Day 8, Barbon to Gretna Green

The weather luck continues! Every time I woke in the night it was lashing down, as it still was at breakfast. This fell away to a drizzle that persisted as I bade farewell to Joe and Maeve who returned to Inverurie today. A few miles up the road I started to shed waterproofs and never saw another drop until 5 minutes before arriving at Gretna. Even the wind seemed to remain, generally, a tail wind

It continued to look very threatening over the hills and I had 2 big ones to climb by Tebay and past Orton so I planned to avoid a coffee stop. This was a good thing because I found no coffee shops anyway! I carried on apace as I'd arranged to meet son Rob at his flat in Penrith. I got there at 12:30.

After a blether and a lunch he donned his kit and accompanied me for 6 miles to escort me out of town. He looked the part on his new Trek road bike and was naturally way faster than me, but then he was younger, fresher, and not riding a fully loaded tourer! We should have swapped bikes!

After that point the ride was a doddle as it was all generally losing height. The guest house is very nice, which is about the best thing I can say about Gretna. The whole town seems to be geared purely for quickie, low-end weddings; the pubs are dire and real ale absent (not surprising after observing the typical clientele). The food was, well, think of it purely as fuel for the journey.

But it's not all bad news: I'm back in Scotland! Just.

Thinking of cranking up the pace a bit, but weather forecast not great and I can't get breakfast earlier than 08:00 (and that is a special dispensation!). Oh, and I've got Beatock Summit tomorrow as well, so will see how things go. And today is the longest day!

Stats for the day : 70.9 miles at 11.2 mph avg; 6hrs 17mins saddle-time; 1236m ascent