Figure 8 On A Bike

View from the train

Bonus photos from Scotland! Too much neat stuff to share to make it in all the posts Heading towards nice camping at the Gleeb!

The morning after Storm Agnes, we had a lovely breakfast in the guesthouse. I stayed in their nice bathrobe as long as I could, but eventually we had to bike to the ferry in Ardrossan . We got our tickets and Ben did that thing he does where it is REALLY close to time to board (to my anxious brain it is very close, in reality there is just enough time, and in Ben's brain he has like all the time in the world) and he disappears to go to the bathroom. He barely showed up in time for us to board before the cars. PHEW. The ferry has a LOT of signs about not being mean to staff. We had seen a truck the day before with a sign angrily criticizing the ferry company. We chatted with some folks, I guess the ferry had been really unreliable recently and hasn't been updated in forever and people had been upset as it is the only way on or off the island so when it gets canceled it is very disruptive. *fingers crossed we don't get stuck on an island again On the boat towards Arran...

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...

We turned around from the climb on Lochnagar quickly and repacked the bags for a bikepacking loop without the climbing gear. We are starting to get tired of the constant packing and unpacking at this point in our trip but this packing was a unique puzzle to repack as we figured out how to slim down our load, what can we leave behind and what do we need and what can fit in the bags we decided to limit ourselves to. Thankfully, the hostel was fine with us leaving piles of stuff in their carport which is just one of the many reasons we love Ballater Hostel. Once we got the items figured out we rolled away from Ballater to start our 5 day bikepacking loop of the Cairngorms. We felt still heavy, but comparatively light and free! Who knew getting rid of a rope and a pile of metal could feel so good! Look at those slimmed down bikes!

Waking up in Aberdeen we enjoyed the hotel breakfast for the second time (since that was our dinner), re-organized all our bags after the flight, and got on the bikes probably a little late, as if it was just another day with nothing new. Of course a lot of things *were* different; the culture shock started right away as we had to continually remind ourselves to ride on the left side of the road, adding extra confusion as we tried to interpret intermittent bike lanes and signs directing us on and off the sidewalk. We had a bunch of errands to do and supplies to get in order to be properly situated in a new country (it's hard to cook on the far end when you can't fly with stove gas or a lighter, and Norwegian climbing guidebooks aren't much help in Scotland). Any sense of "same-old same-old" definitely shattered when we arrived at the Asda (supermarket) and had to dodge waves of uniformed adolescents rolling through the snack and take-away sections, since a nearby...

We woke up to a light frost on the tent before sunrise. It was just warm enough with our equipment but we were looking forward to sleeping indoors and then flying south (since Scotland is known for being so warm in the fall :P). We packed up the tent wet and rolled to the bus station in Åndalsnes to catch the bus to Molde. This bus apparently does double duty as a school bus as there were a lot of school children who hopped on. This was another one of those moments where it hit me that I am not just on a summer vacation and I would not be returning to the classroom this fall. When we arrived in Molde we headed straight to a cafe to kill some time and enjoy our last cafe in Norway (and feed our caffeine addiction). We really just did a cafe tour of Norway. We don't know much about how Norwegians dine, but we are fairly familiar with their bakery items! We rolled our bikes towards home for the night. We knew the way as we were returning to the same KOA style RV park/cabi...