Sorry to those friends in Edinburgh who I never got a chance to see - just not enough time in the day. Doug & Fiona (from old Oak Hall days) - hopefully next time, Good to speak to you Mary, thanks for phoning.
Awoke at 4:40am with a headache - too much coffee, too little coffee, body had enough, room too warm? Dont really know but took paracetamol and back to sleep. Still feeling rough at breakfast so popped a few more pills, said goodbye to our hosts David & Rosie (who looked after us very well) and into the Edinburgh traffic (in the car as we had finished cycling the previous day over the Forth Road Bridge). Note to myself - never travel with Paul in Edinburgh traffic.... he seems to make 'friends' with several dustcarts and bus drivers, who all had a friendly wave of one type or another - safer on the bikes me thinks.
Forcast was for rain, but the sun was shining on us. Made good time and cycled hard up from a place called Crosskeys towards Pitlochry where we had arranged to stay for the night. Cycled along beautiful wild raspberry hedge lined roads. Wanted to stop and pick some but time didnt allow. Cycled through to Perth, the gate way to the highlands which brought back lots of happy memories for me as I lived there for 12 months back in 95/96. Great to be cycling along roads I'd once driven and recognising old spots/ places of interest. Think Dave might have got fed up with hearing me say - I've been there Dave....... as we cycled along.
After Perth I started to feel worse with stomach cramps - maybe medication on an empty stomach earlier in the day, but found that I was started to struggle to keep up with Dave on his bike. We where a bit like we where attached by elastic, Dave would go ahead and then I'd manged to catch up, then he'd go ahead again. Still we made it to Pitlochry by lunchtime. This was good asevery mile that we now did, meant one mile less we have to do tomorrow. I decided to skip lunch to see if it helped the old stomach pains and of we set trying as best we could to avoid the A9 - quite a busy road and the lorry drivers do not like cyclists on their tarmac. Found a good cycle path - but if there is anyone from the Scotish Cycle network or National trust reading - PLEASE PLEASE can we have tarmac. The cycle tracks where built for mountains bikes rather than road bikes with our skinny tyres. Results in punctures on these sort of trails. 75ver the less we managed a healthy 75 miles before calling it a day just after Drumochtor Summit at around 1400ft above sea level.
1 comment:
Sorry you've been feeling poorly, never worried a northern lad before, he'd still manage a full day 'int Factry' or 'down pit',.......
maybe you're over doing it a bit!
Not like us pottering around allottments and making blackcurrant jam. What a celebration we'll have when you return! Already planning the lemon mereing pie, if your stomach ache is better that is.
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