Day 15, Loch Ness to Carbisdale Castle - 65 miles

Cumulative 1,045 miles. We crash through the 1,000 miles barriers going through Beauly below.
Paul takes a well earned rest on the long descent into Bonar Bridge after a long climb out of Allness.

This is Scotland's idea of a young person's coach trip "Wild and Sexy" - when has coach touring ever been sexy !! Anyway had a bout of road rage with this thing today as the driver could not decide whether to go right or left with us behind him - his indecision was made worse by his speed of 20 mph.

Funnily our only other incident of road rage occured today when a Toyota Yaris tried to inch past both of us on a B road. He got past Paul but started to edge me into the ditch at the side of the road until much flailing of arms and horrible curse words made the stupid driver realise that there were two bicycles on his indside (I have to say "his" because both cases of dreadful driving were done by "his" and not "hers" strangely).

Below our bed for the night - Carbisdale Castle - unbelievably a youth hostel equipped with grand ballroom (communal eating) and a Great Hall scattered with Italian marble statues. Not bad for £12 a night.

Day 13, Crianlarich to Fort William via Glencoe 52 miles

Cumulative - 940 miles. Rained, no pissed down all day, and we have no photos at all of Scotland's most photographed area of the Glencoe Pass. We didn't care being more intent on reached Fort William asap to see the Heinekin Rugby Cup Final.
Day 14, Fort William to Loch Ness via Ben Nevis - 40 miles
Cumulative 980 miles. Rick, the hivis escort rejoins us for the scaling (well more like heads down grinding and plodding) of Ben Nevis on our day off. Unusually for this area we have photos which show some background rather than low cloud.

Richard near the top carrying a large swag bag filled with "get you up the mountain goodies".

Bloody freezing as you ascent - temp dropped by 10 degrees C in a couple of hours of plodding. Must admit I left Rick as I was too cold and ran down the mountain to meet up with Paul, as he preferred to read about the continued demise of Newcastle Football Club rather than brave the outside. Good decision as it started raining as I reached the bottom leaving Rick with a sound drizzly drenching. Paul outside the Scottish Youth Hostel located on the banks of Loch Ness. Fab spot with the communal lounge overlooking the view behind Paul.

Same view of the loch. More about the dangers and pitfalls of youth hostelling later (why they are called "youth" hostels is a mystery - more ranting later).

Paul astride the 1940's tandem that a very nice couple of 70 year olds from Bristol were doing the same trip. Deep deep respect for doing it on the above beast which Paul could not even lift up ! Alex would say it's Pauls "guns" but I can vouch that it was made of cast iron.

Day 12, Kirkintilloch to Crianlarich - 68 miles

Cumulative 888 miles. Bum ratings - these are now discontinued as both Paul and Miles have developed "Iron Arses" as Stalin famously said about Molotov.

Started out the day from Miles's brother Richard's house outside Glasgow. We have been honoured by a bright yellow "highvis" cavalcade motorcycle escort. Paul reckons it is because we are taking exercise in Scotland and thus need to be protected from the natives. More mundanely Rick needs to get his farting, Chinese 125hp beast to his second home in Oban.

Nevertheless going down Kirkintilloch high street we are confronted just after 8am with a man running across us in trainers looking like he is one a morning run. Paul is so cynical that he immediately comments "the only reason he is running is the pub has probably opened on the dot at eight and he doesn't want to miss any valuable drinking time".

No more about low Scottish life expectancies - although it does seem to both of us that everyone has a fag on the go. Cycling through the streets of urban Scotland is counterproductive as there is more passive smoking taken in by all the folk crowded round pub entrances.

Fantasctic day's cycling along three bespoke cycle ways - Strathkelvin Walkway old railway line above from Kirkintilloch to Strathblane, then onto part of the West Highland Way - where my road bike set up faltered as I immediately careered into a mud hole whilst Paul just floated by on his tractor tyres (I got him back later on straight flat roads - well nearly flat - the road surface still awful). Lastly we went round three inland lochs after Aberfoyle on the wonderfully named "Loch Venachar InverTrossachs Trail".




Above one of the lochs to be cycled round.

Motorbike escort at the pass to Lochearnhead and the run into Crianlarich across more dreadful road surfaces. The full glory of what Richard's wife Fiona calls the "putt-putt machine" is seen above. We went faster than it on several descents but you can't argue with 148mpg.

