Although Ruth and I had been cycling together and
also talking in vague terms about going cycle touring since 1998, it
wasn't until 2005 that it started to become a realistic possibility.
Ruth's children had never wanted to go on holidays involving cycling,
but by 2005 they were old enough to be left at home alone while we
did.
Just having the opportunity to go wasn't the only requirement though. Were we fit enough? Up until then, the cycling we did was mostly short journeys; cycle commuting and leisure rides within our immediate local area. The occasional trip to Great Ayton for a ham bun and a coffee was about the furthest we went. In those days a 20 mile ride was a full day out. To contemplate riding 40 to 50 miles a day for a week, with luggage, was something else entirely.
Also, we didn't have the proper kit. At the time we both had Raleigh hybrid type bikes, but it had never been apparent to us how slow and heavy Ruth's bike in particular was.
On a ride out to Osmotherley one day in early 2005 Ruth was getting depressed at how much slower she was than me, so we swapped bikes and immediately I became much slower than her. The penny dropped, it wasn't her, it was the bike. Lance Armstrong used to say it's not about the Bike. Well, some of it is Lance, if you don't believe me, try blasting up Alpe d'Huez on a women's Raleigh Spirit Nexave circa 1999. It's like a skip on wheels. And not even an empty skip. A skip full of old baths and radiators and a water tank.
Within a few weeks of realising that she was riding round on an anvil, Ruth went to Cowleys in Northallerton and bought herself a Dawes Horizon. Not long after that, not to be left out, I bought myself a Dawes too, a Sonoran. As I'm the most indecisive man in the world and also the most reluctant man in history to spend money on myself I spent about 3 weeks in Cowley Cycles trying out every handlebar and stem combination in the universe but finally, just before Steve had to kill me to get me out of the shop, I decided. Then we bought some panniers and a bar bag, and by the summer of 2005 we were finally kitted out for touring. At 2005 prices both bikes cost less than £400 each. I would have to say, based on the use they've had, they are the best things we've ever bought. Not the best bikes. The best things. Nothing I've ever had has given more pleasure per pound of outlay.
So we were kitted out for cycle touring, but not yet for cycle camping. No, the tent and sleeping bags would come later. This is me we're talking about. Even after 7 years of being told all about it, I still couldn't quite believe that you could carry everything you need for a holiday, on a bike. One step at a time, I thought. We'll do B&B first. I might work my way up to camping later. Much later.
Despite Ruth having always wanted to do the Sustrans Coast to Coast and her talking to me about it on and off for 7 years, this wasn't what we chose for our first tour. This was largely due to my aversion to getting on trains with my bike without a reservation. I still haven't really got over this, mostly due to my experiences of travelling to Leeds and York on the TPE service, and having fat Bet Lynch lookalikes in deeley boppers, and frogmen, and drunken shaven headed after shave wearing stag party attenders squeezing me into an ever smaller space with my bike, until my face is nearly pressed up against the window, and I'm nearly passing out from the alcohol breath being exhaled by an entire rugby team who are squashed into the bike storage with me.
Because of the convoluted nature of the train journey required to get to Whitehaven to start the Coast to Coast and the fact that it's a first come first served service, I pretty much made the decision that we'd do the Sustrans Coast and Castles NCN Route 1 instead. It seemed a lot simpler option because both the Newcastle beginning and the Edinburgh finish are on the East Coast main line, and both of these can be reached on trains that allow advance cycle reservations. For a man as cautious as me, that makes all the difference.
As I'm usually the nut who sits with maps for weeks in advance planning every detail of the proposed holiday route, I don't like to entrust my planning to the vagaries of whether we can get on a train or not. There's no point in having a meticulously worked out sequence of B&Bs all at sensible daily mileage intervals, if you can't even get to the start of the ride.
I was so anal about planning things to death in advance in 2005, that we even had a practice at getting to Darlington for our outbound train. Because the trains from Thornaby are Northern Trains and again not bookable, I didn't want to risk training it to Darlington, so we had to ride it. And I didn't want to ride down the A66 or the A67, so we had to plan a snaking route out via Yarm and Aislaby and Middleton One Row and Neasham. 18 miles in total, but it was a good way to start the holiday.
Just having the opportunity to go wasn't the only requirement though. Were we fit enough? Up until then, the cycling we did was mostly short journeys; cycle commuting and leisure rides within our immediate local area. The occasional trip to Great Ayton for a ham bun and a coffee was about the furthest we went. In those days a 20 mile ride was a full day out. To contemplate riding 40 to 50 miles a day for a week, with luggage, was something else entirely.
Also, we didn't have the proper kit. At the time we both had Raleigh hybrid type bikes, but it had never been apparent to us how slow and heavy Ruth's bike in particular was.
