Homeward bound, part 2. Knutsford to Poole

I had a pleasant, not hugely eventful run home, for the most part in glorious sunshine.  


Stopping at services near Stafford to fill up my flask, I came across another temptress.

Another temptress

"Would you like a bar of chocolate for a pound to go with that?"
Merciless vixen.

The joy of motorcycling

I noticed quite a few motorcycles out and about, now the weather is getting better.  There's always a certain cameraderie between riders - a nod as one passes, a couple of words exchanged in car parks - and this despite the great variety in motorcycles and their riders.  There are old men like me on sedate tourers, younger blades (well, forty-something, anyway) on hideously fast sports bikes, teenagers on screaming mopeds.  In Fort William, I even passed a platoon of lads on mud-spattered motorcross bikes; curious things specifically designed to be ridden standing up, with just a token of a seat wedged between the back wheel and the engine.  And yet there is a binding thread; we all share the enjoyment of this bizare form of transport: two wheels that rely on gyroscopic forces to keep upright, for heavens sake, and then compound the madness by adding an engine to it.


Rejoining the motorway after the Stafford services, I came across a couple of interesting variations on the theme.  First a tricycle based on a large cruiser-style bike.  There were two people on the bench seat behind the rider, chatting away and obviously enjoying the ride.  Just ahead of them, clearly part of the same party since they shared the same custom paint job, was a Honda Goldwing (that's the massive, 1800cc, twenty-odd grand behemoth) with a sidecar attached.  I passed slowly, taking a good look at these; excellent solutions for passengers who can't manage a pillion seat - like Mrs S - or who wriggle around compulsively - like young Charlie.  
But surely, you might say, this misses the point of a motorcycle, namely having two wheels, not to mention loosing the ability to filter through lines of congested traffic, and limiting the (ability to safely exercise the) performance of the machine.
True, but with a trike or a sidecar outfit, one is still out there, experiencing the environment one is passing through.  It's a little difficult to explain if you don't already get it.  But tell you what; next time you see a dog with his head out of a car window, ears flapping in the breeze, big doggy grin all over his chops; pull alongside, wind your window down and ask him what he gets out of it.
  

A familiar road and a diversion

This is a familar neck of the woods for me: M6, M5, M4, A350 all the way to Poole.  That said, I noticed a motorway sign warning of congestion around the M4/M5 junction.  Motorway congestion is not a huge problem for a motorcycle, but I used it as an excuse to turn off early and enjoy riding a few miles across the Cotswolds. 

Not really needed

One thing that is very obvious is how much more the season is advanced the further South one travels. While the highlands are still brown, the Cotswolds were a chequerboard of vivid yellow and green. 

Greener (and yellower) towards the South

Pausing for thought

On my final stop, I noticed that I had by chance pulled up at the same spot I made my first stop at on the outward journey of my interim, left-to-right trip last year.  There's appropriate, I thought, so I sat down with the last of my coffee and had a quiet word with whatever divinity is responsible for charity motorcycle rides. I only meant to give a quick acknowledgement for it all going so well, but it rapidly turned into the breathless litany of thanks one hears from lucky starlets at the Oscar ceremonies.  Thanks to my IAM coach for making me sharp enough to ride without incident for over two thousand miles, to my wonderful wife who encouraged me to go even though she is poorly and could do with some nursing - even my cack-handed attempt at it, to the kind and generous people I encountered on the way, and so on and so on.  I particularly gave thanks for the previously undetected corner of the inner Seaman that is actually a people person so that I could speak to those kind and generous people.  (Some people who know me will surely be wondering if it was really me doing the ride or my secret jovial twin brother.)

That's all folks.

But most all, I gave thanks for all the friends and relations and friends of friends and relations for making it worth doing for Cancer Research UK

Stats for anoraks

Distance:

• Poole to start at Dungeness Point: 183
• Dungeness Point to Cape Wrath (left bike at Keoldale): 1007
• Homeward run: 823
• Total: 2013

Stops: 35


Fuel used: 156.84l, 37.58 gallons
mpg: 53.6 (that's good for a big motorcycle)


Spares and repairs: none; it's a Honda.

Homeward bound, part 1. Balmacara to Knutsford

Crikey! It's a long country when you travel the length of it in one go.  In fact, from Balmacara to about half way down the country is seven or eight hour's drive alone, even without breaks, so I put in one last overnight stop.  As I've said all along, there's no point raising a few shillings for Cancer Research if you then go and cost the NHS thousands by getting overtired and having an accident.

