I told them I would be OK and thanked them for stopping. Looking back on it, I should have at least checked my bike for damage while they were still there because had it been badly damaged, I would have been dead in the water. As it turned out, the only damage to the bike was that the handlebars were askew which I righted with my toolkit. The panniers on the left side are also a little bit scraped and I think that they protected my legs. My own body damage is more severe. Bleeding elbow and scraped left side from hip to shoulder. A little first aid from my kit got the bleeding elbow stopped and covered. The other scrapes would have to wait for a better look-over tonight at my lodgings. A definate dent about the size of a pea is now evident on the left side of my bicycle helmet; a pebble puncture I guess. That could have gone into my scalp had I not been wearing my helmet. I think that my ear and cheek could also have been chewed up pretty badly too without the helmet.

This incident raises a good point. When you think that you might be getting very competent, remind yourself that you are not an expert and that an accident is just a moments inattention away or a poor decision away. I had been on the road for about 500 miles at this point and was getting to think I was getting to be an accomplished bicycle traveller. Wrong! Remember that you are very vulnerable on a bike. They are a wonderfully efficient machine but there is nothing between you and the things that might collide with you.

I stopped later in Ayr to get the front wheel rim straightened. It seemed to have a slight wobble in it after the crash. It may have been just my imagination though. The guy at the bike shop warned me not to leave my bike outside his shop while he worked on the wheel because there were people around there who would steal anything they could. He helped me wheel it right into his shop.
When I got our walking around the streets in his area I could see why he was worried because there were a lot of bums around the little park where the Burns statue stands. A funny thing happened there that emphasized to me just how close we are to being a member of the disadvantaged in our society. Picture this. I was out walking near the bike repair shop and had just bought myself a small bottle of whiskey at a shop and and was carrying it in a paper bag. I was also drinking a bottle of Lucozade. I was sitting on a bench around the Burns statue when I noticed all the bums hanging around there. I decided to get up from there before one of them hit on me for a "donation" and while I walked way from there I noticed a man 50 feet in front of me who kept looking back at me anxiously as we walked in the same direction. I thought " I wonder what's the matter with him?"
Well when I got to my B & B that night it all made sense. I looked in the mirror and my face was dirty and my shirt was dirty and slightly torn at the shoulder from the accident. I guess I looked just like one of the bums to that man. It was kind of humbling.

I stopped at the Atholl B & B in Prestwick just north of Ayr" to lick my wounds." Jimmy Campbell, the proprietor is very friendly and suggested a good place for supper. I had a bath in Epsom Salts and I feel a little better although the extent of my wounds is now evident and I have decided to stay over a day or two to get back my strength and courage.

TUESDAY JUNE 26, 2001 WEATHER : Warm, rain all day

I asked Jimmy's wife Bunty to do a little pile of laundry for me. Jimmy ran me the 5 miles or so into Ayr in his car and set me down at the Wallace Tower in the main area of town. He said he was going in anyway but I think he made a special trip for me. h
He made me a little map of how to get to the bus which would take me to the Burns Monument ( not the Burns statue mentioned above). I bought a small umbrella at Marks & Sparks because rain was prdicted and it was looking very threatening.

Had to wait about 30 minutes for the bus to the Burns Tam O' Shanter Experience which is at the location of the Burns Monument. It is a theater/ giftshop/restaurant complex and specializes in Burns presentations. I took in the audio-visual presentation of the story of Tam O'Shanter by Burns when I got there. It tells the story of the drunken Tam who stayed too long at a pub in Ayr and finally set off home astride his horse Meg. As he was passing the ruin of the old Kirk near the Brig O'Doon, he noticed light and noises coming from inside. He stopped to look through a broken window and what he saw fascinated him. There were witches and warlocks and the devil having a party and dancing. He watched unseen and spellbound for the longest while and then was not able to contain his exhuberance and let out a yell of encouragement to the participatants. All went suddenly dark and they were after poor Tam. He quickly climbed up on Meg and set off for the brig at a gallop. He knew that if could reach the bridge he was safe because witches cannot cross over water. One young and nimble witch named Nan was in hot persuit and she was just about on them when Tam reached the bridge. Nan made a final leap to grab Tam just as he was mounting the bridge but all she got was poor Meg's tail so that Tam escaped.