On a ride out to Osmotherley one day in early 2005 Ruth was getting depressed at how much slower she was than me, so we swapped bikes and immediately I became much slower than her. The penny dropped, it wasn't her, it was the bike. Lance Armstrong used to say it's not about the Bike. Well, some of it is Lance, if you don't believe me, try blasting up Alpe d'Huez on a women's Raleigh Spirit Nexave circa 1999. It's like a skip on wheels. And not even an empty skip. A skip full of old baths and radiators and a water tank.
Within a few weeks of realising that she was riding round on an anvil, Ruth went to Cowleys in Northallerton and bought herself a Dawes Horizon. Not long after that, not to be left out, I bought myself a Dawes too, a Sonoran. As I'm the most indecisive man in the world and also the most reluctant man in history to spend money on myself I spent about 3 weeks in Cowley Cycles trying out every handlebar and stem combination in the universe but finally, just before Steve had to kill me to get me out of the shop, I decided. Then we bought some panniers and a bar bag, and by the summer of 2005 we were finally kitted out for touring. At 2005 prices both bikes cost less than £400 each. I would have to say, based on the use they've had, they are the best things we've ever bought. Not the best bikes. The best things. Nothing I've ever had has given more pleasure per pound of outlay.
So we were kitted out for cycle touring, but not yet for cycle camping. No, the tent and sleeping bags would come later. This is me we're talking about. Even after 7 years of being told all about it, I still couldn't quite believe that you could carry everything you need for a holiday, on a bike. One step at a time, I thought. We'll do B&B first. I might work my way up to camping later. Much later.
Despite Ruth having always wanted to do the Sustrans Coast to Coast and her talking to me about it on and off for 7 years, this wasn't what we chose for our first tour. This was largely due to my aversion to getting on trains with my bike without a reservation. I still haven't really got over this, mostly due to my experiences of travelling to Leeds and York on the TPE service, and having fat Bet Lynch lookalikes in deeley boppers, and frogmen, and drunken shaven headed after shave wearing stag party attenders squeezing me into an ever smaller space with my bike, until my face is nearly pressed up against the window, and I'm nearly passing out from the alcohol breath being exhaled by an entire rugby team who are squashed into the bike storage with me.
Because of the convoluted nature of the train journey required to get to Whitehaven to start the Coast to Coast and the fact that it's a first come first served service, I pretty much made the decision that we'd do the Sustrans Coast and Castles NCN Route 1 instead. It seemed a lot simpler option because both the Newcastle beginning and the Edinburgh finish are on the East Coast main line, and both of these can be reached on trains that allow advance cycle reservations. For a man as cautious as me, that makes all the difference.
As I'm usually the nut who sits with maps for weeks in advance planning every detail of the proposed holiday route, I don't like to entrust my planning to the vagaries of whether we can get on a train or not. There's no point in having a meticulously worked out sequence of B&Bs all at sensible daily mileage intervals, if you can't even get to the start of the ride.
I was so anal about planning things to death in advance in 2005, that we even had a practice at getting to Darlington for our outbound train. Because the trains from Thornaby are Northern Trains and again not bookable, I didn't want to risk training it to Darlington, so we had to ride it. And I didn't want to ride down the A66 or the A67, so we had to plan a snaking route out via Yarm and Aislaby and Middleton One Row and Neasham. 18 miles in total, but it was a good way to start the holiday.
It wasn't just the ride to Darlington we practised
for. We were also not used to riding longer distances, so in the
weeks leading up to the holiday we gradually built up to doing 50
miles plus in a day. Also, we'd never ridden the bike every day for
a week, we weren't sure if our arses could take the wear and tear, so
we did that too.
So, after weeks of planning and staring at the Sustrans map, and reading Mark Porters Coast and Castles Baytree Press guidebook from cover to cover about 9 times, we set off on Sunday 17th July 2005.
With hours to spare we caught our pre-booked train to Newcastle. After the short train journey, during which we told some people what we were doing, but didn't even believe it ourselves, we rode along the Quayside in Newcastle past a few bars blaring out music and along cycle paths along the Tyne to the lighthouse at Tynemouth, where we stopped to mess around and take some photos.
Ruth fiddled with her gears a bit which didn't seem to work properly when she was riding, but worked fine when we were stopped and the bike was unladen. We weren't too worried about this, as we were almost in Whitley Bay, so we gave up tinkering for the day.
The B&B in Whitley Bay didn't look like much, but a lot better than the one I'd stayed at in Blackpool when I was 7, with the potatoes like bullets. In truth, Whitley Bay itself didn't look like much, it was pretty deserted. We wandered round for a bit and had a look at a few boarded up buildings and then we went for a curry in the curry house next door to the B&B, after not seeing anywhere better on our travels.
