Day 3 - Ayr to Annan - 85 miles

The longest (in terms of miles) day is now behind us, but that's not to say it's going to get any easier!

We woke to a clear blue sky today in Ayr, hoping to be on the road by half past eight to accommodate the extra mileage. So, after a respectable breakfast (on a par with the Clachaig Inn but nowhere near Balloch House), we departed just after half past eight, with Lee kicking the day off in the saddle.

Within a mile Lee was climbing a steep hill out of Ayr (as was I in the Moggy) - not the gentle warm-up he had been hoping for, and the hills kept on coming! But so did the beautiful scenery.

With the sun came the midges today - it seems that midges can either fly no faster than 10 miles an hour or just can't be bothered to as when my cycling speed dropped below this magic number I was instantly surrounded by a cloud of the little blighters. I think that if I was a bird and I liked my food, I'd be seriously considering cycling lessons!

The midges were only a tiny issue though, as most of the time we were managing to ride too quickly to be caught and so far I've found no bites - testimony to the effort I've put in today!

This stretch of the journey was so enjoyable to cycle and drive along it felt like it alone was worth the 12-hour drive up to Scotland.

We broke the day into quarters again, mainly to give our bottoms a break, so we did the journey in roughly 20-mile chunks. The first two were over all too soon, both of us feeling like we could have done more.

When it came to the second changeover, the half way point, we needed to think about a lunch stop. It was half past 12 by this time, so we decided to continue on the same route in the hope that one of the next two villages would yield a place to eat. Alas, neither had anything to offer! Before I knew it, the Moggy and I had landed in Dumfries almost an hour later. I knew at this point we had no chance of finding each other without considerable delay so I headed out the other side of town to wait on a road I knew Lee would need to travel on.

After another hour (and staring at a huge hill that Lee would need to climb) we finally made a pit stop for lunch at a coffee shop I'd passed a mile back. One haggis and cheddar panini and a tuna melt later we returned to the car - at which point I realised it was my turn to take over and therefore the huge hill I'd been staring at in front of us was mine to climb.

I attacked the hill with gusto fuelled by haggis and cheddar (yes, that was mine) and with the help of 'granny gear' climbed a couple of back-to-back category 5 hills for about three miles. Mere hillocks for the likes of Bradley Wiggins, but a big enough challenge for me. At the top I turned at the site of a ruined castle and headed down a nice quiet B-road.

This kept the climb going and all of sudden, like midges attacking a cyclist, the road turned into track. I thought it was just a small section that would soon turn back into the tarmac road I was expecting to cycle on, but after a mile of climbing over this (with road tyres) I realised there was a potential disaster looming.

I stopped to check my phone and realised that I'd missed two calls from Lee - who, it turned out, had decided to follow my route and thus had been faced with tackling this 'road' in the Moggy! The further I got along the track the more confused I became as to where he'd managed to turn around (assuming that he'd turned back), and only when I'd got off the road and descended for a couple of miles did I catch up with a slightly dirty-looking Moggy - turns out he hadn't turned around at all but gone through the whole lot. I was amazed!

This left me with about 10 miles to do, and with an average speed of 9 mph after the track debacle, I attempted to drag my average speed kicking and screaming towards 13mph (despite my bottom's best efforts to get me to get off the bike and walk).

I soon pulled into Annan, which had a nice market town feel to it. A lot of buildings were of a reddish stonework construction and the high street has a clocktower at each end.


The sat navs got us to The Old Rectory B&B without any problem, where we checked in, showered and sorted out the next three days' maps/routes. Then we went out for a couple of beers followed by dinner - nothing of any note here I'm afraid (yet again chips with everything, but it wasn't 'bad').

A nurse in the bar spotted our CMA t-shirts and after a lengthy chat about our route for the following day she handed over £5 for the collection.

A great day's cycling today - we both thoroughly enjoyed the scenery and the weather. I'm just going to ignore the dirt track section and pretend it didn't happen.

Oh, and to set records straight, I neglected to mention a sweet old chap who gave us £10 in the Erskine Garden Centre car park yesterday who, on seeing our Moggy and the signs on it, decided our efforts were worth a contribution - this takes our 'stranger donation' total to £45.

NEXT STOP: Middleton-in-Teesdale - 72 miles and a few climbs away.

The Smith-o-meter for the day reads as follows: