Edinburgh

Leaving Kinross required only a moderate climb up to 400 m elevation through scenic surroundings. The terrain remained hilly throughout the day. During the approach to Edinburgh I took a planned detour down to the base of the Forth bridge to appreciate the construction in its full glory. There is maintenance work going on right now. Workers were painting steel girders and cables. Little traffic because of this, so the bridge crossing was quite pleasant.

Edinburgh proper is located about 10 km south of the bridge and the ride there includes a long, smooth cycle path on a decommissioned railway track. Very nice. The city itself has marked bike lanes on the major roads but it appears to be customary to use those for parking cars. The center was crowded with tourists which made moving around rather tedious. To avoid losing too much time I skipped the loop I had planned around the castle and headed directly for the Scottish Borders. Too short a visit, but what I saw of the city appealed a lot to me. Marked for a more thorough visit in the future

Scottish Borders

Following the Eurovelo 12 south I soon reached the Borders. The welcome sign on a climb up to 400 m gave me a sample of what was to come. Once more a region without level roads. Also the headwind had gotten stronger by this time and, like clockwork, it started raining. Nevertheless, the Scottish Borders were a true highlight of my route so far: lush green slopes, hilltops covered in heather, mostly nice roads, troops of idle rams, occasional rays of sunshine -- quite spectacular in its own way.

So much worse that I couldn't spend the night there as I had planned. Today's original destination was a place called "Tibbie Shiels' Inn" but when I arrived there I was greeted by locked doors. No campsite. No inn. Just a bunch of boats. A quick search on Osmand revealed that the next larger settlement was Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway -- about 25 km from where I was. After 10:30 h in the saddle and 156 km total distance I finally got there and in retrospect I'm glad I did because the descent into Moffat passed by some of the most beautiful scenery I've seen all day.

Since I had to diverge a bit from my planned trajectory, I will have to improvise tomorrow to get back on my route. From a glance at the map this should be feasible so I'm optimistic.

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