Monday 18th July 2005. Whitley Bay to Alnmouth. Not the most pleasant morning I've ever had on a bike. I don't think anywhere called Seaton Sluice is going to be the highlight of anybody's holiday. We weren't long out of there when we ended up going round and round the housing estates of Blyth on a series of meandering Sustrans cycle paths for what seemed like hours. This was supposed to be the Coast and Castles, not the Coast and Council Estates. We did manage to find the Asda in Blyth and bought some lunch, but just as we arrived there black clouds were gathering overhead, and I was thinking to myself, this could be a disaster in the making.
So, after weeks of planning and staring at the Sustrans map, and reading Mark Porters Coast and Castles Baytree Press guidebook from cover to cover about 9 times, we set off on Sunday 17th July 2005.
With hours to spare we caught our pre-booked train to Newcastle. After the short train journey, during which we told some people what we were doing, but didn't even believe it ourselves, we rode along the Quayside in Newcastle past a few bars blaring out music and along cycle paths along the Tyne to the lighthouse at Tynemouth, where we stopped to mess around and take some photos.
Ruth fiddled with her gears a bit which didn't seem to work properly when she was riding, but worked fine when we were stopped and the bike was unladen. We weren't too worried about this, as we were almost in Whitley Bay, so we gave up tinkering for the day.
The B&B in Whitley Bay didn't look like much, but a lot better than the one I'd stayed at in Blackpool when I was 7, with the potatoes like bullets. In truth, Whitley Bay itself didn't look like much, it was pretty deserted. We wandered round for a bit and had a look at a few boarded up buildings and then we went for a curry in the curry house next door to the B&B, after not seeing anywhere better on our travels.
Monday 18th July 2005. Whitley Bay to Alnmouth. Not the most pleasant morning I've ever had on a bike. I don't think anywhere called Seaton Sluice is going to be the highlight of anybody's holiday. We weren't long out of there when we ended up going round and round the housing estates of Blyth on a series of meandering Sustrans cycle paths for what seemed like hours. This was supposed to be the Coast and Castles, not the Coast and Council Estates. We did manage to find the Asda in Blyth and bought some lunch, but just as we arrived there black clouds were gathering overhead, and I was thinking to myself, this could be a disaster in the making.
Next
we took a wrong turn and ended up down at the Alcan aluminium smelter
at Lynemouth. This is not very scenic I thought. Eventually after
escaping from Alcan we arrived at a small ice cream shop at
Cresswell, and we had an ice cream (obviously), a takeaway coffee and
a chat with two fat touring cyclists. We swapped stories about
Blyth, and Seaton Sluice and the detour to the aluminium smelter and
they told us, 'oh it gets better from here', and I thought, I bloody
hope so. And also striking up a conversation with people in lycra on
bikes with panniers, I realised for the first time. We're really
doing this. We're proper touring cyclists.
And the fatties were right. It did get better. By the time we got to Amble, it was positively scenic. Ruth was still having trouble changing gears so we popped into Blaze Bikes. It didn't take the owner long to figure out that the gears were in perfect working order, it was just that the bloody big bar bag was stopping the gear shifter from moving properly. This made us both feel a bit dumb, but he kindly didn't charge us for pointing out our idiocy.
It was nice that the route had started to improve, because it was our Wedding anniversary too that day. By the time we arrived in Alnmouth, it was all starting to be a lot more fun, and that evening we had a lovely home cooked meal at our B&B Beaches, and then a walk on the beach and we were both knocked out and unconscious from the day, and from the fresh air, and the food, by 8.40 pm. We probably wouldn't have woken up at all the next morning if the owner's cat hadn't been noisily disembowelling a bird on our bedroom floor. We probably shouldn't have left the window open.
Tuesday 19th July 2005. The next day was one of the best ever, on a bike. We arrived in Craster about 11 am and sat out the back in the beer garden eating crab sandwiches and drinking coffee and looking out over Dunstanburgh Castle, then we stopped for lunch at Seahouses and ate the packed lunch the lady at Beaches had done for us, which had lovely sandwiches as well as chocolate cake, and then the day ended with us blasting along the causeway onto Holy Island at about 25 mph, with a massive tailwind. We felt like the King and Queen of the world. We'd almost done 50 miles in the day and it was all beautiful scenery, good food and easy cycling.
And the fatties were right. It did get better. By the time we got to Amble, it was positively scenic. Ruth was still having trouble changing gears so we popped into Blaze Bikes. It didn't take the owner long to figure out that the gears were in perfect working order, it was just that the bloody big bar bag was stopping the gear shifter from moving properly. This made us both feel a bit dumb, but he kindly didn't charge us for pointing out our idiocy.
