LEJOG Blog

We left the Old Vicarage at about 9:30 in bright sunshine. On crossing the river Annan, we took some photographs and a local man, walking his dog, pointed out that the Sustrans route was down a flight of steps and took us out to the seaside. I hope I didn't sound too ungracious when I told him we were going to stick to the road.

We hadn't gone far when a bank of cloud appeared to the north-west and threatened rain. It was enough for us to don our waterproofs, but a few minutes later, we had removed them again.

At one point, a dead rabbit in the road caught my eye as it started to move towards the hedge. I then saw the stoat that was dragging it away. I stopped the bike, but of course that scared the stoat off. Even so, we could see it running up and down a labyrinth of tunnels in the bank, willing us to leave so it could secure its lunch.

In Bankend, we came across a "Road Closed" sign precisely where we wanted to go. We ignored it because it is normally possible to get a bike through where larger vehicles would have to turn back. Here though, we appeared to be scuppered as the entire road was blocked by a wide trench bordered by Harris fencing. It was Chris who noticed a small footbridge over the stream, so we took the luggage off the bikes and man-handled them over.

In Dumfries, we particularly liked the river Nith and on its waterfront we found an Italian takeaway, which served some splendid pasta and spicy tomato. We each had some and a cup of coffee, so suitably refreshed, we were ready to tackle the hills.

These were long, grinding climbs rather than the repeated switchbacks of Devon and Cornwall last week and Jan and I cycled up all of them albeit very slowly. Our big problem was that when a downhill did appear we were unable to make much headway against the strong wind.

So we struggled all the way to Dalry. The Porridge House is very comfortable. We were supplied with a pot of tea and the most excellent fruit cake, we ordered a 7:30 breakfast with a packed lunch, the shower was most refreshing and the pub only 50 yards away. The pub also served some very tasty Deuchars. Janet and Chris had the last two portions of lamb casserole and I had the steak and ale pie.

Chris and I finished off with a whisky each - in my case, to celebrate Janet's and my thirty-first wedding anniversary. We returned to the Porridge House and had more tea and whisky in front of a roaring log fire.