35 miles of Scottish country lanes

Sandra piled my bike and me into her car, and she took me a short way to meet Drew, my cycle tour guide for the day. Drew is an interesting character, he refers to Scotland as a country, and has all the local towns and cities ranked in a priority order. He has travelled the world and is as tough as nails.

I saw he was much more warmly dressed than I, and this worried me somewhat. However it was a glorious day and we headed out for a couple of hours. We had a great ride along tiny country lanes, and undulating byways. I shall not complain about the state of New Zealand's roads anymore.

After a little while Drew said he needed a "wee stop". Being in Scotland I thought that meant he needed a little rest. I was wrong, what he had was a wee stop. I hung behind him for the first half hour or so as we were turning every few hundred yards. Then he said to me, we had 10 miles of road before a T-junction, I could have my head, and so away I went. I had to wait for him a few times, but afterwards he said he was pleased to have someone else do the work for a change.

After a very pleasant two and a half hours Drew left me at a corner with directions about how to get back to Sandra's place. Thank goodness for the wonders of GPS.

It was wonderful having someone take me out - if I had gone on my own I wouldn't have found those delightful routes, and would have spent half my time looking at my map wondering where in Scotland I was.

As for my fitness, well generally it leaves a lot to be desired, but I was very pleased with the state of my legs. My heart and lungs were not so happy, as I was huffing and puffing the whole way, but it was good to power up the hills into the wind with a few gears to spare.

Loch Lomond

The plan for the day was to visit Loch Lomond, less than an hours drive from Paisley. Sandra, Cassie (the exuberant Alsatian) and I arrived at the Southern end (I think) of the Loch. Its quite commercial here, with restaurants, fun fairs and a visitor centre. It was Bank holiday in England so many of them had presumably come over the border.

The loch separates the highlands from the lowlands and thus the Gaels from the Scots, and it is situated on a huge fault line. God does have a sense of humour. After a while of walking around this area and enticing Cassie into the water for a few fetch swims we headed for less populated areas.

On the way we stopped for a lovely lunch and then back into the car where we found some peaceful shores, and plenty of photo opportunities. Of course all the while we were catching up on nearly 30 missed years.