Very interesting walk around the Burns Monument which built in 1823. (see photo). It is a beautiful thing about 75 feet high with a gold tripod on the very top. I climbed the circular staircase and had a nice view of the manicured grounds and the Brig O' Doon 500 feet away.(see photo). The old bridge is so beautifully proportioned and with its high arch. I walked across the bridge and was surprised to see just steep it was up the approach toward the centre. They believe that it was built in the 1400's. It was nearly knocked down when the new stone bridge was built around 1800. Thankfully good sense prevailed and left this graceful old structure in place. It looks like it will last for centuries yet.

I walked over to the cottage where Burns was born in 1759. It was the only thatched roof I saw on my whole trip. Different from my trip in England 21 years ago when I saw many thatched roofs, in the south of England anyway. I guess lots of things have changed in those intervening years; I don't see any Austins around this time either and there were thousands of them before.

I decided to walk back the couple of miles to the downtown area under my umbrella in the rain although I was hobbling a bit. I went into a bar which is housed in a former Presbyterian church. Had a good conversation with a man about my age named John who had been an electrician in the Scottish coal mines for 20 years, then in South Africa's mines and then worked on the Chunnel between England and France. This guy was a really interesting character and knew an incredible amount about history; particularly Scottish history. He told me that he would likely shock me with some of his opinions and ideas but I told him I was not easily shocked. He recommended a couple of good books which he had enjoyed and had influenced his life ( "Iron Heel" by Jack London and "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Hemingway). I have not read either so there are a couple more on my list of future reads.

Said goodbye to John too late to get my Epsom salts at the drugstore. They closed at 5:30. I guess I'll have to soak my wounds in plain hot water tonight.

No TV available tonight. Jimmy says that the lightening storm must have knocked out the transmitter tower. I bought a paper and read my book on Scottish bicycle inventor Kirkpatrick MacMillan. He rode his creation from a town near Dumfries to Glasgow ( 70 miles) in 1842. He could move along at 8 mph and did the journey in one day. The bike weighed 57 lbs and had steel rims shrunk onto wooden wheels and was a real bone shaker they say.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 27, 2001 WEATHER: Light rain in AM; sunny in the afternoon

Letf Jimmy and Bunty Campbell's B&B in light rain and travelled north toward Troon, Irvine and ultimately to Androssan where I am catching thr ferry to the island of Arran. Getting to Androssan involved traversing a difficult patchwork of of bike paths and highways and if I had it do over again, I would have travelled by train from Ayr to Kilwinning ( near Androssan). The trains are frequent, fast and run on schedule and putting a bike aboard is no problem.

Somehow got to the port town of Androssan just past noon only to learn that I had just missed the ferry by 15 minutes and the next one wouldn't be leaving until 3:15 PM. I decided to waste some time by riding northward out of town a bit and I had just started when a fellow by the name of Jim MacGregor caught up to me on a bike and asked if I was lost. He could see I was heading in the wrong direction from the ferry terminal I guess. He then asked me back to his place for a cup of tea. He is a retired computor type and bicycles every day as a hobby. I asked him if he ever bicycled further afield and he said that his wife still was working and he therefrore could not go on a lengthy trip.

Going onboard the ferry I met a very fit looking couple named Ray and Jean ( see photo) wheeling their bicycle built for two into the parking deck. They had been on the road for ten days and were cycling the "end to end route" which runs 1000 miles from Lands End in Cornwall to John O'Grotes in the northeast extremity of Scotland. They told me that they had done 70 miles already that day, having started out from just noth of Dumfries in the early morning. I was impressed because the best I had done in a day was 50 miles and I was tired. Jean told me that they were really pushing it to try to do that whole route in 10 days and that she was pretty tired out. They asked which way I was going to go when the ferry docked in Arran and I told them I wasn't sure but that I probably would go south around the island. That surprised them that I had no firm plan and they agreed that they will do their next trip in a more relaxed way, stopping here and there as they felt like it; much like I was doing.

