Day 1 - Friday 1st June
We set off at around 8:30am and were very lucky with the weather - it was sunny and dry.
Our route took us out to the A1 via Ripon, on the A1 up to Newcastle and then A roads all the way to Edinburgh, then motorways to Stirling and finally nice twisty A roads to Strathyre.
The first section to Ripon was fantastic - nice twisty quiet roads. Then we got onto the A1 for the tedious 75 miles to Newcastle. We left the A1 to join the A696, and shortly after Ponteland we stopped for petrol. The place we stopped at had a pub next door who advertised themselves as 'Biker Friendly' and they definitely were. A very nice place to stop with cheap tea and coffee!
We set-off up the A696 and joined the A68. Two wonderful roads on a bike - highly recommended. The only downside being the many speed cameras on the A68 - but be careful with your speed and it's a very good road.
It started to get cloudy and cold as we headed into Edinburgh, but cleared as we headed to Stirling.
Because we had made such good time getting to Stirling - it was around 2:00pm - we stopped off at the Wallace Monument. The monument is up a big hill from the car park and unfortunately the driver of the bus to take people up had just gone on his lunch break when we arrived - so we had to walk up the hill in full bike gear. Thankfully they let us put our luggage in a back room at the office in the car park so at least we didn't have to carry that around. The monument was well worth the effort though - especially the views.
We returned to the bikes and rode out of Stirling to Strathyre. Just after we parked the bikes up outside the Bed and Breakfast it started raining - so we were very happy!
The B & B was very nice, we both had a shower and then we went to find a local pub for something to eat and lots to drink! We were not keen on the first pub we went in - so we found another which was very nice and served good food (I had haggis!). It also had a free pool table - admitidly the table was in a bad state of repair - but it was free so we had no complaints.
After quite a few beers we returned to the B & B and I fell into a very sound sleep while Nig listened to his MP3 player all night!
