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.
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