We arrived at Brodick on Arran in bright sunshine after a one hour crossing. I bid goodbye to my friends and gave them my e-mail address because they said that they wanted to let me know how they had done. Brodick is a very pretty port village with a large harbour with high hills all around. I was reluctant to head out of town but time is getting on and I am heading for the Youth Hostel at Whiting Bay.

It was long push up the hill out of Brodick but a nice downhill ride at Lamlash about 10 miles away. At a high point outside of Lamlash there was a beautiful view of the harbour and Holy Island. ( see photo). This is a large mountainous island about two miles long, one mile wide and about two miles offshore. It was late afternoon and I was getting pretty dry so I wheeled in to the Drift Inn at Lamlash Bay. I was drinking my pint in the beer garden overlooking the harbour when I struck up a conversation with a man of about 65. He told me that he was an American from Fort Lauderdale with his wife visiting her aging mother. He had married his wife when he was posted to Scotland building oil rigs many years ago. His American born daughter was in the computer game and had married a Scot and now lives near Ayr. He told me that the Bhuddists own Holy Island. Apparently the Scottish government sold it to them with conditions about twenty years ago for a half million pounds. The island cannot be used for commercial purposes and must remain accessible to visitors. I was stunned that a feature as significant as this could have been sold to private interests. I guess that the government figured that it was just old Holy Island and nobody was using it anyway so we might as well get some money for it.

I pedalled on to the Youth Hostel at Whiting Bay and was fortunate to get a 4 bed room all to myself. The lady who manages the place said they were not busy at all. I met Ruth and son Michael form Dunfermline. She had travelled on Arran 40 years ago and stayed in hostels. She had brought son Michael (34) with her this time because she wanted to experience hostelling again. Mike seemed quite bored with the whole thing and I think that he thought that staying in hostels was really beneath him. He is a well paid London air traffic controller and owns two houses. He is planning to retire early. I could tell that there was a pretty wide gulf between mother's and son's outlook on life. She was very gentle and I suspect was a hopeless romantic. She had a blend of a scottish and a german accent. I asked her where she was from originally and she did not want to tell me because she said that people tend to pidgeonhole others of the basis of origin. She finally told me she was German but had lived in Scotland most of her life. This trip was meant to satisfy an adventurous curiosity which had come on her late in life. She was about 65 years old. I think that our conversation may have given her a little lift.

I estmate I rode about 25 miles today.

THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2001 WEATHER: Light rain in AM; clear and sunny in PM

I headed off after getting a light breakfast of bun and cheese and milk at a grocery store. I was travelling in a clockwise direction around Arran, first going south and then swinging west, then north.

I though that I had read that the southern part of Arran was not as hilly as the north but I must have got it wrong. I was off the bike and pushing up lots of hills for the first half of the day. It smoothed out around Dougarie Point and the pedal into Lochranza was lovely in the sunshine for the last 15 miles. The Kintyre peninsula was clearly visible across Kilbrinnan Sound on my left and the monntains of Arran were on my right.

There was a bicyclist near Machrie who had his bike inverted and was working on it. I stopped to ask him if he was OK. He is Welsh, lives in Bristol and is named Alan and has just retired two weeks ago. It turned out that he was staying at the Lochranza youth hostel and in the same room as I was. What a coincidence. He is a nice fellow 57 years old and a real cycling enthusiast. He has cycled in Spain and France. He was repairing his third tire in three days and he was not happy with hands all dirty from chain grease. He was pretty sure by now that the problem was the new tubes he had recently bought and installed. They seemed to fail and leak at the seams. I told him that there was something definately wrong because I hadn't had a flat in 700 miles. He joined me for a couple of pints at the Lochranza Hotel later but not before he had biked another 25 miles across the String Road which cuts across the centre of the island. This guy was keen. Lochranza is a beautiful port town with high mountains surrounding it and many boats in the harbour.

FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2001 WEATHER: Rain in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, rain in evening

Decided to stay on the island of Arran for another day. Took the bus into the main town of Brodick from Lochranza to see Brodick Castle which I have heard is worthwhile touring. I'm not really into castles in a big way but I have deided to visit at least one on this trip. The bus is fairly cheap @ L 3.00 return for a 30 minute road trip. The castle hadn't opened up for the day when I arrived around 9:00 AM and I had to wait about an hour to get in. I spent some time in the gift shop near the parking lot and met a fellow who I had encountered on the ferry coming over a couple of days ago. He was on a bike that day and was in casual clothing. Today he is in shirt and tie and is the volunteer manager of the gift shop and info centre and I really didn't recognize him until he refreshed my memory as to where we had met. I am not particularly good with faces and this guy was now completely out of context from the circumstances of our first brief meeting.

Entrance fee to the castle is L 4.50 and is well worth the money. It is one of the most completely refurbished castles in Scotland and contains most of the original furnishings. One of the guides told me that its state of completeness probably relates to the fact that the castle is located offshore from mainland Scotland and things weren't so easy to sell off in the days when owners were disposing their possessions to cover debts. There was a volunteer Historical Scotland guide in just about every room who could tell me just about everything about the Hamilton family who had been the original owners over the centuries. They also knew a lot about the furnishings and the general workings of the castle. The Hamiltons must have been really well heeled because the furniture was truly spectacular; the finest wood workings with guilt edging and inlaid features. At one point in the early eighteen hundreds when the family was running a little low on funds, they arranged a marriage with a Bavarian blueblood and injected needed money into the family fortune. Unfortunately the marriage with that particular Mr Hamilton was unhappy. The Earl continued to run around hunting, gambling, and carousing leaving the poor lady alone at the castle most of the time. It had started out with the best of intentions with the building of a Bavarian style teahouse/retreat in the woods to make the young lady feel at home. She should have packed up and took the first boat home but I guess that was not possible in those days. Once the die was cast, you suffered in silence.

The last Hamilton to occupy the castle was a lady who died in 1957. There is a large oil painting of her seated at her piano which was done in 1912 and she was quite beautiful. Her same baby grand piano sits in front of where the painting is hung today. It is in perfect condition. After having lunch at the castle cafeteria, I walked into the town. I cut across the long beach front which runs for a mile or so between the area of castle and the town proper. I had a nap on the beach in the sunshine and I watched the seabirds soar over the water. Ocassionally, one would suddenly plunge into the surface from 100 feet or more to catch a fish. They usually came up with one but not always.There were about six or seven small warships rafted together well out in the harbour and the flags appear to be the French tricolour. About two o'clock, they suddenly started breaking away one at a time and sailed slowly toward the open water of the Firth of Clyde.

I watched the Cal Mac ferry come into the same wharf where I had landed two days ago. I noticed a bronze tablet at the ferry office which was dedicated to the crew of the Dasher who had perrished near here just off the island of Arran in 1943. I decided to ask one of the young uniformed employees about the Dasher and he told me that he didn't know anything about it. I have since learned that the aircraft carrier Dasher and her crew of 379 was suddenly lost in a huge explosion after steaming out of Lamlash harbour
( 10 miles south of here) toward the mainland on March 27, 1943. It has never been determined exactly what happened to her.

I took the bus back to Lochranza at about 4PM. Most on the bus were students, including the children of the Lochranza youth hostel operators where I am staying. Kids look that same the world over; running shoes, backpacks, body piercings, enthusiasm, laughing; only the accents are different.

I had another pub meal at the same hotel as the night before except it is a lot busier tonight. It turned out that the usual local crowd is augmented by the influx of some weekend traffic; people who come over to Arran to their retreats for the weekend. I met Robert who had practised medicine in Canada thirty five years ago and is now living in the north of England. I met his friend Archie who is in the advertising game. Both of these gentlemen were so interested in me trying their respective favourite single malt whiskeys that the each bought me one. They were both there with their families and everyone was having a good time. The locals knew them all and I could see that they liked them too. Robert kept calling above the din of noise to his wife on the other side of the bar;
" Ethnie, come over here and meet my Canadian friend". But she wasn't going to budge off her stool so Robert finally took me over to her. She was very nice and told me of her experiences as a young doctor's wife in the Niagara penninsula. She was very pretty.


SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2001 WEATHER; Some rain, cloudy

I will ride 31 miles form Lochranza to Otter Ferry today.

Caught the 9:15 ferry to Clanaig and admired the view of Arran off the stern of the boat. Beautiful mountanous terrain with green slopes and white cottages part way up the high hills around the town. (see photos). When I get to Clanaig, I see that it is just a barren ferry dock. The town is a couple of miles off but I am not going in that direction. I cycled the 11 miles across the top of the Kintyre penninsula and it was pretty uninteresting; just pasture land and moors with very sparse settlement.

I met two cyclists Brian and Peter from Edinburgh at the ferry dock at Portavardie( see photo). On hearing about my plan to "ferry hop" back the the mainland via the island of Bute, they told me that I should really consider heading further north up the Cowal penninsula and end up in Oban on the coast and then take the train back to Glasgow. This sounded like a good plan and I foolishly listened to them and ended up pushing up hills on a single lane track of road in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Of course this route would lead to new adventures and new people that I otherwise would never have encountered so, in the end it was a good decision.

While stopped alongside the road looking at my map, a man in a well worn Defender ( looks like a Jeep) stopped to see if I was lost. He was the local factor who knew everything about the area and steered me to the pub down the road to get info on lodgings for the night. A factor is a sort of farm maintenance man I gather, who looks after mending fences, finding lost sheep, and probably much more. I think that they work a large area and maybe several farms from the way this guy talked. I ended up in a B&B at Otter Ferry and had a lovely meal of trout at the pub restaurant next door. Val, the B&B proprietor and I watched TV for an hour or so but the TV signal was lost for some reason so that was the end of that. Val and her husband are from England and have bought this B&B a couple of years ago. He still works in England so she is on her own most of the time. He is hoping to retire soon. Val has a thick accent and reminds me very much of Vera Duckworth on the Coronation Street TV series.

To those of you who have read my journal and enjoyed it, I thank you for your continued interest. Your encouragement kept me writing. For those of you not on Hotmail, I enclose a rough map of my route. I should have included that in the first episode.



SUNDAY, JULY 1, 2001 WEATHER: Scotch ( Scottish?) mist most of the day; no sun

Rode 35 miles miles this day from Otter Ferry to Inverary.

I left the B & B at 9:30 AM in a morning mist and had a very nice pedal along Loch Fyne for the first hour or so. Then the mist got thicker and really began to soak me through. I switched to my rain jacket but foolishingly not into my rain pants and it wasn't long before my pants were soaked. It isn't exactly rain in the usual sense; just kind of a steady light drizzle that eventually soaks you through.

The road along Loch Fyne is narrow and quiet and is probably seldom used by cyclists because when I encountered an adult sheep he didn't seem to know what to make of me. He just kept running down the road in front of me. After a 1/4 mile or so, I thought that I had better dismount and walk the bike so he wouldn't be so alarmed and get too far down the road from where he was supposed to be penned. That worked. He turned around and cautiously came back toward me in the roadside ditch to return to the area of his field.

I stopped for refreshment in Strachur where the man in the shop told me that they don't do a very good job of weather forcasting in this area. He says that if the weather is predicted to be rain, it doesn't rain and visa-versa. Had a bowl of soup near the head of the Loch and when I came out, it had finally stopped raining. A man and his wife driving a Jag came over to tell me that they had seen me on the road the day before. I guess my orange vest with the Canuck flag on the back is unique.

The rest of the ride into Inverary was pretty uneventful although the scenery was interesting ( high green hills rising into the mist on both sides of the Loch). It would have been even more interesting in sunshine. Once I joined the A 83 highway, traffic was pretty heavy but the raod was wide enough to be safe. Pulled into Inverary about 3:00PM and decided to knock around until 5:00 until the youth hostel opened. I had not booked ahead but with the cut in tourism from foot and mouth, I would likely get in.

I met Vincent from Derby ( pronounced Darby) at one of the intersections in the town and we pedalled to the youth hostel together and checked in among a fairly good crowd of other cyclists, backpackers and motorcyclists. Vin and I got put into the same tiny room since we arrived at the same time. Spent a fair amount of time talking with Vin in the evening in the common room where about 15 others were conversing in english, french and german. Vincent is 30-ish and a real bicycling enthusiast and is travelling very light and fast. It is a good thing I am not going his direction in the morning because I could never keep up with him.

