Saturday June 28, 2014

The sun was up when we got up and so were the midges, we quickly put on our head nets that we had bought in Australia, but I still got bitten in the face by the little buggers.  The sun went in while we were having breakfast and it was cold all day.  The temperature never got above 10 degrees – it is the end of June for heavens sake.  We wore our windbreakers all day and cycling socks, Ralf even had his winter cycling gloves on.

It was a lovely route today, legs felt good and I lead most of the way, even though we had a headwind. We had a brief heavy rain shower so we switched jackets. Usually the heavy rain jacket is not good if it is warm as we perspire and although it is supposed to be breathable, you get wet from the inside as well as the outside.  Not today, it was cold, the jackets kept us warm and dry.

The car drivers today were really courteous, giving us plenty of room.  I worked with Chris Jones, his son is called Coulter.  We cycled through the small village of Coulter, this one is for you.

We arrived in Edinburgh at about 1:00.  The roads in Edinburgh are atrocious.  No cycle lanes, although we were allowed to use the bus lanes.  The roads were like washboards, potholes and messed up.  We were hoping to have a warmshowers in Edinburgh – I sent out 10 emails – 5 responded all with too busy so we booked into a hostel.  We found our backpackers hostel, although they said they had storage for bikes it was up four flights of stairs and down two flights.  Our room is at the very top of the hostel which is about 6 floors high. We hauled our panniers up the stairs and then Ralf decided that the safest place for the bikes is in our room, so we hauled them up all the stairs as well.

Tomorrow is a rest day.  We are looking forward to seeing historic Edinburgh.