A nice spot for yet another full breakfast; the Balmacara Lodge.

After a hearty breakfast - though slightly unconvincing coffee - at the Balmacara Lodge, I proceeded in earnest down the A87 then A82, all the way to Glasgow, then the M74 and M6.  


Once again, I failed to call in at An T Sraid (which I have an idea is gaellic for 'The Street') where my old friend Peter - motorcyclist, musician, medic, all round good egg - lives in highland splendor.  Having promised for ages that I would come and visit him on my motorcycle, the very week I come by is when he is away on some far flung oil rig.  NEXT time, then, Peter! 


The route swung by many another interesting spot, but there was little time to stop and stare this time.

Hotel at South Ballaculish

There was, for example, South Ballaculish, which is noteworth for being further North than Ballaculish, as well as being the place I made Mrs S cry - in a good way.


The Ballaculishes are at the end of Glen Coe, which, according to the folk song, is swept by a particularly cold snow.  

Maybe that's why this mountain is called the Pap of Glen Coe

Can't come to Scotland and not take a picture of some pipes.

One of several quick stops on the way was at Inveruglas on the banks of Loch Lomond.  This is just opposite a very fine hotel at Inversnaid, which can only be accessed along several miles of barely car-wide tracks, and then only by those brave enough to dodge the monster luxury coaches of the Lochs and Glens holiday company who base their tours there.  (Give them a google if you fancy a cheap, no-frills holiday in the Highlands.)  But rather than romantic waters or distant hotels, here is a much more interesting picture of the hydro-electric installation at Inveruglas.  Water is pumped up to a man-made loch behind the mountain in the background, then allowed to gush down again to generate a blast of juice when there is a surge in demand.


The song I mentioned there - 'Cold is the snow that sweeps Gen Cloe' - got me thinking irreverent and disrespectful thoughts.  
"Aren't the Scottish lucky.  Every little town and village can lay claim to some historic internecine blood bath or, as with Glen Coe, scene of outright ethnic cleansing.  And with not too much of a selective reading of history, the blame can usually be laid entirely at the feet of the English.  So lucky; scenery, history and an easy conscience."


Well, you can tell I hadn't had an adequate coffee fix that morning, can't you?  I was probably also on a bit of a downer having come to the end of such a wonderful journey.
My mood was not helped by an icey rain that started as I crossed the already desolate Rannoch Moor and kept on more or less solidly until after Glasgow.  Glasgow in the rush hour in the rain when you've already got the last-day-of-holiday blues is a particularly depressing experience.


But eventually the rain gave way to a sunny late afternoon as I trundled down between the Pennines and the Lake District, and this started to work its magic, chasing out ungenerous thoughts. I was just starting to think how nice it would be to continue on through the Peaks and over the Cotswolds to home on a pleasant early summer evening, but I noticed that a pleasant weariness was descending upon me.  The sort of 'pleasant weariness' that has you suddenly realising that you are 20 feet from the truck in front and closing without knowing how it got there.


The next services with a hotel will do for an overnight stop, I thought.  Of course, it had to be Knutsford.  It features in my personal map of Britain, as I mentioned in passing in last year's blog, for being what I thought was the tackiest, nastiest, shabbiest, most shameful motorway services in the whole of Britain - and there's a lot of competion for that position.  But I lucked out in that the nearest Travelodge is actually outside the services, a couple of miles off the motorway towards Knutsford itself.  (Not actually in Knutsford; that's far top posh a town for a cheap hotel.)  


Not wanting to give the services a miss altogether though, I called in in the morning for a blast of Costa's overpriced brew and to make use of their free internet connection to upload this posting.  


One further post tonight when I get home will contain the stats - distance covered, petrol burned, etc. - just for the record.


Thanks to all my readers and generous contributors.  Hope you've enjoyed reading along with me as much as I have enjoyed the journey. 


Now it's back to the poorly Mrs S, hoping to enthuse her with the idea of doing it all again with me when she gets better.

Talmine to Cape Wrath then on to Balmacara

The Cloisters, Talmine

This is a beautiful place to stay.  The view from the room made up for not having an Internet connection to update my blog.  

Still, I can't help feeling the geographers missed a trick by calling it 'Tongue Bay' rather than 'Mouth of Tongue.'

