Bike Touring, Fahrradreise Schottland 2020 mit E-bike und Hund (#5): Dumfries & Galloway
It is now 7 o'clock. The night was great. It was super quiet, it was dry and it is really good with the the bivouac sack. It has a mosquito net inside. And even if it had rained I wouldn't have minded. But of course it was dry. And now it's 7 o'clock and we'll start the day.
We are going to visit Helen today. She wrote to me on Facebook and she said that I can sleep in her garden. And tomorrow we will probably spend the day with her and then we will go on. Let's see what the Scots are like. There is the first vehicle since last night. Lucky. Everything is already packed up. We are ready to go now.
We are on the road again. We would reach Castle Douglas, where Helen lives, in around 3 hours. That's much too fast, because she doesn't have time until 5 o'clock this evening. and now it's only 7 o'clock in the morning. That means we will now follow the cycle path completely. It makes a huge detour along the coast.
then it's 50 km. And then we also go to Dumfries, which is a town close by. That's where we're going to take a break. I think that how we can get through the day Here is the construction work, so it was good that quite good that I drove in a bit deeper. Because otherwise I would have had the huge cars next to me. I think this is the road width and road size for today.
Zuri has been grumbling all the time, because she wants to get out and I think I'll just let her run here, because there don't seem to be that many cars here. Otherwise Zuri won't be able to run today and that would be quite sad. Zuri has now got this beautiful waistcoat on. So that you can see her a bit better on the road. Oh, there's the sea again. I wonder if they have mudflats here too.
So ebb and flow I mean It looks a bit like that, but maybe the beach is always this far. Let's see if we can get a little closer. The country here is not so exciting so far. It's all farmland and here on the other side is the sea. But unfortunately you can't see it that well. It's all overgrown.
Ah, there it is. They have ebb and flow. Dog walkers on the road. But it's really difficult when there's no footpath here. Good Morning Good Morning What I just remembered.. I completely forgot to take is magnesium.
I take a magnesium tablet every day so that the muscles do not start to have aches and pains. I mean cramps. From all the effort That is the only thing I take. Can you still run Zuri? 4km to go, then we stopp at a cafe in Dumfries. Pavement, Zuri.
Fine. We are now in Dumfries. There is supposed to be a café where you can go into with you bike.
This is Cafe Bicycle and.. Well, I have no idea. I am curious. We are definitely heading for that now. It's also interesting that here... Here is a brand new mask requirement for two weeks maybe.
But the strange this is You only have to wear them in supermarkets. Nobody has to wear them in the pub. No one has to wear them in the restaurant. Not even when you move inside the restaurant. This is strange to me as if the virus would distinguish whether you are in a pub or in a supermarket.
There. Frothy Bike Company. Main entrance. This should be the café. Café closed Oh sad Well, then we have to find something else. Okay, Now we'll have a look at Google, which café is open. At Komoot you can also look up cafés, but it does not tell you which are open now. so Google is better.
There is supposed to be a café in front of us. Let's see, otherwise there's another one up the road. But then it's always hard to park Let's see if this is open. Yes, I think there are people sitting there. Perfect, let's go here.
Now we have to look for another café again, because I was not allowed to charge my battery there because of Securityreasons. She said that it was not insured, and that I must not plug in anything electrical, which I found a bit irritating. So let's look for another café where we can charge a bit of battery There are still a couple to choose from Let's see if there's somewhere around here where I can have a drink.
This looks good. Let's go here Let's continue. Let's go for a ride around the coast. This was also a local recommendation This is supposed to be much nicer than the direct road to Castle Douglas That's a diversion of 30 km now, but we still have time. It was all overcast this morning and now it's clear. Nice. What a beautiful day! There's the sea. It seems to be low tide right now.
Boah, that disappears quite far out. This looks like the ideal lunch break location. I am eating the last bit of German bread now, with my spread and this beautiful view! Unfortunately there are only breadcrumbs left. But it will still fill me up because of all the seeds. It's time to put on the shorts again because it is so warm really nice. I think in Germany it's 35 degrees at the moment. So it is super hot.
Here it's about 22 degrees. That's the perfect temperature for cycling. I really hope it stays like this. Snuggling time! I was just standing next to a camper.
They said that before here they were at the East Coast of Scotland and that it was just foggy. And now they have followed the sun and arrived in the west. So everything is going great so far. Normally the west coast is the one that always gets rain. Let's hope it stays that way.
