A Little Bit of Culture: September 21st - 27th, 2023
Some nice young bros at Ballater Hostel had made us a little insecure about our priorities, asking us "Do you only do sports? Or do you ever see any castles, or do anything cultural?", so we decided it'd be worth it to spend a few days checking out the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Our timetable didn't allow us to bike all the way from Ballater to Edinburgh (nor did our fatigue), so first it was back to Aberdeen and then onto a train bound south.
Applying our hard-won real-world knowledge, we decided NOT to take the entire Deeside Way back to Aberdeen, sticking to the paved roads for the parts of the bike trail that we knew would be particularly rough and hilly. However, because it's simply not allowed for us to go too long without seeing a bike mechanic, Susan's fork broke AGAIN. The same front rack that had so many problems broke another bolt - but the top one this time! At first it seemed like maybe it was better that the other bolt broke... until we realized that the top bolt had pulled its entire housing out of the fork, leaving a jagged hole with threads of carbon fiber frazzled at the edges.
Susan slung the bag from that side of the fork over her shoulder and we finished riding to our old campsite at Gleeb Park, grateful to have a known good spot to camp. And in the morning, that set us up perfectly to go bother the fellas at Skyline Cycles once again! Admittedly, though, this one stumped them a little more - you can't really re-drill for a bolt when you're looking at a void of fraying carbon fiber. So they employed every handyman's final prayer - Gorilla Glue - and we enjoyed some coffee from the attached cafe while waiting for the glue to set. They also added a metal bracket, ostensibly to help clamp the bolt in for the glue, but Susan left it on for peace of mind.
With Susan's front rack all glued together, we finished riding into Aberdeen, again learning our lesson and staying on the bike path instead of getting tangled in weeds along the river bank. So much easier! Waiting around the train station, we fretted about our train to Edinburgh not having a platform assigned and how we were supposed to load our bikes onto the train, so as a distraction we got out bits of the tent soaked from the morning dew and neverending drizzle and wrapped them around benches and traffic barriers to try to dry them out a little.
Finally they announced a platform for our train, and the very nice (and slightly concerned) conductors made sure we went to the carriage equipped to carry bikes. The bikes had to hang up, though, so we were grateful to have plenty of time to unload and reconfigure all 10 of the bags before we settled into our assigned seats for a nice calm ride to Edinburgh. Getting off at the other side was the exact opposite. We had an unknown amount of time (but probably less than a few minutes) to get down two bikes and then haul 10 bags off the train before it sped on to its next destination. We tried to be proactive, heading up to the bike hangers and arranging some things well in advance of pulling into the station (Susan started bugging me to do that a full 20 minutes before we arrived), but to our horror the carriage doors opened to a wall of humanity just as nervous about making it onto the carriage in time as we were about making it off.
Like a salmon swimming upstream I struggled against the current of people, managing to get first one bike wheel down, then another, and then using the bike as a crowd control device as I shoved through, desperately trying to jam up against a wall just so that I could leave the bike for a moment to go get the other bags (at least in a setting like this no one can run off with your bike!). Susan managed to get hers down and used her effective kickstand to stand the bike up in the middle of the crowd, making a bit of a bubble where we could drop more luggage. We each forded the streams of commuters one more time to come down fully laden with our bags, and did a quick count - 1, 2, 3... 9. 9?? That's not right! I remembered that I had one bag with us by our seats, and managed to dive into the train, rescue it, and make it back out just before it left the station - close call.
By the time the train left the torrent of people had slowed to a trickle, so we had enough space to breath and reassemble before heading out and facing the big city to get to our hostel. Like most of our experiences riding the loaded-down bikes in big cities, it was hectic and scary and we never felt like we were in the right space in the road. My tire got caught in the tram rails and I almost completely wiped out in the middle of an intersection, skidding out of the way of oncoming traffic on one foot and pannier.
When we arrived at the hostel the staff was nice and welcoming, but we were pretty disappointed to see what 50 dollars for a bed on a weekend in Edinburgh gets you. The whole place was really busy and way too small for the number of travelers packed in, so the common spaces had little room to spare, but at least we got to enjoy some good fish 'n' chips before turning in for the night. Susan and I at least had the same bunk bed in the 12-person dorm, so before setting out in the morning we took the chance to hang up as much of our wet clothes and tent as we could, hopefully not causing more than a mild nuisance to our dormmates. (It bears repeating - the only time we had a dry tent in Scotland was when we slept inside!)
Edinburgh had plenty to make us forget about being so soggy, though, and we started by visiting the National Museum of Scotland. After about 4 hours we had barely scratched the surface but our brains were already overflowing with Scottish history so we headed out to see some other landmarks. We had the wet rain fly from the tent with us, hoping to take a little time in a park to dry it out… but it was raining during the day so that didn’t pan out. So we ambled over to Edinburgh Castle, prominently perched on the black volcanic plug of Castle Rock in the Old Town.
Edinburgh Castle had served as the seat of the Kingdom of Scotland for hundreds of years, from about the 1000's to the 1600's, so was a significant site through the many wars fought over Scotland, up to the Jacobite risings in the mid-1700's. As such, it's a quintessential symbol of Scottish heritage, and they still house the Scottish crown jewels in its vaults. Between the crowds and the steep admission fees we both remarked it felt a little like a theme park, but we did enjoy another healthy dose of Scottish history and some nice views as we toured around the batteries, museums, St. Margaret's Chapel, and the Scottish National War Memorial.
The next day we had some time before we needed to start on our bike ride, so we spent the morning visiting The National Galleries of Scotland: Modern One. This was a fantastic museum and definitely had one of the best collections of art that I've ever had the enjoyment of perusing, including several classic works by Dadaists and Surrealists that were really neat to see in person; if only I could go back and time and tell my younger self, dragged to the Omaha Joslyn by my dad, how much I'd enjoy art museums someday!
