Pieces of Eight

An earlier start than I wanted with a rework of the blog entry I lost, but I definitely saw the best part of the day by being up at 6 - the early sun and stillness turned into a grey day with lots of gusty wind that battered us around over the Borders country south of Edinburgh. Having met Mary to re-fuel with a pastie and cake, we then spent the next couple of hours trying to get through Edinburgh city centre, (which, frankly, is a mess! - Princes Street is a building site due to the new Tram system, but it's taking an age apparently!)

 We moved on as quickly as we could against the wind and got our first sight of the Forth bridges just outside South Queensferry - 
 
The cyclepath to get us on to the bridge itself was a nightmare, finally emerged at the southern end without us actually having to go on the motorway! The wind blew us over pretty quickly but we then needed to turn West, into the wind again.

 Fantastic view of the Rail bridge of course - a thing of beauty!

We have become used to the rain starting at some point in the afternoon, but this was something else! Driven on by the wind, it was heavy and persistent, and in our faces, all the way - about 2 hours - into Dunblane. To make the stage worse, most of the road from Dunfermline to Alloa had been stripped for re-surfacing - it was like riding on cobbles for about 12 miles!
We arrived very wet, very cold, and very hungry. soup at the B&B was very welcome but we also managed to demolish some major food later too.

Route tomorrow is up to Glencoe. Forecast is less rain, but a strong headwind. Great!