It was nice that the route had started to improve, because it was our Wedding anniversary too that day. By the time we arrived in Alnmouth, it was all starting to be a lot more fun, and that evening we had a lovely home cooked meal at our B&B Beaches, and then a walk on the beach and we were both knocked out and unconscious from the day, and from the fresh air, and the food, by 8.40 pm. We probably wouldn't have woken up at all the next morning if the owner's cat hadn't been noisily disembowelling a bird on our bedroom floor. We probably shouldn't have left the window open.
Tuesday 19th July 2005. The next day was one of the best ever, on a bike. We arrived in Craster about 11 am and sat out the back in the beer garden eating crab sandwiches and drinking coffee and looking out over Dunstanburgh Castle, then we stopped for lunch at Seahouses and ate the packed lunch the lady at Beaches had done for us, which had lovely sandwiches as well as chocolate cake, and then the day ended with us blasting along the causeway onto Holy Island at about 25 mph, with a massive tailwind. We felt like the King and Queen of the world. We'd almost done 50 miles in the day and it was all beautiful scenery, good food and easy cycling.
Just before we'd joined the causeway, we'd put our
raincoats on, as it looked like it was about to rain, but then the
sun came out, and the sun and the tailwind and the water glistening
on the road made it a magical jet-powered journey onto the island.
In fact, the raincoats never came out again all week. Although it
was cloudy all week, the rain stayed away, and most of the time we
rode in only a T-shirt.
Holy Island isn't actually on the Coast and Castles route, but we decided to take a detour to go there, because we had some history there. I'd taken Ruth there before, on sort of a first date in February 1998. I say sort of a date, because her kids were with us, and they kept moaning and saying it was boring, and that they wanted to go to the Metrocentre.
It was a lovely sunny Winter day, that first visit, and we got a free car parking ticket courtesy of someone who was leaving after 10 minutes 'because it was shut'. What were they expecting, a theme park? Anyway, on our return we were booked into the Ship Inn. We had a four poster bed, although I don't remember asking for one, and the owner was very friendly, and he gave us some free orange squash for our bike bottles when we left the next day but one thing I didn't understand was that they served their evening meals with both salad and peas. I found this confusing, especially since I ordered pie and chips. You can't have salad with pie!
Wednesday 20th July 2005. The next morning was the first time it really hit home to me that how hard a day on a bike is, is not about how many miles you go. It became apparent why the previous evening had been so easy, as we grovelled off the island at virtual walking pace into a massive headwind. We didn't get above 5 miles an hour the whole way off. Then, once we were off the island we joined a fire road style road with massive lumps of brick in it, which ran alongside the railway. It was a right filling loosener. It was here that we met David for the first time, a middle aged solo cyclist from the Midlands, who was trying to wear in a new Brooks saddle. His old one had disintegrated the day before. Completely by accident we would keep meeting him at least once a day for the rest of the trip, and his binoculars would prove very useful later on.
It was only 33 miles from Holy Island to Coldstream, but the headwind, rough surface, and a stretch along the coast to Berwick, through a field, dodging cows, meant that by the time we'd done the 18 miles to Berwick, I felt physically and mentally done in. Ruth had also delayed matters by stopping for a while to talk to a guy who was cutting his hedge. They got chatting about his cancer and what a great time he'd had in hospital and what great treatment he'd had blah blah blah and he kept saying he wasn't scared, but Ruth said later he was only saying that because he was so scared shitless (I never understand it when people don't say what they mean). I was so concerned about our schedule that I rode off while she was still talking to him. I probably should have been a bit more tolerant.
Once we got to Berwick, we went in a cafe to get some lunch and by this time I could barely remember my own name, so Ruth had to take over and order me some food and drink. It wouldn't be the last time my brain and body would go AWOL on a bike ride. In fact it still happens with alarming regularity.
After a toasted sandwich and some coffee, the riding did at least get easier after Berwick. We started following the Tweed Valley, and we crossed backwards and forwards in and out of Scotland, until we reached The Castle hotel in Coldstream. It was pretty hot and it had been a hard day, and walking in as I did with full panniers and looking a bit dedraggled, I was expecting a bit of help. However, the two young girls behind the bar looked pretty disinterested. I certainly wasn't feeling the love. Some of this might have been my own expectations. I hadn't been to Scotland before, but I had seen Braveheart. Because Coldstream is right on the border I was probably expecting a bit of latent hostility towards the English. I mean, my ancestors could have killed their ancestors (or vice versa).
One of the girls showed us to our room, which was fine, although she didn't help with the panniers, and I wasn't too impressed that the only place I could leave the bikes was in half a shed. It didn't seem very secure to me, as it had no front door on, and later on in the night when I was a bit drunk and having to pee a lot I kept looking out of the bathroom window to check the bikes were still there.