I set off a little later than usual on this final and shortest leg of the ride as the earliest breakfast was at eight - which is of course quite normal for B&Bs - but it was worth the wait: a magnificent Scottish breakfast (i.e. a full english plus slices of haggis.  I educated some French guests about the benefits of these meals.  Standing outside before going into the old chapel building for breakfast, a lady from this non-Anglophone family indicated that I must surely be cold, standing there in my short-sleeved shirt (flat hand chopping motion at elbow level, self-hug + mock shiver, say 'cold').  Using the same language, I indicated that a hearty English breakfast not only makes you fat but insulates you against the cold (say 'petit dejeuner Anglais,' pat stomach expansively, wipe imaginary sweat from brow and puff cheeks).  Who needs Esperanto, eh? 

Excellent hosts and very generous people

When I went to settle up, having squeezed my increasingly bloated form into the riding gear again, my hosts for the night - Bob and Audrey I believe there names are - very generously contributed the cost of the stay to my charity fund.  I'll be logging on to the justgiving.com/John-Seaman site soonest and making a paymernt on their behalf.

Oh go on; just one more bridge picture.
This one is a better shot of that last bridge over the Kyle of Tongue.

Durness

The ride to Durness was beautiful: A well-maintained road with wide, swooping curves and long straights across the high moor, (two-track up to Loch Eribol), sun on my back, snowy mountains in my eye-line, bike whispering along.  But a macabre thought kept entering my head: I had actually died in some squalid, rainy accident on the A1M and I was now actually in heaven.  Perhaps it was because an animal had died in my hands earlier in the morning.  (No, I hadn't caught my own breakfast.  One of the little birds hopping around a feeder at the B&B was in obvious difficulty on the ground.  It was clearly dying and I decided that I wouldn't cause it any more stress than it was already in by picking it up and moving it out of the path for it's last few earthly minutes.) After a little thought, I realised this could not be heaven.  As good as this moment was, it was not perfect.  Mrs S was not on the back saying 'Oo! Pretty!' and 'Look! Buzzard!' on the headset.

I called in at the Information Centre for a quick nose around and to check whether the ferry to the Cape was running.  While there, I overheard Helen here actually say 'och aye' to somebody on the phone.  This is the very first time in all my visits to Scotland I have heard somebody say that without irony.

What's that red rock doing here?

After civil engineering, it is geology that rocks me. (Sorry.) This whole area is a rock-hunter's playground, but it's also where some fundamental observations were made that effectively got geology started as a science.  At Durness in particular, something called the Moyne Thrust can be seen.  Basically, a huge wedge of sandstone was found about sixty miles from where it obviously originated, and whatever had shoved it there had generated enough heat from friction to turn some of the sandstone into other sorts of stone.  (Schists, if you really want to go anorak on this.)  This got people thinking about how lumps of rock go slithering around the earth and changing from one thing to another.


(Tell ya what, though.  Walking down fifty feet of steep path to the beech and across a couple of hundred of yards of sand had me puffing.  I need to have a good think about my fitness levels before I go hiking across the mountains with my little geology hammer in my hand.)

Cape Wrath

Finally, I rode the last couple of miles to Keoldale where a ferry carries people across the Kyle of Durness and a minibus takes them the ten miles or so to Cape Wrath.

For such a small ferry, this is a big queue.

I arrived in good time for the 11 o'clock sailing, which was just as well.  The minibus only takes 16 passengers and I got the last seat.  A couple on bicycles went across to ride out to the Cape, but otherwise, people had to wait for the 2 o'clock ferry and bus.


The road to the Cape winds its way across acres of peat bog, crosses a military range, and needles across some very old bridges that were built in the days before anything as wide as a Ford Transit had been thought of.  The boys from Time Team might be able to find evidence that it once had tarmac on it, but now, the bus has to take it very steady indeed.  Giving relief from the lurching and plunging, the driver stopped to give a bit of a commentary on points of interest along the way - and stopping was essential.  

Breath in!

At the very tip of the Cape is a lighthouse.  It was once operated by a crew of three who lived out there with their families.  It's now automated and monitored from Edinburgh.  

The lighthouse at the other end of the country (from Dungeness)

Once supporting a number of crofts, a husband and wife couple are now the only permanent residents of the peninsula; they run a bit of a cafe in one of the outhouses in the lighthouse complex.


