Sleightholme

I am rapidly going off the blog! I've already written this post, and it has disappeared again, so apologies if this comes across as less than enthusiastic.

We managed to get up and out, and load the bikes by 8 this morning with the aim of catching the 9am ferry from Rothesay. We were a bit too early, and it was pouring with rain so we sheltered in the waiting room for half an hour or so, but were still pretty soggy by the time we boarded the ferry.

Luckily it had just about stopped raining by the time we arrived on the mainland (or maybe it was only raining on Bute), but the road was regularly covered in water that we had to lift our legs as high as we could as we drove through to avoid getting boots full of water.

We stopped for lunch (and to put on extra clothes - we had already had our heated grips on) at a fab farm shop/cafe and experienced our first Scottish breakfast, including haggis and potato cakes.

We then decided to ignore the advice of Google and headed for the A75 despite it being closed. The detour was about 5 miles of stationary traffic through a small town full of traffic lights which would have easily added over an hour to our journey, but luckily as we were on bikes it didn't hold us up too long.

We arrived at Lindsey's about 2:30 and after a lot of internal deliberation and contemplation I made the tough decision to ride all the way down the steep gravel track to the house. Jamie was ok, his bike is a lot lighter, has lighter luggage, and knobbly tyres, but mine is heavier with road tyres. I made it all the way down without dropping it once, though did have my feet on the ground most of the way.

We had a short walk around the fields to the farm to visit Bella's sheep, then the rest of the day was mainly spent doing gymnastics tricks with Bella and taking photos of puppies.Read more