Guests Ralph and Jackie are up from Nottingham to climb some local hills. They are what is called Munro Baggers. Munro was a famous climber from years ago I believe. This couple have made a lifelong hobby of climbing all of the 350 high hills ( 3000 feet plus) in the UK. So far they have done all but eight. They are retired and a very very healthy looking 65 or so. He was ex Rolls Royce Derby and knew one of two of the people that I had met at Rolls Royce UK during a business trip 25 years ago. Two of the youth hostel guests are young female motorcyclists from Germany. They are engaged in animated conversation with the young male bicyclists.


MONDAY, JULY 2, 2001 WEATHER: Slight drizzle in AM, partly sunny in the PM.

Rode 36 miles from Inverary to Oban today.

Got on the road at 9:30 AM after sharing Vin's bacon and toast with him. He had extra and couldn't really carry it. While getting my bike out of the storage shed, I discovered that there was a drying room right next to the bike lock-up. People were getting their now dry clothing out of this room and putting it into their packs. It is a room with a large radiator and lines for hanging clothes. I wished that I had known about it the night before because some of my stuff is still wet. Hanging up in my little room hadn't dried it much overnight. Live and learn.

It is drizzling rain very lightly when I left the hostel but by the time I get up into the hills it is raining steadily. I have decided that there is a rule of thumb for bicycling in Scotland.... " if there is mist in the glens ( valleys); there will be rain in the bens
( mountains)". It is a long 10 mile climb out of Inverary up over the hills toward Dalmally. It is gradual but unrelenting and I really don't have the right bike for this with the load I am carrying. However there is only one or two places where I had to get off and push in this section but by the time I crested the Argyll penninsula, I was pretty tired. The glide down the other side was very swift and I was down at the elevation of Loch Awe in what seemed like just a few minutes. In retrospect, I descended far too quickly for safety. If someone had failed to see me and pulled out of a side roadway, I could have been toast. All you have been you and eternity is four little rubber brake pads. Down on the A85 roadway, the view of ancient Kilchurn Castle on Loch Awe was sort of haunting through the mist. (see photo)

I stopped for a coffee just beyond Kilchurn Castle and while I was in the shop, a bicyclist from the youth hostel at Inverary came in. He was a Frenchman named Francois who I thought that was travelling with others in a group. It turned out that he was solo like me. I wished that I had known that before I left this morning because we could have ridden together right out of Invereary. He was speaking french ( and probably german) all evening so I didn't get talking to him the night before. Francois is teacher at a technical college near the Alps and his specialty is civil engineering. His english is pretty good and a lot better than my french so we settle on english for our conversation. I made the usual "plume de ma tante" efforts but it just wasn't working so we went with french.

Francois and I cylced together through to Oban for the rest of the day stopping at the hydro-electric station at Ben Cruachan for a free tour ( free to cyclists that is). The plant has a 400 Megawatt output and was opened in 1965 by the Queen. It has four reversible turbine/generators and is used as a peaking station at periods of daily high electricity demand. The station takes water stored in a natural gouge in the upper reaches of the ben to pass through the generators 320 feet below to supply electricity at times of peak demand. Then at night the plant uses surplus electricity off the national power system to pump the water from Loch Awe back up to the reservoir. The turbines become pumps and the generators become motors for this part of the cycle. Very ingenious principle invented by a Scot and now used all over the world.

We carried on down the beautiful Brander Pass toward Oban. Very high hills on both sides of the narrow Loch Awe on its way to discharge into the sea at the Firth of Lorn north of Oban.(see photos). I have read where there was a major battle of the clans in this pass about three hundred years ago.

The sun finally emerged at the little village of Taynuilt where we turned off the A85 onto a one lane roadway that took us through Glen Lonan. We saw free roaming sheep and highland cattle in places along this road.

We stopped for tea and a scone at a rare breeds farm not far from Oban. we leaned our bikes against one of the fences. I had seen a red deer in the compound. While we were having our tea, the proprietor came over to us and said he had moved our bikes because his deer was about to start devouring the saddles. He said he had rescued them just in time.