Day 11, Melrose to Kirkintilloch Glasgow - 76 miles

Cumulative - 820 miles. Bum ratings : Miles - 7, Paul 6 (terrible Scottish roads inflicting serious undercarriage damage to English behinds - the Scot's always attack from the rear !).
This is outside the rather plush Melrose Youth Hostel where a strage German was loading up his bike with three panniers and a tent. He was wearing a suspicious pair of close-fitting Nureyev tights. He was off the cycle the Scottish Castles route which ends up at Berwisk-on-Tweed - which incidently has been called the "Poland of Britain" as it was invaded alternately by the Scots and the English - I suppose being German he would readily understand about invading unprotected countries.


This is me going along by the beautiful River Tweed. Luckily the road goes alongside the river for 40 miles before we had to climb out of the Borders and start to descend into Glasgow metropolitan area (when I use the word descend I mean it both physically and socially).

Firstly we were cheered on by the local drunk ladies in Airdrie - it was only 3 o'clock but they were out in force. They could hardly stand up but gave a stirring Scottish welcome from the pavement.
Next we had our afternoon picnic break at the salubrious A721 roundabout at Motherwell.

Finally some decent road and bike rage just outside the vast council house estates of Bellshill. Miles gets cut up and hooted by Scottish driver who knows something is wrong when he sees someone doing exercise in Glasgow. He immediately assumes rightly that this must be an alien Englishman and therefore must be repelled. Lots of hand and finfer communications ensue before Scotsman notices that this pleasant diversion for him is cutting into his drinking time at the local.

Off to climb the Trossachs tomorrow (that is not a colloquial term for sheep shagging !).

Day 10, Durham to Melrose (Scotland) - 90 miles

Cumulative - 744 miles. Bum ratings : Miles 4, Paul 4 (Paul had bad knee rating instead). Fantastic but long day taking in Hadrian's Wall, the Northumberland Moors, Kielder Water and Forest and the Scottish Borders.

Starting off at Caroline's outside Durham, both her and Ed accompanied us the first few miles - although at the first hill Caroline firmly states "I don't do hills !" - so that was that.

The above looks like a rugby front row - a hooker in between two props !
This is Paul climbing out of the valley up to Hadrian's Wall. Some bits of the wall left. The Romans did a fine job in keeping the Scots out of England - a shame we can't rebuilt it !
This is us leaving England over the rather bleak but beautiful moors.
This is us invading Scotland on our trusty steeds. Two things you notice immediately ; firstly you go from bleak moors to rolling wooded and ferned hills and secondly Scottish roads are rubbish ! Never seens so many potholes, bad repair works, worn out surface and their speciality - sunken drain covers - by at least a foot. Don't know if their government spends all the money on hospitals as it has been argued (the Scots I suppose do need more hospitals than most - we have seen so many smokers on the streets and fat products in the shops) or that the highway workers are all on Special Brew for elevenses.


Here we are at the top of the Boarders where the roads were very good, (we must have done these ones) only sheep using them. Finally the weather broke and from here on in it was glorious sunshine.

Day 9, Harrogate to Lanchester (Durham) - 77 miles

Cumulative - 654 miles. Bum ratings : Miles 3, Paul 3 (disappointingly low ratings for all you sadists out there - we've become hard Northern men).

Picturesque north Yorkshire towns today ; Knaresborough, Northallerton, Durham and Boroughbridge. No picture today on the run as 85% of it was on the one A167 which was in the flat Vale of York - so it was head down at 20 mph (wonderful 18 mph tail wind). Dodged the rain and arrived late afternoon.

Unfortunately we did not take many photos today as we were hammering through the miles.
We will be in Scotland tomorrow and promise picturesque photos from here on...

Here we are outside Caroline's house, on top of the first real hills of the day.


Below Caroline enjoying a spot of gardening on her allotment, even though she has left hardened London she still controls 'the patch'.

Day 8, Sheffield to Harrogate - 65 miles

Cumulative - 577 miles. Bum ratings : Miles 3, Paul 3 (longer day but still in good shape).





Parts two of the social horror tour of Hades. Today's "highlights of the lowlifes" were Rotherham, Featherstone and Castleford. We were getting quite experienced in navigating through disused industrial estates and derelict terraces. Even we did not have the courage to go through Paul's nemesis of Bradford - to be avoided at all costs. Picture below was coming into Featherstone and we noticed some local wildlife on the pavement.




Low and behold we find a resident of Featherstone shot for trying to escape.

We plough on through the industrial heartland (wasteland) until we finally see green around
Wetherby where suddently the humans looked human and the widlife looked wild. Below is the lovely cycle path from Wetherby to Harrogate.

Eventually arriving at Auntie Julies in Harrogate. Beware Simon and James - she wants this place as well. Thanks to Julie for putting us with us both.

Cousin John (on the right) manfully took on the mantle of feeding us the 5,000 calories needed at the evening sittings. Many thanks to John and Bruno (on the left).