E2E Day 17. Today was the first day of cycling with the extra 5 riders. It was a long ride of 63 miles, made harder because of the heat and at times the head winds. We started by taking the little ferry from Lochranza to Claonaig, then the cycling started. At the top of the first hill we stopped to take a picture. Andy P took his phone out of his jersey pocket and something fluttered away in the wind….
E2E Day 15. Newark Farm was the perfect place for cyclists to stay. The landlady was wonderfully helpful and the breakfast fantastic. In fact we had so much we packed lots of it for lunch! We set off on the A76 (the old Glasgow Road) which is quite scenic. Unfortunately the surface was poor. And then of course there are the lorries thundering past. So whenever possible we took the opportunity of using side roads. We finally arrived at Saltcoats…
E2E Day 16. Last night we had a walk to the local hotel for a drink and saw a wonderful sunset. The Isle of Arran looks like such an amazing place! The fact that it is warm & sunny probably helps too! Lochranza is at the top of the island and the village is spread around the bay. As it was a day off today, we decided to keep off our bikes and to go for a bit of a…
E2E Day 14. Today was really great weather – in fact it was almost too hot! We rode through some great lanes this morning. We crossed the border into Scotland at Gretna. Then went through Aanan and on into Dumfries for lunch. After lunch we went out on the A76, although we did detour off for a while and went along some quiet lanes which basically ran parallel to the main road. In Sanquhar, we are staying at Newark Farm….
E2E Day 13. We are in to the second half of our End-to-End now and today was our last day in England. And what a lovely day it was. Upon leaving Windermere YHA we headed up the Kirkstone Pass. Their had been talk the previous evening of how ‘horrendous’ this climb was. Frankly however this proved false. Maybe we are seeing that we are now much stronger riders, maybe we treated it with respect but the 5 mile pass proved…