That's interesting too! You don't know exactly when it is closed. Let's hope it's not today. I know you want to come out, Zuri. But the road here is too big Hello Zuri. I wanted to show you this gigantic view. Do you see that? How much beach there is.
So let's go Wow, a traffic jam in Scotland I am not so sure whether the detour was worth it. the Detour. Because Zuri could not run at all. That was a real pity. Hey, a little road just before the end. Here we can let Zuri out. Oh Zuriii Finally you get to run! Sorry, Zuri Are those cows or sheep up there on the hill? Looks a bit crazy somehow.
We have made it. We are in Castle Douglas. Now we just have to find Helen's house. What is really great in Scotland is that there are public toilets everywhere that are also in great conditions.
I am now freshly showered. and it was so good to sleep in a bed and we are making breakfast now. We are making omelette. Really cool, with lots of fresh vegetables.
And she even bought me soy yoghurt, because I told her that I don't eat dairy products. So cool and Helen is super, super nice. She also rides her bike a lot and she has already explored the whole area by bike. and today we will probably go to the beach. and see the area a little bit. And then tomorrow I will go on.
Helen wants to show me a bit of the south coast of Scotland today, We are using her her car today. Zuri is also ready. Helen has forgotten her hat. That's why she has just scampered into the house again. Helen showed us among other things the ruins of Gelston Castle, built in 1805 and the only round tower house in Scotland, which was built as early as the 15th century. But the undisputed highlight of the day was the climb up Screel Hill.
You will see why in a moment. I actually didn't expect that Scotland would get so warm. I took my Goretex Vaude shoes with me, because I thought it will rain without end. But now it is quite warm. It's 25 degrees today. I would have liked to take a pair of barefoot shoes.
But unfortunately I didn't do that this time, because last time I didn't need them. That's how you continue learning every time. Despite a height of only 344 metres the view is gigantic. The mountains on the other side are the Lake District in England.
That's where we cycled around yesterday. It is too hot, isn't it Zuri. Zuri tried to escape the sun at every opportunity. Does she know it's there? No Are they dangerous? No Zuri .. Completely not aware.
We have now gone to the beach so that Zuri can have a little cool down. But the water has disappeared. We are on a Coastal Walk right now. Let's see if we can find a place where Zuri can get into the water. It's definitely very, very nice here. We continue our journey today.
I just went to the supermarket and bought a 2 litre water bottle. That means we have 3 litres with us today. We'll cycle through the Galloway Forest today. This is supposed to be the darkest place in Scotland or even in the UK. In the night the best place where you can see the stars. We'll probably sleep there tonight too.
Let's see if we can find find a good place. Helen has decided to ride with us for a while. That's also quite cool, because then we can cycle some more beautiful routes, because she also knows the very small tracks, which are just super nice.
she will accompany us a bit and yeah we'll see what the day brings. It's not quite as sunny as yesterday, unfortunately. but it is still nice and warm. It is the most amazing life for her yes. Wild Camping and Fishing and then you have to pay? This is interesting.
The Galloway Forest is 774 square kilometres in size and thus about 3x the size of Frankfurt Or twice as big as Munich. There's a lot going on here. Let's see if I can see any Otter as the name suggests. Jump Wow These are the strongest Covid effects so far, I've felt on the trip the toilets, but it doesn't matter, that only one can go in at a time, I am at least glad that they are all open again, It's really busy here. There is a car coming every 2 minutes.
Otherwise it is a really nice road. The Raiders' Road is 16 km long and is one of 2 car routes through the the Galloway Forest. At the same time it is also the national cycle route No 7. However, it makes this section very stressful due to the amount of cars On the next bit, I think you won't get much traffic at all I hope so That was horrible Yeah, so many cars.
My instinct told me that now would be a good time to charge the batteries. But I ignored it, because I had no feeling for Scottish distances yet and these were to get me into trouble more often. To Glentrool? Their should be this Cafe quite close in Glentrool Village. and then I'll find some place to sleep Have fun Bybye Zuri Ok, let's see how offroad this is The cafe is in 25km Until then we are going to cycle today at least Then we will charge the battery a little bit and then find a place to sleep in the darkest place in Scotland. Let's see if there are stars today That was sweet They just said that they saw me two days ago.
when I cycled past their house. Cool. For the first time I have lunch on the journey. Really cool. Helen prepared some bread for me this morning.
