I said goodbye to my friend and his fiance, and proceed down the “moor road”. Eaglesham (pronounced Eagles-ham) is on the very outskirts of Glasgow and I rode through the moor into the country. Windmills on the Moor It was a relief to leave the city traffic and be on a road where most of the oncoming traffic was in the way of cyclists and after an initial climb to around 300m I enjoyed a beautiful downward sloping 10 miles of moorland. Read more...

This morning I didn’t rush to leave the campsite, but sat and made two pots of coffee while sitting and reading Moby Dick, leaving after 9:30. This a bit late, as I knew that the next ferry would leave at 10:00, leaving me little time to make it to the ferry port. As I was cycling I calculated that I would miss the ferry, but then finally rolled into Talbert at 9:55 and realised it wasn’t too late, so I cycled as fast as possible, until I saw the ferry - which was just unloading cars, I arrived with a few minutes to spare. Read more...

The campsite provided a good nights sleep, and it wasn’t cold in the morning. I left at around 9am - I had thought that if I picked up my route that the next shop would be in 10 miles, but the campsite manager looked puzzled by this “why don’t you go to Oban, it’s only 10 minutes down the road” “No, I’m not going that way” I said. I was very confused the evening previously. Read more...

Slept well in the hostel and left to find breakfast - hoping to find a café with outdoor seating, unsuccefull I picked up another unsatisying breakfast from a bakery - an egg mayonaise sandwich, danish pastry and a coffee (all too small to fill me up). One of the reasons I didn’t go further yesterday was because the next part of the cycle network required me to take a ferry. Although it would have been possible to take the main road, it was very busy and I wanted to stick to the bike route, but getting the ferry at that time in the evening didn’t appeal to me. Read more...

Today was another spectacular day of cycling featuring some of the best scenery of the trip so far, and I wasn’t expecting it. In the morning I woke and checked my watch. The bunk bed was equipped with a shelf offering USB ports and a power outlet. I had plugged in my phone and battery directly above my head, and when I went to check my phone it slipped and hit me sharply on the head which is when I decided to get out of bed. Read more...

This morning I had no particular motivation to move from the bed. The thought of cycling another 150km didn’t appeal to me. So I decided to try and stay another night at the hostel. As I got out of bed I couldn’t help but notice what looked like a scab on my foot. I scraped it and it moved. It was a tick with it’s head stuck and glued under my skin. Read more...

I fell asleep last night staring out of my open tent flap at the stars, or the aeroplanes, or whatever that bright light was which was drifting across the sky. It was cold in the morning, and I didn’t prepare myself well enough. Far colder than it was at night. So I didn’t sleep in - the cold compelled me to get out of bed and make coffee. Surveying the scene, the river had what looked like steam rising from it, there was dew on the long grass surrounding the tent and my breath was visible. Read more...

The only other guy in the room (I guess the dorms are not at full capacity due to Covid) decided to come in at midnight and start watching a TV program on his phone with the loudspeaker. Forcing me to get out of bed and ask him to stop it (because he was so engrossed that he couldn’t hear me ask from my bed). The hostel provided “take away” breakfast but let me sit down in the bar and also lent me a UK power adapter so that I could use my laptop and upload yesterdays blog post. Read more...

Today was a very long day. It was a beautiful day. It was an exhausting day. I slept well in my tent last night for the time in years due to the new mattress, the night before I sat in the tent reading or otherwise staring blankly into the trees above the stream that I was camping next to sipping whiskey. In the morning I left, heading towards my provisional destination of the day before - Eyemouth. Read more...

I wasted the night watching a film (“Get Out”) and an episode and a half of “The Thick of It” in my cabin. I was woken at 8am by an announcement on the in-cabin PA system - we would be arriving at at 10am ship-time and breakfast would be served blah blah. I didn’t know exactly what “ship time” was but assumed it would be the same time zone as Holland - which meant I had two hours. Read more...

Slept well in the hostel but was awake at 7am, and out of bed at eight. I went downstairs to get a coffee. The reception was open but the host was busy making bread and wouldn’t serve coffee until 8:30. I sat down and started programming with bleary eyes. Finally I ordered some scrambled egg which came with the warm freshly made bread. Today I wanted to sort out my sleeping problem - I noticed a large camping shop when I came in to the town yesterday evening, so I checked out of the hostel and left my stuff “under the stairs” and left at 9:30 to find some camping gear. Read more...

I am now sitting outside at a pizza restuarnt in Haarlem, about 10km west of Amsterdam, and about 10km from the ferry port. I slept again badly last night, I thought I chose a quiet spot in the spacious but busy campsite (tents only). It was full people having a mostly quiet time, some spots were equipped with wood burners and it was as peaceful as it could be given maybe 100 people in a field. Read more...

I woke up at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I lay the wondering why I had woken up - my air mattress was partially deflated and my legs were cold. Neither problem seemed critical enough to interrupt my sleep. I think the cold, as mild as it was, confused my brain and prevented it from sleeping. I was sleeping naked which probably didn’t help either, so I put some shorts and my fleece on and managed to get some sleep. Read more...

I pitched my tent slowly on the green field in the campsite - I was a bit exhausted. I went to the toilet, had a cold shower (hot water costs 0.5€). As I entered the campsite I thought I saw a shop, and I made my way there to see if I could find a beer. As I passed a man was looking at me and nodded. The shop wasn’t a shop, then the man said Read more...

This year I’m cycling from Germany to Scotland. My plan is: Get a train from Berlin to somewhere in the West. Cycle to Amsterdam Get the ferry to Newcastle Cycle to Scotland … (do stuff in Scotland) Visit my brother I will leave today. This tour marks 10 years since I first left England and stepped foot in Europe. I left Bath on 30th birthday (give or take a day or two), my birthday is in 5 days from today, so this is something like the reverse operation 10 years later. Read more...

note the above distance and time are by the cycle computer I was on the train most of today I had to decide where to get the train to from Berlin. I had already decided to get the train - to cut out a few days to maximize the month of vacation that I have. I had considered many things for this years tour - the original idea was to tour around the UK and visit various relations, at one point by going via. Read more...