Day 25 - Gretna Green to Abington
2022 08 25 Day 25 Gretna to Abington
Quick facts:
Weather: Sunny with cloudy periods H 19 L 11 C Humidity 96% wind 3 kph NW
POP 4% during the day.
Departure: The Gables Hotel, Gretna, Scotland
Destination: Days Inn Hotel Abington, Abington Motorway Services Area/M74, South Abington, M12 6RG
Planned mileage: 55.4 mi. 89.1 km
Planned ascent: 1,938 ft
Planned descent: 1,214 ft
Route: photo of Ride With GPS file
For Ralph’s actual metrics please see the Strava section of the website.
Good morning / Good day from Scotland
Sun through the clouds greeted me this morning as I looked at the ride profile. I will be eating a good breakfast!
Ralph and I headed out of Gretna after saying our goodbyes to Jon, Anisa and her car - Aubergine. Safe travels! They are off to join family for the long holiday weekend.
We rolled out of Gretna and it was only four miles down the road before I realized we weren’t going through Gretna Green. I lost my first chance at being a Scottish Runaway bride .
Sometime around 1754 the rules in Scotland changed so 16 year olds could get married essentially without paperwork or parental permission. Young couples galloped across the border.. found the blacksmith at Greta Green (for some reason he was the officiant) and were married over the anvil! There were two weddings at The Gables where we stayed last nignt.
A little further down the road I became curious when I saw this sign about a porridge museum. One of the regrets about this trip is that we can’t take the time to visit these little gems.
This is a quote from the museum’s website: “The Devil’s Porridge Museum tells the story of HM Factory Gretna, the greatest munitions factory on earth in World War One, where the devil’s porridge (or cordite, an explosive) was mixed. There were 30,000 workers: 12,000 of them were women. Their contribution to the war effort helped women to achieve the vote.”
https://www.devilsporridge.org.uk/
Off we continued in the countryside and the FIRST pasture we pedalled by there were purebred Scottish Clydesdale horses. I am not kidding!
I met the breeder up the road on her beautiful Friesian mare.
The rest of the morning was spent on long rolling B roads with almost no traffic. We were on NCN 7 much of the time interspersed with Ralph’s improvements for our purposes. .https://www.sustrans.org.uk/find-a-route-on-the-national-cycle-network/route-7
Suddenly we started seeing evergreens in mixed forests and clear cutting timber sites beside grain fields with straw bales.
These Scottish farmers stack the straw bales high in the fields like the Welsh do. They do not manage forests like the Finns though.
I had been in Scotland a full day so it was time for me to see my first loch. It turned out to be Castle Loch, mostly preserved as a nature sanctuary.
Some parts of the cycle path are more interesting than others .. such as this “one size fits all” underpass for cyclists and pedestrians.
Scottish cycling roads… no traffic.
Cycle path near Biggar, Scotland beside the four lane M74. I thought it might be a long hard climb but instead it was on a path or the service road shielded by a substantial border of trees and the slope was gentle enough for the tractor trailers so … it is gentle enough for us!
The route we were taking was the Clyde Valley route with agricultural production abounding.
The Days Inn at Abington Motorways Service Area was perfect for us. Bikes in our rooms, a number of restaurants to choose from for supper and breakfast, and a peaceful view out my window. It was even far enough from the M74 that I didn’t hear any traffic.
Safe travels.
Lorraine