Making a big show of checking the compass on my (very expensive gift from Mrs S) wristwatch, I loudly declared a particular bit of rock at the top of the cliffs to be the exact most North-Westerly point.  Other sticky out bits that people suggested I dismissed as being 'too North' or 'too West.'  Such is the power of loud declaration (especially if you are wearing a tie), that everybody then queued up to take each other's photos standing on the spot!  The thought crossed my mind that I'd never forgive myself if anybody went over that precarious little bit of rock, but I got away with it this time.

This is the spot...

...and me standing on it.
If I'd turned around, dived in and started swimming, the first land I touched would have been Siberia.

To while away the long hours on duty, the lighthouse keepers developed this novel musical instrument from driftwood and scrap metal.

Scratching post.

On the way back, the driver pointed out a young eagle in flight, and we saw a herd of hinds trotting across the bog with their fawns - none of which comes out in my phone-camera photos, of course.  Another more human oddity was the line of telegraph poles marching across the landscape.  These brought telephone lines to the lighthouse and to the military forward observation post.  Having erected all 480 of them, they found that they were felled by storms at tediously frequent intervals, so the cables were laid underground instead.  Many of the now redundant posts were 'recycled' into firewood by the crofters.  The driver pointed out one of the remaining ones which had become a gathering spot for the deer.  In the absence of trees, they used this to rub the velvet off their horns.  In the process, they had trampled away all the peat from around the base exposing the underlying rock.  

All done

Well, that's the journey's end reached.  I see we've raised £770 for Cancer Research UK, which is a quite respectable chunk of my £1000 target.  My sincerest thanks to everybody who contributed - especially those who allowed me a second bite of the cherry!  


The journey was also my annual holiday as well as a fund raising venture, and it has been the best ever.  And I still have the length of the country to ride before it's over!

This is typical of the scenery one passes through in the North West corner of Scotland.

In the absence of an internet connection last night, I had to wait until today to upload the Kinross-to-Talmine leg.  At Ullapool, the Information Centre directed me to the Caley Inn.  A very quiet hostelry at this time of day.

Angela and Tony's 

After Ullapool, I caught up with the really cold and wet weather I'd seen on the forecast yesterday.  On the long, long road to the Kyle of Lochalsh, I pulled over to pop the sweatshirt on and to do up a few extra zips on my suit of many layers.  Sorted.  But I was still glad to arrive at Angela and Tony's Balmacara Lodge for the night.

If the forecast promises a repeat of those temperatures tomorrow, I'll get my new heated inner gloves ready.

No I haven't fallen off.  There was no internet connection at last night's B&B.  This update is posted on the return journey at The Caley Inn, Ullapool.

Kinross to Talmine

Another early start, tootling back into Kinross again to post postcards to the non-net fraternity, then off on the M90 and A9 northwards on the longest - and, I think, most spectacular - leg of the outbound journey.  Weather: Scottish, i.e. all four seasons in a morning, settling down later for a clear evening and night.

Not Pittlochry

I thought to stop for a pitstop at Pittlochry.  Its location suggests a pitstop sort of town; just off the main road into the highlands and the last outpost of the urban central belt.  There were certainly plenty of B&Bs and hotels and tourist-type shops, but I detected none of the distinctive breakfast aroma of bacon on the breeze.  In fact, in the one prim little cafe I found, it seemed that 9 a.m. was just too early for them.  Having placed my order and then watched the two staff dither around with their till and menu boards and counter displays rather than making the bloody coffee, I faked an incoming text and said that I had been called away!
I thought I might have better luck at the smaller villages strung out along the old B road that shadows the new A9; Killiecrankie and the like.  But these were too small to sport purveyors of breakfasts - or anything else, actually.  In fact, I'm sure I missed a couple of hamlets just by blinking.
So I got back on to the glorious, sweeping A9 and settled myself to enjoying the ride through Glen Garry, confident that the gods of coffee and bacon would eventually smile upon me.

Layby 81, Pass of Drumochter/Druimachidar Pass

...and sure enough, a snack bar came into sight just at the point where the road starts to descend towards Aviemore and Inverness.  It stands just under the twin peaks of the Boar of Badenoch and the Sow of Atholl - which should surely be couple of characters out of a story that Hobbits tell each other on Winter nights.
Now here's a curiosity.  On the road, there is a sign saying 'Pass of Drumochter: 1615 ft' but a couple of hundred yards away across the peat and heather is a sign beside the railway line saying 'Druimachidar Pass. Highest point on rail network: 1484 ft.'  The difference in altitude is not the problem; the road is definitely a few feet higher, but why the different names for the same pass?  Perhaps the Badenochians call it one and the Athollians' call it the other, fighting over it at the annual highland games with cunningly misaimed cabers.  