With our budget to visit Edinburgh rapidly depleted, we hopped on the bikes to start riding west to Glasgow. We'd read about a bike path that linked the two cities, mainly following old tow paths along the Union Canal and Forth and Clyde Canal (these two canals used to link Edinburgh and Glasgow together), but kept a healthy skepticism after our experience with the "bike path" of the Deeside Way. Still, this promised to be flat, at least (you can't go uphill in a canal!), so how bad could it be?
The ride turned out to be really enjoyable! Maybe on a heavy bike enjoyment is linked to flatness, because the trail didn’t disappoint in that respect - barely a hill to be found along the whole 57 mile route. We took one short first day just to get out of Edinburgh, bemused by riding along aqueducts that crossed over freeways before finding a small patch of forest to hide our tent for the night. For once the rain had let up, but the wind came in fiercely instead, and it was hard to sleep that night listening to the whooshing and groaning of the trees, wondering if they'd all be standing in the morning.
On the second day of biking we got to go through the charming Falkirk Canal Tunnel, which was much longer than it looked from the entrance, but nicely lit by multicolor LED lanterns and offering a unique tactile experience. Usually, in caves you're not supposed to touch any features to avoid disturbing the delicate natural environment any more than necessary, but since this was a *man made* cave, we could reach out and touch the rippling mineral deposits! It was neat to feel how water had turned to stone along the tunnel walls.
The other side of the tunnel had another lovely surprise - the Falkirk Wheel. Built as a "millenium project" to reconnect the Union and Forth and Clyde canals (the series of lochs had been filled in for about 70 years), it is the world's only "rotating boat lift", and truly blurs the line between art and engineering. I felt a little geeky but couldn't hide a bit of childish joy watching as the two gondolas swung around and delivered the canal boats to their respective waters.
Riding on to Glasgow we ran into a couple of guys from SusTrans (the organization that runs the national cycle routes in the UK), and they were super excited to see a couple of bikepackers using the routes. They gave us some advice on what to see in Glasgow and we found our accommodation - an EasyHotel (basically a Motel 6) that promised much more comfort at half the price of our beds in Edinburgh. They even upgraded us to a bigger room so that we could bring the bikes inside with us! That night we took advantage of one of the first TV's we'd had in a long time to watch some hilarious British game shows like "QI" and "Would I Lie to You?". Glasgow was seeming better and better than Edinburgh (although also we can be kind of contrarian, so maybe everyone saying "Edinburgh is so much nicer than Glasgow" biased us).
Our itinerary for Glasgow was very similar - museums and art galleries (what else do you do in big cities?). We visited the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum first, which hosts an eclectic and sometimes puzzling array of items, but also some really nice art pieces, including several from Glaswegian artists (including furniture, because for a while Glasgow led modern tastes on furniture and interior design) and whole galleries featuring Scottish art. Afterwards we went to the Riverside Museum which has a lot of transportation themed exhibits and a cute interactive version of "old-town" Glasgow. A restored tall ship out back gave a glimpse into the difficulties of spending months seafaring and a respect for the sailors who had to scale the masts to rig the sails; no way could that job have ever been OSHA-compliant. A chart of flag signals revealed a few messages that might also be appropriate for riding over-burdened bikes.
After Glasgow we planned to head to the isle of Arran for more outdoorsy-type-stuff (grim weather forecast be damned), but we had one more morning in the city. Unfortunately, most of our time was taken up hunting for a climbing guidebook for Arran that we could snap some photos of (still pretending the weather would be nice enough to let us climb); after three stops we finally found it. By then the rain had moved in, but we had a bit more time, so we took our soggy, fully-loaded bikes (since we’d checked out of the hotel) down to the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art for a quick peruse. Sadly the Banksy exhibit had just closed, but that was just as well, since we didn't have much time anyway.
We did manage to squeeze in a quick tour of some street art, though, since Glasgow hosts some particularly famous urban murals and paintings (hence the Banksy exhibit). Their Duke of Wellington statue routinely sports a traffic cone as a hat, and Banksy has called that one of his favorite pieces of street art. Even if we didn't get to be in a museum out of the rain, I was still really happy to get to see a few of the superb artworks decorating the city.
Finally, it was time to catch a train from the Glasgow Central station to the small town of Ardrossan, where we'd hop on a ferry to Arran. Of course, the weather threw a wrench in our plans; Storm Agnes, the first named storm of the fall, was blowing fiercely into Scotland and northern England, and the ferry to Arran was canceled until the next morning. Most places in Ardrossan had closed for the tourist low season, and everything else was definitely more expensive than we'd usually go for; scrambling in the train station, Susan and I debated whether we should just try to find a campsite in Ardrossan or give in and pay for a night?
Eventually we found a place, Eden Guest House, that was still open and not too pricey, and riding the train down to the harbor, cold windows fogging over from our damp clothes and bikes, we felt some relief that we wouldn't have to sleep out. And when we got off the train, the wall of wind that greeted us quickly inflated our confirmation bias - conditions were rough! Struggling the last couple miles west to get to the lodging, into the wind, burned my legs far worse than the 47-mile day to get to Glasgow. After we checked in, we went out to get groceries during a lull in the rain, but the storm beat us home and managed to thoroughly soak us during our last 5 minutes of walking. Yeah, maybe it's not a good idea to sleep out on the coast during a named storm.
So, instead, we slipped into some veritable luxury - this place provided us with bathrobes! And slippers! We got to enjoy a warm and cozy night while the blustery downpour lashed at the walls and windows. No problem, just turn the heat up a little. Our hot chocolate was all the more enjoyable knowing we'd be back camping in the rain again soon enough.
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