Rat Race Run Britannia - Week 4, day 1 - Abingdon to Strathclyde Park
A day of two halves
Distance: 51.46km (total so far 931.38km)
Total climb: 556m (total so far 16,314m)
Steps: 60,600 (total so far 1,117,150)
Also:
Number of nice Scottish motorists: many
Number of Scottish BMW drivers who don't see why anyone else should be on the road: too many
Number of flyover footbridges in the last 5km: 6 (also too many)
For most of the group, this was the third day spent cranking along the B7076. Since I'd been ill on Friday and hadn't taken part, this was only my second day, but I already felt I knew it better than I needed to. At least the saving grace of most of the morning was that there was a separate cycle track to walk along.
The views both sides were also excellent. The view ahead, unfortunately, was more unrelenting B7076. The wind was also starting to crank, and the black clouds were starting to remind us that we were in Scotland and summer had been last week. It was, however, an excellent site for a wind farm, and it looked as if someone else had worked that out as well.
A minor break from the monotony was feedstation 1 at a service station - this combined with our first shower of the day, so we didn't linger. As usual, as soon as we'd got our waterproofs on, the rain stopped, but the clouds made it clear that this was temporary.
Lunch was in the church car park of the only town on route, Kirkmuirhill, and came at the same time as a cloudburst hit - we scrambled for the minibus, as the roof looked sounder than the one on the event shelter, and also scrambled some more clothes out of our pitstop bags - it was time to go full Lake District again, at least for a while.
We knew we only had 8km of road left until we got onto the trails towards Strathclyde country park, but those 8km in the rain were nasty - and the cycle track had stopped at Kirkmuirhill. The edge of a wet road is not a great place to walk - the edge of a wet road when you get a collection of drivers who consider your presence an insult to their cars is even worse. The worst was a lady in a BMW who slowed right down as I approached, and assumed I would jump into the verge on my right to let her past - this on 2km of straight road with nothing coming the other way. There were a number of international gestures I was tempted to make, but in the end she pulled out and past me with a mouthful of abuse. We were pleased to get off that section.
The next part, however, was much nicer - trail routes through a wooded area, working down towards Hamilton (which isn't Glasgow) with views of Motherwell (which isn't Glasgow either). The trails did reintroduce us to steps again, so you can't have everything.
The rain had more or less stopped, so we slowly reversed out of our waterproofs and extra layers.
We passed through some areas with more people, as dog walkers were out on force. We were also playing tag with the River Avon, which meant a good collection of bridges to look at and also to cross.
We picked up feedstation 3 just after an amazing house that looked more like a French chateau than anything else - with a view right over the Glasgow area (assuming that is your thing).
And its view.
We had the luxury today of walking straight to the hotel, so no wait for a transfer, and logically we should have been fairly close. However, this seemed to be a nexus for big motorway and road junctions, and the only safe way to get across to the bit we needed seemed to involve constant steps and figure of eights as the pedestrian flyovers dodged around the roads. We finally made it, and hit our hotel just next to Hamilton racecourse. A much better second half to the day, and a final goodbye, without much feeling of loss, to the B7076.
Song of the day: "Bat Out of Hell" by Meat Loaf. Yep, BMW drivers again.
Last: Antibiotics and a mill
Next: Suburbia 2
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