The Gales of Galloway

This was another early ride, replacing the route we had planned, from Tiverton to Carmarthen, to allow Den to attend a funeral in Carlisle.  We were well out of sequence, and still not really sure whether or not we would ever get all the way to John O’Groats.  And we spent a lot of the ride wondering why were were doing it in the conditions.  Den got four punctures on the way to Newton Stewart and, after we had got the bikes into the hotel ballroom, did a huge amount of repair work mending his peppered tubes.  Still soaking from the ride, he came into bedroom with blackface from oil and rubber to go with the mud from the ride.

On the third day, Storm Ali duly arrived as we were in the middle of Galloway Forest Park.  I’m sure it’s lovely normally but there were trees down everywhere and, after we got to the top of the climb were dismayed to find that on a steep descent, 9% in places, we were  still having to pedal hard downhill in the face of a ghastly headwind, blinded by driving rain.  We stopped in Maybole to recover, only to get a phone call to say that our planned B&B was closed owing to storm damage and water ingress.  Fortunately Ayr is not a popular destination at that time of year, so we didn’t have too much difficulty finding somewhere else to stay.

Next day, I said goodbye to Den at his favourite fish, Kilmarnock, and spent the night in Saltcoats, which was a memorable location, mainly for the abuse I got for stopping there.  Not many tourists sample it’s few delights, or make use of the Wetherspoons’, which is just about the only place to get something to eat.  On the final day I battled solo, through heavy rain as far as Greenock, but then it turned quite pleasant on the way into Glasgow, where I finished a day early.

Dunoon to Lochailort