I can't really handle my drink at all, and so on a cycling holiday I should maybe stick with one shandy as a reward for a good day's riding but then drink soft drinks after that. Unfortunately, as it was my first real experience of Scotland, I had that comedy sketch playing in my head where someone goes into a bar in Glasgow and asks for shandy, and they say 'we don't do cocktails'. So for reasons of social embarrassment, and as a result of being too scared to ask for shandy, I spent the evening knocking back 4 pints of Stella or Tennants creosote or some other wicked strength lager, 1 before and 3 after our evening meal.
We didn't eat at our hotel though, I'm not even sure they were doing food. We went up the road to the Besom Inn, which was really friendly and we sat in a room full of Coldstream Guards memorabilia, and I started to feel a bit more comfortable, because no-one in a kilt had tried to kill me yet. And David who we'd met just after Holy Island was in there too, having his evening meal. After dinner, we went back to the Castle and I wondered if maybe it was my fault we'd got off on the wrong foot, and so in the name of English-Scottish relations I drank 3 more pints of beer in the bar, and tried to look like someone who fits in, in Scotland.
All that this achieved was to leave me terribly hungover, and after getting up at 5 in the morning with my head swimming, I had to go for a 2 hour walk to try and get rid of the hangover. This didn't really work, but I did have a nice walk by the river in Coldstream, and it didn't look like such a bad place after all.
Thursday 21st July 2005
I went back to the room and found Ruth and we went down for a full Scottish (which is just like a full English, but in Scotland, and with more black pudding), We spent some time, transferring the bar bag onto my bike, so that Ruth's gears would work again. It fitted much better onto my flat and wide handlebars, and before we left the hotel gave us the packed lunch we'd ordered. As a bonus, when we unpacked the sandwiches later in the day, we found some raw meat hanging off the cling film, so we thought it safer to bin them. Again, this could have been just cultural differences. I'm not sure. The Tweed Valley was lovely though.
As I'm the one who does the route planning on our cycle tours, I can be a bit inflexible if I don't think we're making good time. We arrived at Kelso at 11 in the morning, Ruth wanted to go in for a look round, but I said as we were only 11 miles into a 48 mile day we didn't have the time. I then didn't help our time management much by missing a necessary right turn towards Scott's View. I got confused between St Boswells and Newton St Boswells on the map. When I arrived at the A68 Trunk Road with not a Sustrans sign in sight I realised my mistake, but the wrong turn had added around 5 miles on to the day.
By the time we got to Melrose, I thought we had better make time for some lunch. We sat outside a very pleasant cafe in the sun and I had a lovely ploughman's lunch but then for afters they gave me some mouldy cherry pie. When Ruth complained, the waitress assured us it was freshly made that day. I'm not a baker but I'm not even sure if it's even possible to get mould on stuff within a day. As I recall we were a bit stingy with a tip.
Our destination that day was St Ronan's Hotel in Innerleithen. Innerleithen is a Mountain biking town, very busy on weekends. This particular Thursday it was dead. We were the only guests in the B&B. Even the owners weren’t staying on site. When we asked about bike storage, we were told to take them up to room with us. The guidebook had said that evening meals were available at St Ronan's but the lack of other guests and a sign on the back of the room door advising us not to get takeaway pizza on the bedclothes or something like that was the only reference to food, so we thought we'd better go out to eat. Before we could go out I had to rinse my eye out in the bath and wait for the swelling to go down. It was the first hint of the dry eye problems I've had later, and that night it felt like I had glass in it.
I found the experience of visiting Innerleithen similar to our experience in Coldstream, in that once we found somewhere pleasant to eat, we felt a lot more at home. We had an excellent meal at the Corner House Hotel, where we bumped into David again, who was staying there. The warm and friendly atmosphere in there kind of made me wish, we'd chosen to stay there too.
Friday 22nd July 2005.
The last full day of our trip didn't start too promisingly. We were woken up at 5 am, by the fire alarm going off. After about 5 minutes of deafening noise, we realised that no-one was coming to switch the thing off, so we rang the owners number off the back of the bedroom door. After about 20 minutes of wandering the corridors of the completely deserted B&B which reminded me a little of being in the Shining, the owner came and reset the alarm. We finally got back into bed about 5.30. At about 5.32 the alarm started again. And the process was repeated.
Holy Island isn't actually on the Coast and Castles route, but we decided to take a detour to go there, because we had some history there. I'd taken Ruth there before, on sort of a first date in February 1998. I say sort of a date, because her kids were with us, and they kept moaning and saying it was boring, and that they wanted to go to the Metrocentre.
It was a lovely sunny Winter day, that first visit, and we got a free car parking ticket courtesy of someone who was leaving after 10 minutes 'because it was shut'. What were they expecting, a theme park? Anyway, on our return we were booked into the Ship Inn. We had a four poster bed, although I don't remember asking for one, and the owner was very friendly, and he gave us some free orange squash for our bike bottles when we left the next day but one thing I didn't understand was that they served their evening meals with both salad and peas. I found this confusing, especially since I ordered pie and chips. You can't have salad with pie!
