Gary, from the US is planning to cycle 1,500 miles around the UK. He
started his journey on the 16th of May 2003.
Since that date he has travelled over 1,100 miles on a recumbent bike.
At the time of writing, he has approximately 400 mile to go to complete
the trip. Gary says: “The trip has been a real adventure. It's
been absolutely fantastic!”
I had an interesting day today. I left Banff this morning around 9 am,
and was heading for Elgin. It was raining, but not hard. Fifteen miles
into my ride my rear tyre went flat. It was a good spot on the side of
the road and the rain had stopped. I managed to get a new tube installed,
but, evidently, I damaged the tube and the tyre immediately went flat
– again. Well, I was on the edge of a village so I pushed the bike to
town for help. There wasn't a bike shop or garage in town. The first
person I met was a chap taking pictures of the bay. We started driving
around in his car looking for help.
We came up to some workers working on the water mains. The boss wound
up taking me to the next town five miles up the road to a bike shop. He
wouldn’t hear of me compensating him for his troubles. He said he
needed to do his part in increasing tourism. Luckily the bike shop was
open. They are closed on Wednesday's. The fellow that owns the bike
shop had his wife make me up a cup of tea. She also invited me in her
home so that I could clean the grease off my hands. By this time it's
three o'clock in the afternoon, so I decided to call it a day, and
found a lovely four star B&B. People here are so friendly and generous
here it's unbelievable.
One thing I've learned, it doesn't take much to survive. I'm
on a seven week trip with roughly two of everything. I have to keep clothes
in three groups – clean, only used one or two days, and definitely need
to be washed. If I can't find anybody to wash them or too embarrassed
to ask, I wash out a set in the sink with hand soap and hope they dry
by morning. More than once, I had to put on wet clothes. I'm sure
this isn't the kind of news you were waiting to hear, but that's
the reality of the trip.
I've tried almost everything on the menu, but one of the things
I haven't tried is black pudding. They tell me it's very good,
but someone said it's fried pigs’ blood. I haven't been
able to bring myself to trying it. Maybe it's something I'll never
have the opportunity of experiencing.
I'm still slugging along. Today I was feeling so smug. I was ready
to bestow expert map reader after my name till this afternoon. There were
conflicting signals on the trail and I went left instead of right. The
outcome was too bizarre to go into much detail. The upshot was I was lost
and in the middle of a field that a farmer was cutting hay. The hill was
steep and slippery. When I tried to apply the brakes, my feet snagged
the cut grass and I was catapulted headfirst. Luckily, I had a soft landing.
Well, I finally made it to my destination of Falkland at 6 pm. It's
a real small town with a castle and huge cathedral. Yesterday I was talking
to the sheep all day.
I was in Inverness. I don't know how everybody keeps putting up
with me. I'm constantly asking for directions to somewhere- bike shop,
streets, B&Bs', you name it. Everybody is so patient and willing
to help in any way they can. I'm not shy when it comes to asking for
directions. When you're on a bike you can kill a half hour real quickly
going in circles. I met a couple of hikers around my age (nearing retirement)
over breakfast at the last b&b I stayed at in Buckie called the Rosemount
who are from the Orkney Islands. They looked at my map and it so happens
I'll be passing within a half mile of their house. They asked me to
stop by for a cup of tea. What a small world!
When I was eating dinner last night I noticed on the menu they were
featuring lamb imported from New Zealand. Now, of all the things the Scotts
need to import you would think the last thing would be sheep. Somebody
said in a grocery store a couple of days ago, “You've seen more
of the UK in the last four weeks than I've seen in my whole life”.
I suspect that's true!