The low road
Edinburgh to Glasgow, 6th - 7th August
Here we go again, after a little break. I had a whole four weeks off the bike - three in London and one in Edinburgh - catching up with friends and family and dealing with life faff (finally, lower gears on my bike for hills!). July is a fantastic month in London, and August in Edinburgh is pretty special too with the Edinburgh Fringe on. Although I had a great time at the Fringe catching all sorts of different shows, by the end I was definitely ready to head out again on my bike and see the countryside. It's quite strange to have the feeling of leaving home for the second time during the same trip, saying goodbye to people again. At least I was still mostly living out of my bike bags while in London, so I didn't break all my habits.
The plan now is to spend August in Scotland before flying to India (from London) on the 4th of September. I haven't booked any transport back to London yet - I'll see where I end up! There's a lot to see in Scotland: the Highlands are supposed to be the most picturesque part of the UK, and I want to go all the way to John O'Groats. There's a popular road trip route called the North Coast 500 (a loop from Inverness) that I'm thinking of following, but I've also been told I should visit some islands like Skye or Orkney, and I'm not sure I'll have time for all of that. I'll figure it out later - for now, I'm enjoying all the possibilities ahead of me.
Edinburgh to Glasgow is a pretty straightforward route - after escaping Edinburgh's outskirts, it's literally a canal towpath the whole way, along the Forth and Clyde Canal. There's even good paving, and it wasn't too busy while I was on it (work hours on Wednesday and Thursday). It was easy to the point of being boring, but I appreciate that for my first two days back on the bike, and there were some sights to see too. I stopped in Linlithgow to see the castle where Mary Queen of Scots was born, and in Falkirk to watch the Falkirk Wheel (a cool canal lock) turn.
Wild camping is legal in Scotland, and I made full use of that fact on Wednesday night, camping in a pretty exposed spot. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but my knee was giving me trouble and I really needed to stop. The knee pain is entirely my fault for skipping my stretches - I'll definitely need to get back to doing those if I'm going to survive any gradient more extreme than a flat canal, and I've got some Highlands hills ahead.
In Glasgow, I'm staying with a Warmshowers host for two nights, so I'll get Friday to see the city and on Saturday a friend from Cambridge is going to join me for a long weekend cycling. I'm looking forward to having a bit of company, and getting up into rural Scotland away from the cities at last.