Wednesday 20th July 2005. The next morning was the first time it really hit home to me that how hard a day on a bike is, is not about how many miles you go. It became apparent why the previous evening had been so easy, as we grovelled off the island at virtual walking pace into a massive headwind. We didn't get above 5 miles an hour the whole way off. Then, once we were off the island we joined a fire road style road with massive lumps of brick in it, which ran alongside the railway. It was a right filling loosener. It was here that we met David for the first time, a middle aged solo cyclist from the Midlands, who was trying to wear in a new Brooks saddle. His old one had disintegrated the day before. Completely by accident we would keep meeting him at least once a day for the rest of the trip, and his binoculars would prove very useful later on.
It was only 33 miles from Holy Island to Coldstream, but the headwind, rough surface, and a stretch along the coast to Berwick, through a field, dodging cows, meant that by the time we'd done the 18 miles to Berwick, I felt physically and mentally done in. Ruth had also delayed matters by stopping for a while to talk to a guy who was cutting his hedge. They got chatting about his cancer and what a great time he'd had in hospital and what great treatment he'd had blah blah blah and he kept saying he wasn't scared, but Ruth said later he was only saying that because he was so scared shitless (I never understand it when people don't say what they mean). I was so concerned about our schedule that I rode off while she was still talking to him. I probably should have been a bit more tolerant.
Once we got to Berwick, we went in a cafe to get some lunch and by this time I could barely remember my own name, so Ruth had to take over and order me some food and drink. It wouldn't be the last time my brain and body would go AWOL on a bike ride. In fact it still happens with alarming regularity.
After a toasted sandwich and some coffee, the riding did at least get easier after Berwick. We started following the Tweed Valley, and we crossed backwards and forwards in and out of Scotland, until we reached The Castle hotel in Coldstream. It was pretty hot and it had been a hard day, and walking in as I did with full panniers and looking a bit dedraggled, I was expecting a bit of help. However, the two young girls behind the bar looked pretty disinterested. I certainly wasn't feeling the love. Some of this might have been my own expectations. I hadn't been to Scotland before, but I had seen Braveheart. Because Coldstream is right on the border I was probably expecting a bit of latent hostility towards the English. I mean, my ancestors could have killed their ancestors (or vice versa).
One of the girls showed us to our room, which was fine, although she didn't help with the panniers, and I wasn't too impressed that the only place I could leave the bikes was in half a shed. It didn't seem very secure to me, as it had no front door on, and later on in the night when I was a bit drunk and having to pee a lot I kept looking out of the bathroom window to check the bikes were still there.
I can't really handle my drink at all, and so on a cycling holiday I should maybe stick with one shandy as a reward for a good day's riding but then drink soft drinks after that. Unfortunately, as it was my first real experience of Scotland, I had that comedy sketch playing in my head where someone goes into a bar in Glasgow and asks for shandy, and they say 'we don't do cocktails'. So for reasons of social embarrassment, and as a result of being too scared to ask for shandy, I spent the evening knocking back 4 pints of Stella or Tennants creosote or some other wicked strength lager, 1 before and 3 after our evening meal.
We didn't eat at our hotel though, I'm not even sure they were doing food. We went up the road to the Besom Inn, which was really friendly and we sat in a room full of Coldstream Guards memorabilia, and I started to feel a bit more comfortable, because no-one in a kilt had tried to kill me yet. And David who we'd met just after Holy Island was in there too, having his evening meal. After dinner, we went back to the Castle and I wondered if maybe it was my fault we'd got off on the wrong foot, and so in the name of English-Scottish relations I drank 3 more pints of beer in the bar, and tried to look like someone who fits in, in Scotland.
All that this achieved was to leave me terribly hungover, and after getting up at 5 in the morning with my head swimming, I had to go for a 2 hour walk to try and get rid of the hangover. This didn't really work, but I did have a nice walk by the river in Coldstream, and it didn't look like such a bad place after all.
Thursday 21st July 2005
I went back to the room and found Ruth and we went down for a full Scottish (which is just like a full English, but in Scotland, and with more black pudding), We spent some time, transferring the bar bag onto my bike, so that Ruth's gears would work again. It fitted much better onto my flat and wide handlebars, and before we left the hotel gave us the packed lunch we'd ordered. As a bonus, when we unpacked the sandwiches later in the day, we found some raw meat hanging off the cling film, so we thought it safer to bin them. Again, this could have been just cultural differences. I'm not sure. The Tweed Valley was lovely though.
