England
From Perth it was only a day to Aberdour, closing the loop back to where we started out at. With three days still left this meant we were well ahead of our schedule, two days quicker than the most optimistic estimate, despite taking the optional detour to Lochinver after our return to the mainland. Thus with some time left to kill we got on the train to Berwick-upon-Tweed, the first town in England on the east coast, to continue our trip from there.
Berwick isn't too different however from your average Scottish coastal town. Which is not overly surprising considering its history of pinballing between the two countries for centuries back in the days until the English took it for good. In any case, it was only a couple kilometers back to Scotland from there and we pedalled on through the low rolling hills of the Scottish Borders. In stark contrast from the Highlands this region doesn't feature any spectacular scenery or hiking destinations. That's not to say there's nothing to see however as some of the villages like for instance Nisbet are really neat. Moreover there are ruins of once massive, glamorous cathedrals or abbeys in every other town; some sacral buildings were destroyed during the wars with England, others didn't survive the reformation.
The lack of outdoors attractions also meant a scarcity of campsites. We meandered around for a while following the Teviot river upstream before we found a fabulous place to camp on river banks near the already mentioned Nisbet. In a flooding zone occupied by a few sheep, we soon noticed an almost complete absence of insects, bloodthirsty or not. There was no wind or rain, but no midges, mosquitos, horse flies, etc etc. either. We cooked and ate dinner outside the tent without any special protection gear. It was as enjoyable as it was baffling, certainly one of the most pleasant nights we spent camping.
The Tweed
Our route from Berwick already mostly tracked the Tweed upstream except for that short detour to the Teviot. The next day we re-joined the Tweed and followed the quiet bike route into the ever taller mountains that form the Scottish Borders massif. Some of the hills featured special structures like a tower that commemorates the victory over Napoleon at Waterloo or bronze age hillforts like Eildon Hill. The Dryburgh abbey, a ruin near St. Boswells, turned out a dud: the fee of 8.50 GB per person for a bunch of crumbling ruins seemed excessive even to us.
Closing in on Innerleithen we made the choice to stop for lunch only and continue on north over the hills. We had some truly outstanding pizza in the town center -- we overheard the chef speaking Italian when we left -- before we left the Tweed behind us and ventured north. That part of the route I was looking forward to most since I remembered the Leithen valley from my last trip when I rode it in opposite direction. It is so much better going south to north as the easy mode climb on the Borders side means one gets to enjoy the mystic tundra scenery longer; the Lothian side consists of run-off-the mill countryside, unremarkable enough to not distract from the descent over dangerous post-apocalyptic roads with sink sized potholes.
Edinburgh
This was it, the eve of our final cycling day had arrived! In true biketouring style we spent that special night outside at a campsite just outside Edinburgh that is located under a cool viaduct, part of the railway that connects the Borders with the Central Belt. The weather gods were complacent and we could pack the tent dry for travel.
On our route, Edinburgh was kind of an outlier: none of the other settlements we passed through even came close to its size. Sightseeing was a bit hampered by our bikes and the luggage we carried. We hoped to get rid of the bags at least at some storage lockers at the Waverley station which sadly don't exist; there's only a bizarre booth where some guy charges obscene amounts of money per luggage item -- instead of per volume as with lockers -- which would have amounted to a small fortune for our four Ortlieb bags. Seriously, Scotland, anything connected to train travel is a huge shitshow in this country.
The next issue was that none of the indoors POIs in town have anything close to proper bike storage; we had to pass on Holyrood palace because of that -- half a dozen of cars were parked on the fenced off courtyard but according to the staff they wouldn't let us lock the bikes there. We spent some more time on Calton Hill instead. That was a blessing as after an overcast morning the sun had come out to present Scotland in the best conditions one last time, and we enjoyed a view far into the distance in all directions. Next to the national memorial we traded touring stories with another bikepacker (and AMR veteran) who had camped on Vatersay just one day after we did. He flaunted an appropriate "Trump ya cunt!" t-shirt for the occasion of a protest that took place earlier that day.
On our way to the hotel we reached the 1500 km mark almost exactly on the Forth Road Bridge, an adequate stat to conclude this amazing trip. We had one final haggis dinner at the exquisite hotel in Aberdour to properly celebrate our parting before we took apart the bikes and packed them for air travel in the morning, sad to leave this wonderful corner of the planet but also looking forward to returning at some time not too far in the future.
gps tracks
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