Thursday 25 May 2017

Journey's start 18th May 17

The day finally dawned when we loaded the bikes onto the car and drove to Doncaster Station with the panniers on for the first time. I was shocked at how heavy the bike was fully laden and preferred not to think about some of the hills that were awaiting us.

I must admit that I was feeling trepidation and concern about;
  • The ride
  • The hills
  • The trains
  • The ferries
So we arrived on the station to be guided by a pleasant young man to the back of the train where the bikes were to be stored until we arrived in Edinburgh. 



I found that my wife H had left a little label on the handlebars of my steed Che. We had a struggle to find space as the bike racks were already full and then we had a hike through 11 carriages before we found our seats, not the easiest walk with our panniers.

We had a pleasant ride through to Edinburgh before changing for Glasgow Queen Street. Arriving in Glasgow we walked our bikes through the city to the Youth Hostel. This left me with a sizeable blister on my heel as the only footwear I had were my touring cycle shoes.

The Youth Hostel was about a mile and a half away but was in what looked to be a salubrious part of the city, a soft top Rolls Royce, parked 10 yards up from the Hostel. We parked the bikes in the garage around the back and we had an hour to kills so we...


The building itself was stunning with hand carved balustrades and big high ceilings. Having unpacked our panniers I made my way down to the self-catering kitchen to make our tea only to be confronted by 10 women made up of about 4 groups, all frantically preparing food. There were also about half a dozen women eating their tea in the dining area. Not one of them acknowledged my hello...or even looked up. And to be fair, they didn't acknowledge each others presence either so I don't think they were being selective. I went back to the room and took a few beers.

Eventually we went down to the kitchen and prepared frozen chip butties. By this time we had consumed possibly 4 or 5 beers each and were feeling a little worse for wear. This might explain why the chips were still partly frozen, and why we still ate them. By this time we had been joined by two young French lads who were on holiday following Iron Maiden around Britain. I was dying to ask them if they were teenage dirtbags baby but we ended up talking about Brexit and the evils of the tory party. A good end to a good day. A bad preparation for our cycling start tomorrow.


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