She also made me an omelette for breakfast. She just ate cereal, because we didn't have enough eggs It was really mega nice with her. We had a really great time and I felt for the first time that I really had something to give back. because I could take away a lot of her fear from cycling, because she also wants to do a cycling trip with her daughter from where she lives to Glasgow and then to Edinburgh and back for a week. And she was still kind of scared.
and she could ask me a lot of questions how I do it with the traveling and what kind of things she needs. And I just could as I said, take away her fear. And that actually in the end it is only important to get going, that a lot of things just happen on the way. That it's all a learning curve. Better, isn't it? That looks pretty steep.
I hope I can cycle up there. Maybe we have to push it up. although it is quite slippery with the stones here.
So far it's working. Let's see how we get through here now. Maybe along the side. From now on it gets really lonely, because there are no more cars here.
Wow, let's see if we have a viewpoint As you can see it's gone cold. I'm already wearing my waistcoat and a rainjacket, because it's getting a bit chilly. and gloves. The problem is now, we still have about ten kilometres to the Visitor Centre where I wanted to charge my batteries. Now I saw it closes at 16:00. It's already 5pm and it's closed for the next two days.
And I don't really know if we have enough battery to get to the next town. because it goes quite a bit... So that's actually another 50 kilometres to the next town and I have two half batteries. So it shows on the gradient table, that it goes quite steeply uphill Let me show you that. Therefore I don't know exactly whether my battery will last.
Now I have to think about what I'm going to do. Here. You can see that there is a bit of a gradient.
Until the final destination. Until the next town. It will first go to the Visitor Centre anyways and see what kind of possibilities there are. Maybe there's a public toilet where there's electricity. Sometimes there are these miracles and then we will continue to think what to do. I already had the feeling that I should go to this other cafe, but by then I only had half a battery empty. Then I thought yes the Visitor Centre...
but of course I didn't expect, that it would take so long to get through because it is so beautiful here, and I have often stopped and therefore missed the opening hours. Stupid, but it's just so beautiful. Simply beautiful. Wow, what a landscape. It is unbelievably beautiful, so wild and rough.
This on the cycle route? Are we supposed to walk alongside? All closed. There is no such thing. Incredible They are really stupid. All right, let's try to push through. How am I supposed to do that? Zuri has to get out for now I thought Scotland you would be better than England God, I'm stuck in a tree Sorry tree. Now we have to get the trailer through here somehow. It's quite a bump here and it's always up and down.
and there are many midges on the way. I've sprayed myself. Ah, you see, it's already going up again. I have to find my mosquito net. These hills are not the best for the battery. I have to push up the hill again, because it is too steep. I think that we almost made it.
Nice, finally a road again That was quite a bump and the midges just keep flying into my eyes. I really have to find the net now. I have found the net.
I can't really see much. Let's see how often I have to wear this. They are supposed to be really bad in the Highlands.
We have made it. Here is the Visitor Centre Let's see what we are gonna do now. I have to take a break first. Maybe we eat something too. Everything is closed here and the toilets too. There is no power socket outside either.
So I'm going to see how many more kilometres there are. We are going to cook now. Actually someone else came out. But she went home.
She said there was a hotel near here, but she doesn't know if they will let me charge there. I have to check, when I go there, But I have to eat something now. Zuri too enjoy it And for me it's the same as yesterday. Well, not like yesterday
Chickpea couscous together with some olives and tomatoes Here is a camping site. We'll have a look, maybe we can charge the battery there. However, for security reasons the campsites are only open for people who can bring their own chemical toilet with them. I am rescued.
I am now at the campsite. There were two older women They were super nice and They opened this cabin for me. I can charge my battery here.
And actually all the toilets and everything is locked. But they have opened a toilet for me now so that I can use it. And they said that I should just sleep and I don't have to give them anything. People are so nice here.
This is unbelievable. In the next episode it continues in an exciting way. Among other things. It's getting really wet and uncomfortable.
But the Scottish hospitality is boundless and we are welcomed by a local sawmill owner. We meet more free-ranging animals, the local restaurants disappoint however: I ordered vegetarian breakfast, but I got breakfast with meat. See you in the next video.
2021-05-30 04:34
