Day 9

The Lake District View over Ullswater Carlisle Castle Welcome to Scotland Gretna Green

Ex-Mighty Gretna Dumfries Glenmidge Smithy Red Squirrel!

After such a nice day before, and rising to the challenge, for some reason we were feeling a little low in the morning. My bike computer also died on me this morning which was a little depressing.

The midges were busier in the morning. Tip. Keep your mouth closed at all times! The first 20 miles we cycled alongside the lovely Ullswater with great views along the lake. At Penrith, I bought a new computer, our spirits were higher as we set off on quick a long ride today.

Carlisle was quite scenic to go through (for some reason the Welcome to Carlisle sign had a “Love Man Utd, Hate Glazers“ sign on it?) and headed on the alternative road to Longtown – Gretna as the A74 is possibly the worst road for cyclists to ever cycle on. We found out on the way back there were road works and cyclists were banned from the road anyway!

At Gretna we took photos of the last house in Scotland and the Welcome to Scotland sign. Scotland at last! It seems a long time ago when we had the storms in Devon. We briefly passed by Gretna Green where there was surprise, surprise, a wedding going on and a day bore the demise, Gretna FC ( a club I have been following since they moved into the Scottish League). There were no toilets to see of in Gretna so Dave went for a leak at the ground (how very dare he!) and I held on further to Eastriggs where I quickly went into a local pub and went to the worst toilet in existence.

It was just before this that a tandem overtook us with a youngish man and woman who burned us up and cycled into the distance. By the time we got to Annan, we saw them again on a park bench having a quick snack.

We had phoned in advance and were told as there was no food but the pub 2miles away we should get some food in Dumfries. The ride from Gretna to Dumfries was very slow but we got to Tesco, made some room and got some pasta and a four pack to Scrumy to see the night off. I had a little more space than Dave so I took three of the cans. We set off again for the final 10 miles when 3 miles down the road bang! There goes the scrumy from Daves bike exploding on the floor. Darn it. A few miles away, we came across the aforementioned pub and Dve came out with two Scrumpy bottles to replace the expired one. Result.

Once we found the site (it was remote and we went the wrong way, we only had a post code to go on), we settled down with a cup of tea from the man in the caravan at the side to a lovely evening with few midges despite being called Glenmidge! The owner looked like quite a broadest referee called Collina and had a shed as big as a small hanger with all the cooking facilities you would need!