Friday 11 September 2015

Lejogle - Day 7

So, today is day 7, a whole week cycling and a third of the way through (in time, at least).

There are two main ways of getting between southern Scotland and John O'Groats; via Edinburgh and the Cairngorms or via Glasgow and Glencoe. As I’m going there and back, I decided to do both ways but to do Edinburgh first as I’ve never been there (I went via Glasgow last time).

Today we set off at about 9:25, it wasn’t that we got up late (although it did take me longer to give up the warmth of my sleeping bag today) but because we spent a long time trying to work out the best way of getting to the Forth Bridge. Due to hills being in the way, the roads don’t go directly at the bridge; the roads go for the centre of Edinburgh and then you have to go back over to the left a bit.

Having looked at the map and used our sat navs and Google, I knew that there was no point in us trying to follow the same route around Edinburgh as I could use cycle paths and my dad could use busier roads.  

The roads over to Edinburgh weren’t too bad and so we made it to about 10 miles from Edinburgh in reasonable time. At that point we both set our sat navs for Inverkeithing Railway Station (we needed somewhere to meet on the opposite side of the Forth Bridge and that seemed like the best place as it should be sign posted) and went our separate ways.

It was an reasonable trip for me. I did my best to follow the sat nav, but it has an interesting idea of what a cycle path is. I did make it to the bridge with only a couple of wrong turns and had a lovely view of the rail bridge as I went across.

I met my dad at the station and he said that his sat nav had taken him on some very busy roads, which he didn’t like as his bike is quite slow. We then set off for the campsite. We arrived safely but my sat nav once again proved that it thinks anything is fair game as it routed me through a children’s play area (complete with children asking if I was lost as I don’t think they expected me there either).

When I got here I went to use the facilities (is that too much information?). My dad had said that when he arrived the door wouldn’t close; I had the opposite problem though as I couldn’t get the door to open when leaving and had to phone my dad to get me out (it was either that or climbing out of the window and, although I still had my helmet on, I didn’t fancy my chances).

After putting the tent up I went for a shower and started to flood the loo block as the drain was blocked (it’s OK, I got it sorted and cleaned up).

It’s been a cold and windy day, I’ve managed to keep warm but my dad says that he’s not been able to warm up all day. We’re in the tent sheltering from the wind now and going to have an early night to prepare for what tomorrow throws at us.

Tomorrow looks set to be the first wet day, something that I’m not looking forward to also it’s also looking windy. Although we’re going up a mountain (our stop is close to Aviemore), the amount of climbing (according to Google, which hasn’t been entirely reliable so far) isn’t too bad but it might be a long day.

Distance today - 101.5 miles
Total distance - 636.4 miles

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