With lockdown relaxed and travel allowed we packed Tilly up and headed off southwards to Scotland. I know, Scotland North, but our meandering route had to be planned in great detail rather than our normal, get to lunch and start thinking about where we will stay tonight attitude. And when I say headed off, we did that twice as we had to turn around within 500m as I’d forgotten my wallet!
We can’t camp, we’ll we can if we can do without using the loo or having a shower until May 18th, so we’ve had to go for self contained Airbnb’s. You can’t book hotels or anywhere that has any communal space so our bookings are for rooms that have their own entrance and sometimes a kitchen too.
There isn’t lots of that type of accommodation available outside towns so we planned a route by picking accommodation and then routing ourselves to it, rather than the other way round.
It’s given us some weird daily rides, sometimes as low as 35km, but as we have had to book and pay for everything up to Scotland we don’t mind as we don’t want to over extend ourselves in case we find we stat to struggle.
We’ve got a few rest days thrown in and the total ride should be 1000km, or 2000 if they won’t let us take Tilly on the train home!
We set out in glorious sunshine, with a slight frost still on the ground and a chilly breeze doing its best to blow directly at us no matter which way we turned.
Suffolk is truelly beautiful and the ride past countless churches and beamed houses in sleepy villages was fabulous, and unsurprisingly hilly too.
Lunch at a picturesque church with a cream tea produced out of our fridge has set the bar high for refreshments this trip and I’m hoping Linda maintains the standards she’s now set for the trip!
Essex on the other hand appears to be home to the impatient driver and about 500m from our night stop a BMW squeezed past us inside the central white line with a car coming rhe other way and we had to stop the bike he was so close. There was probably less than 6 inches between our mirror and his.
Fear not though! This year we have fitted Tilly with yet more gadgets and have front and rear cameras for recoding BMW Essex guy and forwarding to the Police. I wonder what will happen – I’ll probably get told off for my rather choice language as we nearly hit the kerb trying to avoid him!
Having said that every other driver today has been excellent. Patient, courteous and gave us loads of room. So well done you lot, and let’s hope the Old Bill send Mr BMW a warning or something. Not a hope I know but hey ho.
I love cycling in Scotland – the scenery, open spaces and most of all wonderful people. Have a great adventure. Mine is 5 weeks away and counting !
That’s such a challenge, love it. Though I’d be tempted to have a taxi courier the panniers between B&B’s each day. Keep us posted.