As I'm the one who does the route planning on our cycle tours, I can be a bit inflexible if I don't think we're making good time. We arrived at Kelso at 11 in the morning, Ruth wanted to go in for a look round, but I said as we were only 11 miles into a 48 mile day we didn't have the time. I then didn't help our time management much by missing a necessary right turn towards Scott's View. I got confused between St Boswells and Newton St Boswells on the map. When I arrived at the A68 Trunk Road with not a Sustrans sign in sight I realised my mistake, but the wrong turn had added around 5 miles on to the day.
By the time we got to Melrose, I thought we had better make time for some lunch. We sat outside a very pleasant cafe in the sun and I had a lovely ploughman's lunch but then for afters they gave me some mouldy cherry pie. When Ruth complained, the waitress assured us it was freshly made that day. I'm not a baker but I'm not even sure if it's even possible to get mould on stuff within a day. As I recall we were a bit stingy with a tip.
Our destination that day was St Ronan's Hotel in Innerleithen. Innerleithen is a Mountain biking town, very busy on weekends. This particular Thursday it was dead. We were the only guests in the B&B. Even the owners weren’t staying on site. When we asked about bike storage, we were told to take them up to room with us. The guidebook had said that evening meals were available at St Ronan's but the lack of other guests and a sign on the back of the room door advising us not to get takeaway pizza on the bedclothes or something like that was the only reference to food, so we thought we'd better go out to eat. Before we could go out I had to rinse my eye out in the bath and wait for the swelling to go down. It was the first hint of the dry eye problems I've had later, and that night it felt like I had glass in it.
I found the experience of visiting Innerleithen similar to our experience in Coldstream, in that once we found somewhere pleasant to eat, we felt a lot more at home. We had an excellent meal at the Corner House Hotel, where we bumped into David again, who was staying there. The warm and friendly atmosphere in there kind of made me wish, we'd chosen to stay there too.
Friday 22nd July 2005.
The last full day of our trip didn't start too promisingly. We were woken up at 5 am, by the fire alarm going off. After about 5 minutes of deafening noise, we realised that no-one was coming to switch the thing off, so we rang the owners number off the back of the bedroom door. After about 20 minutes of wandering the corridors of the completely deserted B&B which reminded me a little of being in the Shining, the owner came and reset the alarm. We finally got back into bed about 5.30. At about 5.32 the alarm started again. And the process was repeated.
After
the second alarm reset I looked at the breakfast room set with only
the cutlery for the two of us and I said to the owner ‘Look, why
don’t we just forget about breakfast. We're up now, why don’t we
just set off?' She seemed relieved and delighted that she didn’t
have to get up again in a couple of hours to do us breakfast, and on
top of that, she would only take £15 for the room, to cover her
cleaners wages, not the £55 we should have paid. By the time we'd
gathered our things together and carried our bikes downstairs, the
excellent bakers directly opposite the B&B was just opening.
Delighted
as I was with my £40 saving, I got us a takeaway coffee each, and
then we filled up every available spare bit of pannier space with
scotch pies, chicken tikka and crab salad sandwiches and bottles of
pop and off we went.
The
first 12 miles out of Innerleithen was a slow and steady uphill climb
with only sheep and clouds for company. The only sounds were
gentle running water and the sound of our tyres on the road. Upon
passing the golf club we met a green keeper who greeted us and told
us a tale about a man who in a moment of drunken boasting had claimed
he could walk from there to Edinburgh playing the bagpipes all the
way. Then he showed us his grave. He had dropped dead
shortly after he began. He probably should have ditched the bagpipes
and got himself a bike, I didn't say.
On
our Sustrans map was a little arrow which we were heading towards
which said ‘Superb views of Edinburgh’. I wasn't really getting
my hopes up. I've been oversold stuff before.
A few miles further on we encountered a road closed sign and just as we were contemplating finding another route we spotted a smaller sign in a plastic wallet hanging off the big sign which read ‘Cycle Route Open’. This was great news. This view we were heading for wasn't only superb, today it was for cyclists only. No cars allowed.
A few miles further on we encountered a road closed sign and just as we were contemplating finding another route we spotted a smaller sign in a plastic wallet hanging off the big sign which read ‘Cycle Route Open’. This was great news. This view we were heading for wasn't only superb, today it was for cyclists only. No cars allowed.
When we finally came round
the bend, and saw the view that the map had predicted, it was indeed
superb. And it wasn't just the view. It was the peaceful climb that
we'd had to get there, and the fact that we had pies, and then to top
it all off, David arrived, We
only usually met him in the evenings because he usually set off
earlier than us and he was faster. But because of our 5 am
alarm call, today for once we were ahead of him. And just as we
were admiring the view he cycled up behind us. With his binoculars.
It wasn't just Edinburgh we could see down there, it was the whole
Firth of Forth shining below us in the mid morning sun.