We checked into the youth hostel at Oban at 4:30 PM. Very nice dorm room overlooking the harbour. The sun was now peeking through from time to time. In the evening, I walked around the town and people watched. It is a very picturesque place but very touristy. One thing of note was the four small british naval patrol boats tied up together in the harbour. There was a lively party going on on one of them which was all draped in flags. The beat of "Who Let the Dogs Out" from their loudspeaker system throbbed across the harbour. They were young people having a real good time.



TUESDAY JULY 3, 2001 WEATHER: Overcast

I am catching the train out of Oban at 1:00PM so I have time to kill. I left my stuff checked in a locker at the hostel and biked around the town. I said goodbye to Francois before 8:00 AM because he is anxious to get on his way to the Isle of Mull. He has just started two weeks of vacation. We exchanged e-mail addresses.

I rode around Oban until the distillery tour opened at 9:30. It cost L 3.00 but included a dram of 14 year old Oban single malt at the end of the tour. It was quite interesting and I may try a bottle when I get home.

Chatted with a nice man from Mull outside the railroad station. He had worked for an American fruit canning company in Glasgow all his life until he was made redundant in 1984 at 52 years old. He said that it was the best thing that ever happened to him. His wife was from Mull so they moved there and he took up driving a cab. Never been happier.

As I sit in the railway car awaiting its departure from Oban, I am aware that my chest cavity is still causing me quite a bit of pain and I am beginning to wonder if I cracked a rib or two in that spill I took near Ayr. It may be getting worse.

Putting the bike aboard the train was no problem at all and no extra charge. They have a small section at the end of the car for hanging the bikes up by the front wheel and straps to tie it in place. The luggage just goes down below where the bike is suspended. It is such a neat arrangement and makes so much sense to be able to hop from one town to another by train along with your bike. The British are very bicycle friendly. Canada is in the dark ages in this regard.

The trip back to Glasgow was very pretty through the highlands and I didn't have to pedal any more hills. The station in Glasgow was at street level so I just unhooked the bike, put it outside on the platform, loaded it and rode way; no stairs.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2001 Weather: Partly Sunny

Spent the morning at the Amadeus Guest House disassembling my bike for the trip home. I will take a taxi to the airport tomorrow with the bike in a state ready to check it in. Vivienne has put me into a nice larger room this time. A month ago when I was here my room was postage stamp size.

When my work was done, I decided to head off to tour Glasgow again. Got on the tour bus at the same spot as last time and sure enough, the same driver was on and greeted me as cheerfully as he had one month ago. Knew who I was right away.

I got off the bus in the area of Glasgow Cathedral and went inside. This is a huge cathedral with high vaulted ceilings dating back about 900 years. I joined a tour inside and learned something of its history.Got back on the bus and continued on to George Square in the heart of the downtown where I ate again in the same pub as last time. Why change when you're on to a good thing.

THURSDAY, JULY 4, 2001 Weather: Overcast.

The cab to the airport was a little expensive at L19. It was only about a twenty minute ride and probably no more than 12 miles or so. I gave the cabbie a L20 note and told him to keep the change. He said that I probably needed it more than he did and gave me back the L1 coin. I took it. The price was just too high in my opinion.

Check-in went well. The lady at the counter gave me the requisite polybag for the bike and even some tape to secure it closed.
Inside the terminal departure area, I asked a young British couple to watch over my luggage while I went to the restroom. They were definate about the fact that they would not watch over my stuff if I left it. OK, I left it anyway and when I got back a couple of minutes later I decided I didn't want to sit beside these uncooperative nits so I moved my bags to another place a few rows away from them. Well about 67 days later when the World Trade Centre came crashing down I was reminded of this incident and it became completely clear to me why people might distrust a stranger's request to watch over some bags. We Canadians have never been exposed to the sort of terrorism that the Brits have. I was completely naive as to the reason why this young couple would not be comfortable beside my abandonned baggage. When I think about it now, it is a wonder that they didn't cause a red alert and bring the cops swooping in to get my bags. Oh well, live and learn.

The flight home was uneventful and my wife and my sister were there to get me and help me to the car park with my eqipment. Home sweet home!

Well that's it. Thanks for joining me. I hope that someone who reads this might do a similar trip sometime. It was a lot of work but it was all worth it.