Highland to Holyrood

We safely made it onto the train to Newcastle. No fuss when we were getting on the train. I look back at our wonderful cycle. It will be one of the highlights of my life. Can't wait to tell my family about the cycle.   Lente and me are playing a game that we have to hold are breath in the tunnels. Haven't been on a train for ages. It goes so fast! Memories of the cycle are still in my head. The main ones: Playing in the river with Freya at Dunkeld, building a pier when we were wild camping near Loch Garry, Walking in the woods at Pillars of Hercules campsite (highly recommended by us) and when we arrived at the Scottish Parliament and bumped into some friends and swam in the pools in front of the Scottish parliament. By Heather Going over  the fourth road bridge, we saw lots of jellyfish and trains, I really enjoyed that. It was very busy in Edinburgh, with all the trams and trains and buses. I liked the first hotel in Edinburgh because it had a phone to call the people who wer

The train journey to Stonehaven was relaxing after the initial upset and stress. And it was nice to see the train well used.  Enjoyed watching the countryside whizzing by quietly. Imagine more train journeys like that, local trains back in action, a guard's van for bikes and other big stuff, friendly and helpful conductors like our conductor yesterday. Who would want to travel by car? We arrived in Stonehaven as the haar was burning off. Scott met us by bike, and we had ice cream and lunch by the beach,  and Olly and Freya exerted their right to play before we tackled the climb out of Stonehaven and back to Muchalls. A fitting end to our journey,  and back to our electric car for the journey back to the Highlands. Highland to Holyrood is not just a week long 315 km bike journey to take a message to the Scottish Parliament. It's an ongoing message from some very concerned people in the Highlands to the people making important decisions that affect the env

Well, it's me who will have the bike on the train experience tomorrow. Taking the 11am train from Edinburgh to Newcastle. Bags as efficiently packed to facilitate going in and out of the train as smoothly as possible. Children trained to put on 'puppy eyes ' as they call it when begging for something. Paul will help me getting on the train and it also helps that the train starts its journey in Edinburgh. I will be reliant on helpful people around me in Newcastle as the train doesn't stop long there, but sure someone will give a hand. From Newcastle central station a 9.5 mile cycle to the ferry port following again a national cycle network route. Hopefully I don't get a puncture,  I do have spare tyres with me but realised late today that Kristina had all the other kit, incl the tyre levers. There's a bike hub on the way, so will probably pop in to see if they have some.  Of course I don't want to miss the ferry or be late for the mandatory lateral flow test

I'm writing this sitting next to Freya and Olly on the train, seeing Fife from a different perspective. I'm raging inside. I did wonder if we'd have difficulties getting our bikes on the train, and, sure enough,  we did.  We stayed in student accommodation last night, and cycled to the train station escorted by Philine this morning, to get the only train we'd been able to book two bikes on this weekend (weeks ago), thereby missing out on a bit of time in Edinburgh.  Philine was allowed onto the platform to help us, and when we found the conductor he told us there were already two bikes on the train, so we couldn't get on. I explained our situation, I showed him the printed email from Scotrail customer relations (one of a long trail of emails I'd had to send in organising this one, simple thing).  I explained our journey and it's purpose. He sent and spoke to the couple who had put their bikes on the train. It turns out they'd been told by Scotrail just t

We made it to Holyrood! (Sorry for the finger photo bomb, but I took the photo whilst cycling to the front door of parliament, and was struggling to hold my phone, which I then dropped..) It was a tired but happy party that cycled up to the front door of the Scottish Parliament. We were 2 minutes early for our revised appointment with Liam Kerr, Scottish Conservative MSP on the committee for Net Zero, Energy and  Transport, and we hadn't yet had lunch,  which ended up being a bit late.  We had joined the NCN cycle route 1 again out of Inverkeithing in the morning, which took us easily to the middle bridge over the Firth of Forth. Crossing the Firth was an exciting highlight of our journey, and it felt like a significant event on the final day, and our entry into Edinburgh. I've never crossed the Firth by bike, and it's great to have the quiet of the bus, bike and pedestrian bridge to do it on.  Although the third bridge is another impress

OK, so the plan today was for a shorter day and an early finish, a catch up with an old uni friend in Dalgety Bay, a bit of time at the hotel in Inverkeithing and an early night. Only one of those things actually happened.  We left the oasis of the Pillars of Hercules reluctantly after one more trip to the shop and around the cottage garden. Somehow I was persuaded to buy two books in the shop, against my better judgement, and added them to the load in the trailer. One (the book on British wildflowers) proved very useful later on when we were having a debate on whether the huge hogweeds lining the path around Loch Leven were actually giant hogweed (they weren't). And we found out from the book that the mature stems, being hollow, make very good pea shooters. Hence, Olly ended up carrying a few pea shooters the rest of the way! And on that note, how did I end up with yet another stick in the trailer to carry home? Every outing seems to add more sticks to the collection outside our f