If I had a better camera, this would clearly be a picture of the sign on the railway line, not a curious study of a seagull and a bush. (That's one shoulder of the Boar behind the tree, by the way.)

Anyway, the best bit about Layby 81 is Ian and Nikki's snack bar and their most excellent Lorn rolls.  Ian generously donated my second roll in aid of my charity ride, so I'll add the price to the www.justgiving.com/John-Seaman site when I next get Internet access.  He also let me use the binoculars he keeps in his van for stag-spotting so I could read the aforementioned road and railway signs. 

...and this would be Ian and Nikki, Masters of Lorn (and bacon, and sausage, and ...)

Crossing paths on the A9

Purring along the A9, snow-topped Cairngorms to the right, I crossed paths with another charitable end-to-ender.  
'Crossed paths' is quite the right term since it turned out he was hiking from Lands End to John O Groats while I am doing the other diagonal.
I saw him striding along, rucksack on back, carrying an Olympic banner.  
'Hm,' I thought. 'He looked interesting.  I should've stopped to see what his story was.'
After a few miles, I thought, 'I really wish I'd stopped and spoken to that man with the Olympic banner.'
And after a few more miles, I thought, 'dammit! Stop! Go back!'
So I went back and pulled in a couple of hundred yards ahead of him.  As he came level with me, not wanting to break his stride, I fell in alongside and introduced myself.    (He was making a cracking pace, so I was very pleased that he actually stopped to chat.)

He was Billy Walsh and was hiking from Lands End to John O Groats in aid of Help for Heroes.  He set off on 29th April and aims to arrive on 19th May, just when the Olympic torch is due in John O Groats, hence the banner.

Not Inverness

I'd liked to have given Inverness a chance.  Once on holiday in Scotland, Mrs S and I had mentioned to a local couple that we intended to go to Inverness.  'Why?' they said, in tones of despair rather than curiosity.  That suggests it should be in the 'unloved' category and so should be just the sort of place I visit on this trip.  
What's more, on the approach to Inverness, I pulled in at what claimed to be an information centre and viewing point.  Sapplings had been allowed to grow up in front of the viewing point, the information centre was closed and the loos were locked.  Better and better.
To top it all, there were three blokes about my age parked there on large motorcycles and we agreed that so many bikers in one place definitely lowered the tone of the place.  

There goes the neighbourhood.

However, it's a big old place and I suspected I'd spent ages just getting in and out again, never mind having a sniff around the place.  So instead I thought I'd go over the bridge to North Kessock and see how my theory about the way places develop on opposite sides of rivers worked out here.
It's certainly different. Tiny; it took me no time at all to ride along the one main street lined with tidy bungalows, up to a lifeboat station just under the bridge.  (Yey! Another bridge!), then back to the one prim little tea room next door to the solitary shop.  

You just can't have too many pictures of bridges, I say.  This one crosses where the Murray Firth joins the Beauly Firth at Inverness.

The tea room did a fine bacon and brie panini and while I sat there munching it, vacantly looking out over the Beauly Firth towards Inverness, I suddenly noticed a dolphin porpoising around in the riptide.  I confirmed the brief sighting with a lad on the next table who had also been looking out.  We stared long and hard but didn't see it again.  The lad's father told me that Chanonry Point, further out along the Moray Firth is the best place for dolphin spotting; they'd seen five there earlier in the day.

Bonar Bridge

Back on to the A9 across the Black Isle, over the Cromarty Firth (no photo here; it's more of a causeway than a bridge) then off on the the B9176 over some rolling countryside as a short cut to Bonar Bridge and the A836 all the way to Tongue.

Just by chance, I came across this curious memorial.  A tree planted to commemorate the London Scottish regiment's march across the highlands in 1936, subsequently replanted by the local authority.  I wonder what all that was about.  

Well, I couldn't not take a picture of the bridge at Bonar Bridge, could I?

Apart from its small but perfectly formed bridge, Bonar Bridge has a small but perfectly well-stocked Spar.  Inter alia, they select a good selection of amazing talking pastries (you know, the ones that whisper 'eat me' when you walk past the shelf).  
What Bonar Bridge doesn't seem to have is a petrol station, and there were many miles of empty road coming up, so I crossed fingers and went on to Lairg.

