I have always thought it would be fun to cycle the length of the River Tweed. It flows roughly west to east for 97 miles, rising in Scotland, then forming the border with England, and finally emptying into the North Sea at Berwick, a fully English river. I have long had in mind a ride […]
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Maps 70, 71 & 72
Today was the kind of day I imagine I will have quite a few more of before this trip is done. I covered something like 96 miles and 3 whole maps and followed a more or less straight line from west to east. I started out in Ardrossan, on the Ayrshire coast, and reached Cardrona, […]
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Map 69 – Arran
Among the 204 OS Landranger maps of Britain, there are a few that contain a single island that fits beautifully into a 40km by 40km square: the Isle of Wight, for example, or Anglesey, or the Isle of Man; all of which are still to come in this adventure. So far we have seen how […]
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Brief planning update
I just realised I have completed everything I already said I would do and not posted an updated plan. Well, I can put that partly right, although I don’t have it all confirmed yet. It is evolving! Anyway, here is what I do know about the remainder of my time in Scotland. All being well, […]
Last night’s rain in Campbeltown kept me confined to barracks; but I awoke to a dry, if rather cloudy, morning so I made an early start (for me, at any rate – any day when I am cycling before 8am is early). I was able to cross the Kintyre peninsula to the west coast and […]
Three times a week (but not on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday) a Calmac car ferry sails from Ardrossan, the main port for Arran, to Campbeltown, the remote town that sits at the bottom of the long north-south Kintyre peninsula. By boat it is a journey of 40 miles, around the bottom of Arran and beyond, […]
Another hot, sunny day and today no fewer than three riders setting off from Edinburgh’s southern suburbs: myself, Jenni and my brother Paul. A rare treat to have so much in the way of enthusiastic company for the ride to the edge of OS map 67 in Eyemouth, some 58 miles away, plus another 12 […]
I was a bit worried about this section of my journey. It is a busy part of the country, with two very large cities lying at either side of a heavily populated strip, and a good deal of industry, past and present, thrown in for good measure. Not, on the face of it, a particularly […]
For many years before the pandemic, I had a job that took me all over the world. Once, many years ago, I spent a cold but enjoyable February week working in Gothenburg, Sweden, at the Nordic head office of Burger King, of all places. The Swedish lady on reception there had previously lived in the […]
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Map 62 – Bute-iful
Monday was a lovely sunny, breezy day with excellent visibility for enjoying some magnificent scenery. And enjoy it we most certainly did, pretty much from the start of proceedings right through to the finish. We began with a quick, 5 mile ride into Tarbert along the A83. It wasn’t too busy but it did have […]