Slept well and awoke to the dulcet tones of my alarm clock at 8am. Panic immediately set in as I realised I'd promised to be at breakfast at 08:15. Breakfast was duly served by our hosts in their quasi-efficient manner, with former SS agent Derek in the kitchen and Mrs Derek providing front of house disciplinaries, I mean service. Despite all the form-filling and planning it has to be said that our orders from the night before were a little mixed up when served this morning:
1) Mr B had my Earl Grey tea which I'd been dreaming about just half an hour before. I missed out on my hash brown, until it was pointed out (not by me, I daren't!), at which point I had my half-eaten haddock and poached eggs whisked from under my fork to return replete with a hash brown.
2) I made the foolish mistake of licking my spoon clean after eating my fruit salad and yoghurt only to be reprmanded by our hostess. Such behaviour, I was informed, had threatened to throw the Lime Tree BnB washing up regieme into complete meltdown. It transpires that on several occassions American guests had tried this spoon licking stunt leading almost to a used spoon not being washed up. Fatal Eileen.
3) Meanwhile Kieran was naively spreading strawberry jam onto a piece of toast when our eagle-eyed hostess spotted that it was not yet time to eat such and in a flash the jam was plucked from his grasp leaving the poor lad agog!
4) To cap it all after finishing what was admittedly a very hearty and fully customised breakfast (to the hosts requirements!) our hostess took one look at Birchy and with a slightly sinister tone informed the big man that he would never eat again. The big man was speechless at this news!
After such entertainment we headed out on the road following signs to Selkirk before beginning a long, slow forest track climb that rose steadily up the southern flank of Moffat Dale. The weather was good and I felt fine. The fourth day of any cycling trip is usually quite hard work on the body in my experience as muslces have little chance of recovering. Even sitting on the saddle can be quite a painful experience at this stage, not for me though as I've cheated and used a girls saddle which is like sitting on a sofa, sort of. The climb goes on a bit before dropping down under Gateshaw Rig, then it's proper offroading upto the top of Ettrick Head which is a mixture of grassy single track climbing by a stream (lovely fresh water!) then pushing upto the head but not before a nice little off-camber single track traverse and descent. I enjoyed that bit.
The wind was blowing at the top of Ettrick Head, we had a photo stop at the border sign between Dumfries and Galloway which we were leaving and The Borders into which we were heading. After dropping down to Potburn we realised we needed to get some miles covered and luckily a backroad provided rapid progress alongside the river gently flowing off the top of Ettrick Head. Apparently all rivers head East from this point, so the theory is we mst generally be heading downhill for the rest of the trip (not true!).
After a hard, steep push up a grassy field at Scabcleuch Hill the gradient became less savage so it was back onto the bikes and after a lengthy bit of grafting on wet moorland tracks we finally attained Pikestone Rig before plummeting down a fun grass track over Earl's Hill. Another push had us over looking St Mary's Loch way below us. Another fast grassy track took us down to the Tibbie Sheils Inn for a welcome pot of tea in glorious sunshine. We knew we'd broken the back of the day's riding, with just one significant climb ahead of us. My 5 extra pancakes that I had at breakfast were still keeping me going, hat's off to the Lime Tree for their breakfasts after all!
After a 15 minute tea berak we headed out on the road by the picturesque and virtually untouched St Mary's Loch before turing left and climbing upto the head of the dam at Megget Reservoir.
From here we forked northwards over Black Rig, another long slow climb but this time on a decent stone track. After one minor bog-crossing we hit the top of the climb and celebrated with a round of Mr B's flapjack just above Bitch Crag (true). From here on we belted down towards the valley bottom before following the river, past Macbeths Castle and then around the back of Cademuir Hill. The evening sunshine bathed the landscape, maing it seem soft and welcoming. Sheep were grazing all around us and we had the satisfaction of knowing that the hardest days riding was all but done.
I led us to the Bridge Inn in Peebles, crossing the river Tweed and easing into a very well earned pint on the terrace, basking in the fading sunlight with a sense of satisfaction that is hard to beat.
We ate at the Crown Inn. They do fairly good steaks there. It was dark by the time we set off for the Glentress Hotel some 2 or 3 miles down the main road. A shower followed by a pint of Guiness rounded the day off nicely.
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