Lairg

Lairg sits prettily at the bottom end of Loch Shin, but for me, the best sight in town was the petrol station.  No fuel at this point might have forced a serious bit of replanning.  From here on Northwards, it's all single track A roads and a lot of emptiness.

On single track roads

Obviously, one must ride (or drive) within one's stopping distance, and for a single track road; less the other guys stopping distance, too.  And his stopping distance is bigger than yours; he's a local and, like all locals, he has the contempt for stopping distances born of familiarity, i.e. he drives like the clappers round blind corners and over summits.
So much, so routine.  Everybody knows that.  John's tip for safe and enjoyable highland riding holidays, though, is never EVER to use the passing bays to brake in.  They are liberally sprinkled with gravel and loose chippings - like ball bearings and banana skins to a two wheeler. Always slow down on the main carriageway, no matter how anxious the approaching local looks, THEN pull in to the passing bay.  

Crask Inn

It's not complete empty up here, though.  

The Crask Inn stands in wild, expansive country, brooded over by 3156 ft Ben Kilbreck, the highest moutain in the district.  Built around 1815 by the Sutherland Estate, this most remote of havens has provided welcome refuge for generations of weary travellers in the far north.  Thomas Telford upgraded the road in 1819, but it is still single-track even today, and the only electricity comes from the inn's own small generator.  There are no street lights to polllute the clear night skies.  There is a working croft alongside, reclaimed from the heather and bog-moss, where Mike and Kai Geldard raise Highland cattle, sheep, and vegetables, inbetween looking after various intrepid guests.  This is rugged country and there are no airs and graces about the Crask, but the welcome inside is as warm as the peat stove in the tiny bar.
Could you tell that's not me writing?  I quote from the blurb enclosed in the inn's own cards and notelets.

It was said Mike who served me an excellent and generous coffee while I wrote out a few postcards and listened to the barmaid bantering with Angus, the general factotum.  Mike noticed my tie under my biking gear which gave me the chance do my 'prevents me being taken for a ruffian' gag at long last.

The stove seems as happy to burn logs as peat.  At least, I watched Angus heap up a barrow load of logs next to it, and I presume it wasn't just to dry them out for woodwork classes.

Cry baby

From here on Northwards, it just gets more and more spectacular: along Strath Vagastie, through the hamlet of Altnaharra, alongside Loch Loyal for five miles and more.  At one point, I stopped for a bit of a picnic of those talking pastries from Bonar Bridge.  I had the geological crumple zone of the North West Highlands away to my left, distant snow capped peaks glinting in the sun across the miles of wind-swept moor, cliff-sided Ben Loyal dead ahead, and Ben Kilbreck wearing a snowcloud like a panama hat behind me.  I came pretty close to melting into the peat.

This phone-camera just doesn't do it justice.

Tongue and Talmine

Coming down out of the hills, through the village of Tongue, I crossed the last bridge on my outward journey.  

And I should've taken a separate picture of the bridge.

Then it's a right turn and up a road that goes through a string of tiny villages.  Talmine is the third along. 
Mrs S and I have been here in the camper van.  There's a tiny camp site tucked in to a corner of the bay which was overseen by an extremely shy young woman.  Even Mrs S, with her ability to charm the life story out of a stone, had to settle for monosyllabic answers to her conversational gambits.


My hosts at The Cloisters B&B are much more cheerful - and extremely generous, but I'll say more about that with tomorrow's (i.e. today's) blog.  


The view from the room makes up for not having an Internet connection to update my blog (pictures in next posting).  


While there's no blog, there is a dog.  The fattest old black lab I've ever seen.  The landlady tells me she inherrited the dog from her son, as parents often will.  The original intention was that the dog should stay here only until she had her first pups, but she is now firmly at home here and well past puppy-bearing age.  
Detecting that I am a dog person, she barked outside my room until I came out to make a fuss of her.  While on the phone to Mrs S, I then noticed her sitting on the grass and dragging herself along on her bottom, the way a dog with worms will.  Hm.  This is the dog I just petted and allowed to lick my face.  I hope I won't have passengers for the return journey!

Scotch Corner to Kinross

A nice early start - 0730 or so.  I was conscious of having dithered around so much in the South that I would need to do some long legs to make up time.  Apologies to Gaynor and family for not calling in.  Perhaps we'll all meet up again in Cotterdale.  (Everybody else: do google up Town Head House, Cotterdale, for a really magical holiday destination.) Anyway, there were blue skies and fluffy clouds, but they got a little less fluffy as the day went on, producing some short, sharp showers.  And it was plenty windy as I went up and over the Cheviots and the Southern Uplands, too, but it was still a fine day for a ride, all in all.