David
pointed out some sights and we took some photos of each other next to
the Sustrans sign marking the highest point of the Coast and Castles
route. We ate our sandwiches and our pies and we sat on the grass
and drank our fizzy pop and as moments go, it was one of the best.
It
wasn't all plain sailing after that though. After the view, we had a
fabulous descent, but then we encountered heavy traffic through
Dalkeith, got a bit lost and arrived in Edinburgh about 1.30.
Great we thought, an afternoon exploring the sights. But rather
than leave the bikes in the centre of Edinburgh, I thought we should
go and check into our accommodation and then explore.
Three
hours later we were still looking for it. Ruth insists to this
day that she advised me to buy a map of Edinburgh before we left home
but I don’t remember. The other 5 days of the tour had been
easy. All the other places we stayed only had 1 street.
If we found that, we found the B&B.
In
my guidebook it said our Edinburgh accommodation was near the foot of
Arthur’s Seat. I didn’t really know what Arthur’s Seat
was and I thought, ‘If we find Arthur’s Seat, we’ll find the
B&B'. But it’s not a seat, it’s a mountain. We
spent 3 hours circumnavigating that mountain, mostly going in the
wrong direction.
We
did ask some people for directions, but they sent us the wrong way.
We couldn't find a map shop, I even tried the Scottish Parliament
building but they didn't have any. I tried ringing the B&B to
ask them to guide us in, but only the owner’s Thai wife was at home
and her broken English only added to the confusion. We even had a
ride down the cobbled streets of the Royal Mile at one point, but
still remained without a clue.
Eventually, after four hours of riding round and round in circles, we found the B&B, but all the advantages given to us by our early start, we'd managed to flush away and we didn't arrive at the B&B till after 5.30, which was about par for the course for us.
Eventually, after four hours of riding round and round in circles, we found the B&B, but all the advantages given to us by our early start, we'd managed to flush away and we didn't arrive at the B&B till after 5.30, which was about par for the course for us.
It
was after 6 by the time we were showered and ready to go see the
sights. Ruth was so tired she could barely walk and my refusal
to get a bus did not help her weary state. We ate an unremarkable
Chinese all you can eat meal with her almost passing out and then we
set off walking back to the B&B. Her legs had almost given up by
now.
Seeing
her looking forlorn I paid a tenner to get her a ride part of the way
back to the B&B in a cycle rickshaw but this just seemed to heap
embarrassment on top of her fatigue and even with his giant and
prominent calf muscles bulging away, the rickshaw pilot would only
take us a fraction of the required distance anyway.
So
I walked her the rest of the way back to the B&B, left her passed
out in bed, and I set off back into town, this time I did get a bus.
But the castle was closed for an event and as it was falling dark the
streets became a curious mixture of drunk Scottish people and
Japanese tourists. Despite the seeming incongruity, they seemed to
coexist with each other just fine.
So
that was our trip. The next morning we caught the train home. As
you might expect by now, David was on our train. But he was heading
for Derby or Doncaster or somewhere this time, we only as far as
Darlington. I've often wondered, after meeting him that week, what
it must be like to do a trip like that solo. One of the enduring
best bits of that week for me is that for nearly 8 years now, I get
to look back on it with Ruth, and start lots of sentences with 'Do
you remember that time we.......?'.
To
go on a tour like that, and not have anyone to look back on it with,
that must take a different kind of person. I'm not sure I could do
it.
On
another cycle tour, many years later, Ruth and I sat down High
Fidelity style and compiled our Top 5 all-time cycle tour moments.
That few minutes looking at Edinburgh through borrowed binoculars,
sitting on the grass together, eating pies and drinking pop, was
definitely in there. It may even have been number one. But then
again, there were many moments that week, which could have also made
it into the Top 5. How do you choose?
Not that it was the perfect week. Whitley Bay, Seaton Sluice, Coldstream and the aluminium smelter at Lynemouth were never under consideration for my recently compiled list of 101 places I went before I died, but I think even if you go to crummy places, anyone's first cycle tour is always going to be special.
It's a bit like the feeling you get when you can first ride a bike without stabilisers. You can't believe you're really doing it, but you are. And although you might go on to have many other adventures later, the feelings are somehow never quite as surprising, and memorable as the first time.
Not that it was the perfect week. Whitley Bay, Seaton Sluice, Coldstream and the aluminium smelter at Lynemouth were never under consideration for my recently compiled list of 101 places I went before I died, but I think even if you go to crummy places, anyone's first cycle tour is always going to be special.
It's a bit like the feeling you get when you can first ride a bike without stabilisers. You can't believe you're really doing it, but you are. And although you might go on to have many other adventures later, the feelings are somehow never quite as surprising, and memorable as the first time.
