Day 1 - Portpatrick to Newton Stewart

Lovely brekky at The Stables in the conservatory, fruit and yoghurt followed by scrambled eggs on potato cakes with Scottish salmon washed down with lashings of tea.

The drive out took about 45 minutes and as caught glimpses of the sea. Quite disorientating due to the shape of the coastline, almost like an island. Ominously the first spots of rain started landing on the windscreen of the van. Nae bother.

It was quite windy in Portpatrick, the original port town to Ireland before Stranraer took over. It's quite a pretty little port town with a few highpowered ribs and a decent looking lifeboat.
After the obligatory photo shoot at the start of the ride we began the ride by carrying our bikes up a flight of concrete steps and peered westward but saidly we couldn't see Northern Island as the weather system inbound from the Atlantic had obscured all but a couple of miles out to sea.

The coastline looked fairly treacherous. An information board informed us that it had claimed 70 vessels during Portpatricks hey day.

We continued along the coastal path in high spirits as the wind drove us uphill and along the coast. Soon we veered off the SUW at a little sandy beach by and inland on the B738 to Knock and Maize where we rejoined the SUW having cut out a hideous cliff scramble that takes hours and is pointless by all accounts.

The wind was picking up as we skirted around a wind farm that was pointing pretty much due south. Stranraer came into view, doesn't get my vote for aesthetics and after a head-down bit of pedalling into the gusting wind we reached a garage at the A75. Eehhhhhhhy, it was fairly windy by the way ... I'd guess a steady 30mph gusting quite a bit more than that.

It was starting to persist it down. The cheery girl on the counter informed us that the farmers were expecting the weather to be a lot worse this avo, great!

After a can of Tennents Super and a shuffle through the local porn mags we downed a butty each and headed on thru the gardens at Castle Kennedy before heading up a good long back-road climb and descent to New Luce. Here we debated the merits of having a cuppa at the local pub but thought better of it as a glance at the 4-page map revealed we weren't even half way after nearly four hours of riding.



We headed up the mettled road that ran parallel to the railway line as we travelled north towards Barrhill. After two Network Rail service vans, 5 cattle grids and countless kamikaze sheep we turned off the track east up a fire-road ascending Glenkitten Fell. After our biggest steady climb of the day we stumbled upon a wooden bothy known as The Beehive and met a sole traveller from the ISle of Skye who was retired and seemed very chilled out as he had his brew and prepared for a night absolute tranquility. Next stop the Standing Stones ...

Found a new fireroad that cut out quite a bit of faff as we rode parallel to the boggy/forested SUW until bearing east near the summit of Craig Airie Fell. Mr B took some compass bearings and confirmed we were on track then the glorious vista of the Galloway Hills came into view. Finally we'd outridden the rain-band that was hovering above the coastline and the sun smiled down on both the hills and us.

Having passed little Loch Derry we finally exchanged copious amounts of forests-lined fireroads for an abundance of forest-lined metteled roads. We continued for a good 15 miles east-south-east on the home straight, past Knowe where a farmer was removing a fallen branch from the road whilst a policeman pointed and the local journalist gleefully took pictures. Big news that around these parts!

We arrived at Newton Stewart at about 6:30pm, just about 8 hours after setting off in Portpatrick at 10:30am. Just as we cycled through the Laylandii that lined the driveway at the Stables Guest House the rains began to catch up with us, we'd timed it just right!

After a shower, a bit of a stretch and a chill out we agreed a curry would be a good idea so we headed to the local curry house armed with our own beers and ordered the full works.

By 10:30 we headed back up the steep hill to our digs and now I'm watching Jews and scientists argue about humanity, God's permission of wickedness and whether mankind has free will. How does God tolerate so much suffering in the world? And finally the biggest question of the lot, how will Team Weegie cope with the next 5 days of rain, pain and the Seven Staines!

Over and Out, The Shandy.