Piercebridge and the B6275 

Just North of Scotch Corner, the A1M swerves off to the East, possibly drawn by the gravitational pull of Darlington and Sunderland.
But I noticed on the map, a little B road carrying on in a dead straight line - the sort of thing that usually indicates an old Roman road.  It joins up with the A68 after a few miles, which is where I was heading anyway, so I had to have a look.


The B6275 does a bit of a zig-zag where it crosses a river in the village of Piercebridge. Arriving there early enough to scare the bunny rabbits out of the bluebells and wild garlic, I had a bit of a snoop around and found the remains of a Roman bridge.  There are the remains of a fort that once guarded it somewhere nearby, too, but I thought I'd let the bunnies get back to their breakfast rather than try to find that. Reading all the information boards I could find, I learned that the road follows the Roman Dere Street and the river is the Tees.  The bridge got buried under a causeway as the river moved Northwards and its footings were unearthed in modern times during quarrying.  


"Time Team should have done an episode here," I thought, then I found out that they had.  I must've missed it that week.

Your bridge has gone, Biggus.  But then so has the river, so you won't get your sandals wet.

If a theme of my 'placeholder' trip last year was plaques, this trip seems to be becoming marked by bridges.  There was the Queen Elizabeth crossing at Dartford, the Humber, and now this one; not quite as functional as the others, but arguably as significant historically speaking.

Wall

It's a standing joke between me and Mrs S that, for all the times we've driven to Scotland and back, and despite the fact that it is one of our biggest ancient monuments and stretches across the country from coast to coast, we've never managed to see Hadrian's Wall!  This trip, I was determined to put that right and spotted a place called 'Wall' on the map.  That, surely, is the place to go.

Crikey, Biggus!  Now your wall's gone, too.

What I found was a pretty little village.  Village pump and war memorial on the green.  But no wall.  Maybe the pretty little houses are made out of robbed bits of wall?  There was not a soul about to ask, so that will remain a small mystery.


But determined not to be thwarted this time, I set off again following the brown tourist signs for a bit of wall.  Not far away, I came to the remains of a roman fort that actually straddled the wall at Chesters.  One of the substantial bits of remaining stonework was the guardhouse at one end of the fort which was built right up against the wall.  And there it was; six foot or so of genuine Hadrian's Wall.  At last!

The bit running out to the right; that's Hadrian's Wall, that is.

Jedburgh

It may not be a primary tourist destination, but Jedburgh has its share of 'brown sign' destinations.  There's a huge ruined abbey, and Mary Queen of Scots had a gaff around here somehwere.  But to my mind, Jedburgh's high point is the fact that it hosts the first Edinburgh Woollen Mill in Scotland. (Well, on the A68 approach, anyway.)

For those of you who don't know, EWM is a purveyor of fine quality togs and accessories.  It appeals especially to the discerning older customer, with whom it is so popular that they often arrive by the coach load.  The addition of a Costa Coffee and a loo at most major branches enhances its appeal yet further.

When I arrived, I could hardly believe it: there was a sale on!  The helpful Helen confirmed that this was the case and that some items were even being offered for sale at half of their normal price.
It's a crying shame I was on my motorcycle and so only had room for a coffee.

Granton

Now moving on to Edinburgh, I had thought to stop at Leith.  Perhaps I could find a policeman and ask him if he would dismisseth me.  But that would be just too predicatable for words.  Instead, I went on along the Firth of Forth another couple of miles to Granton.  Like Leith, this was once a dockyard/industrial area and had become a bit run down and depressed.  Like Leith, various initiatives were tried to get the local economy moving and tart the place up a bit.  (I had a small part to play in that: supporting the council's initiative to boost local business, my employer, which has an office around the corner at Crew Toll, depatched me with a hastily customised version of my in-house 'how-to-wrote-proposals' workshop, to deliver to local businesses.  I'm not sure how useful it was in the end.)  Unlike Leith, these various initiatives doen't seem to have worked!  

When I was last there, some swish waterside flats were going up; a bit of a Docklands-style development would get some money moving in to the area.  When I called by this time, the flats were finished, but many seemed unoccupied and the whole building looked just a little unkempt.

