After an awesome night's kind hospitality, food and fellowship, as well an amazingly large breakfast at the Kwants in Carlisle, following a few snap shots, I set off on my way.
Heading out of the city, I spotted an Argos and picked up a small Sony portable fm radio. This filled the silent void that accompanies you on a long solitary day on the road with the dulcette tones of Simon Bates. On second thoughts, where did I put that receipt?...
This unplanned retail stop lead to a bit of a late start, so keen to crack on, I cycled along a B road following the A7 north, across the border and through Gretna.
The fear of being conscripted into an Elvis suit and into a rushed wedding ceremony, spurred me to jump back onto the bike after taking a couple I'd snap shots for the album.
On route, somewhat to my amusement I came across a sign pointing to 'Bruce's cave'. Quite excited about the prospect of some unknown real estate north of the border, I decided to check it out. Finding it was in the middle of a campsite, my claims to the title on account of my own name, fell on deaf ears, forcing me to stump up the princely sum of one pound to view it.
The cave in question, quite unassuming, was allegedly the hiding place of one Robert the Bruce, king of Scotland, after a defeat by the English. The famous tale goes, that with little to occupy himself, he watched a spider failing many times.to spin a web until it finally succeeded. Inspired by this arachnoid activity, he went on to muster the Scots once again, who this time, against odds of ten to one, beat the English at Bannockburn.
Quite profound in many ways...
Motivated myself to persevere with my own quest, I continued north until I realised that I actually needed to head north west. Now slightly off my map, rather than cut accross country, I had to make a conservative decision to head west to Dumfries to rejoin my planned route.
This dog leg added probably another 10 miles to my total journey, meaning as things were getting late I still had plenty of miles to go. In fact more so given the fact that in order to reduce the longer than average distance on the following day's cycle, I ready needed to push on to the next town, Sanquhar.
This decision was made easier for me when I checked out the camp site at earlier Thornhill, and realised I'd either be bitten to death by midges ord wake up drowning in a lake of water in my tent.
So, I pushed on into the dark for another 12 miles up hill following a fast flowing mountain river.
Reaching my destination, I checked into my first b&b of the trip so far, a solidly built Scottish farm house - somewhat more comfortable than Bruce's cave.
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