The proprietors of JoJo's, just around the corner - purveyors of the best and the cheapest cup of tea I've had in a long time - tell me that this is indeed the case.  The firm responsible for one of the developments even went bust for want of buyers.  "Can't give 'em away," they said in JoJo's.

Forth Road Bridge

Look! Another bridge!  Well, with my thing about engineering works, I had to turn off for a couple of minutes to take a picture of the Forth Road Bridge.

Could this actually be the one in the background in the burial scene in Four Weddings?

But a real bonus for me was that they are starting work on another crossing just alongside.  I couldn't resist spending a couple of minutes watching dumper trucks and diggers disassembling this small mountain to make way for the new approach road.  

A Fifth Road Bridge? 

Crook of Devon

The penultimate destination for the day was Crook of Devon.  I'd seen it on the map and thought, 'heavens! What a place name!'  I imagined some thief from down my way stealing up here in the night to escape the consequences of his crimes.  Maybe he established himself here as a much loved and respected Laird before his wicked past was revealed and he cast himself into the torrent to end his miserable existence.


Nah.  The 'Devon' is the local river, and there's a bend - 'crook' - in it here.  And Scottish place names have always got to be 'this-of-that,' haven't they?  Bridge of Orchy, Boat of Garten, Firth of Forth, ... John o' Groats.


But the real point of interest in Crook of Devon - and my Pagan aquaintances should sit up and take note here - is that it is where ten women and one man were accused of being witches in 1662.  The trial process finished a few of them off, and those that survived were either burned alive or strangled by the hangman and their bodies burned. 


Lord Moncrieff, who has a nice little castle just near the town, is in the process of building a maze of beech trees to commemorate the innocent victims, but also to decry the ignorance and superstition that led to their trials and execution. 

A nice little castle

Elsewhere in Scotland there is a stone memorial to Maggie Wall, executed as a witch in 1657.  I know because Mrs S and I came across it by chance on a holiday in Scotland in our camper van a couple of years ago.  The monument is nominally Christian in that there is a cross on top of it, but as you might imagine, the pagan community, especially Wiccans, have kind of comandeered it.  Every nook and cranny contained a candle or the remains of some votive offering.


Moncrieff wanted none of that in his memorial to the Crook of Devon witches.  In this maze, carved stones marking the correct path will commemorate humanist virtues like knowledge, reason, tolerance and so on.  In the dead ends, you'll come across stones marked 'bigotry,' 'resentment,' 'racism' and the like.  Sorry, Wiccans; no candles and chants and incence here.

The maze is work in progress at the moment, but Lord Moncrieff was kind enough to let me take a look, breaking off from pointing a wall to despatch his two hyperactive spaniels to show me the way.  When we got to the maze, the dogs found something living in holes under a nearby hedge far more interesting so I went in on my own.  After a couple of circuits of the circular maze, and being rebuffed by a 'perfidy' and a 'falsarii,' I began to realise that gettng to the centre was a substantial undertaking.

Labeled stumps do duty for carved stone pillars for now.  Oh, and you do know what 'falsarii' are, don't you?  Beware if you don't; a notice at the entrance tells children to call out the words loudly and ask grown ups what they mean.

When you finally get to the centre, you will find memorials to (and information about) the victims.

The truth is in there ... somewhere.

Lord Moncreif told me that he hopes to make Tullibole Castle a wedding venue.  It's a beautiful place, and I imagine happy couples would be especially happy getting spliced here.  (Those muddy spaniels will have to be trained to keep off the wedding dresses, though!)

Kinross

From Crook of Devon it was a short hop to my overnight stop at Kinross - Travelodge in the motorway services again; just the ticket.  But since it was still only late afternoon, I went on to look at Kinross itself first.  Travellers sometimes forget that there is a real town or village behind the service areas that carry their names.  Some are pleasant, refined little settlements; some are unloved and down-at-heel.  Exploring them could be a themed tour all on its own.  Kinross seems to be a bit of a mixture.  Down by Loch Leven, there is a beautiful public space with parking, kiddies playground, wheelchair-friendly paths, swish loos with electronic doors that talk to you like something from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

Symbolic?

The town itself is more ordinary, though.  It's certainly not 'run down,' though there are signs of it having once been a wealthier place than it is now.  In fact, on the basis of nothing more substantial than looking around at the people and buildings, I thought it had that robust, chiseled-from-granite, last-forever, stoical-rather-than-joyful feel that so many Scottish towns have.  

Kinross Town Hall: former civic splendor, now for sale and ripe for redevelopment.