Beautiful Borders and bonus beef

Late breakfast served by the nice squiffy barman from the night before. Think he’d started early as he got tea and coffee mixed up on the order. Andrew aka Ernie, for anyone who had read about last summers trip, likes to carry a pint or two of milk strapped to his bag. There being no convenient shop on our route he decided to steal the jug of milk intended for breakfast cereal and fill his bottle. I’m not sure that’s how a milk round is supposed to work?

Departed around 10am. Quite a hilly day today to Hawick. We left Galloway and entered The Borders. The scenery was grand; big rolling hills, woodland and valleys, rivers, pretty good roads and some nice climbs and descents.

Lunch was at a cafe in Langholm. At least that’s what Steve and Andrew called it. Pete did have a scone, Merv ruminated breakfast again. Then we were immediately into 1200 feet of climbing over the next 4 miles followed by what Steve described as an 11 out of 10 descent into Newcastleton. One of those long, not too steep, fast, sweeping affairs on a recently resurfaced road. Joyful indeed. However Garmin said we still had four more climbs to go. 


At some point Andrew fell off his bike. Normally mishaps like this fall under ‘what happens on tour stays on tour’ rules, but seeing as Steve got a photo…


We’re in Hawick tonight and we knew in advance that our hotel restaurant was closed. So Steve booked us in at a place called the Number 16 Bakehouse. They do Sunday lunches and offered to save us some. Pete thought this might be a bit past its sell by date by 7pm but…wow - what a feast! Perfect beef, lamb, chicken, yorkshires and all the rest on one plate. 


The rest of the menu looked really interesting and the staff were proper foodies. Go there! Even if you live in London! It’s worth the trip! The only downsides to this experience were that they aren’t licensed so we had to raid Morrisons on the way to the hotel and then we couldn’t get a taxi for the 1.7 miles back to the restaurant. So we had a good walk - both ways! It’s okay, we probably need more exercise!!  Credit to Merv for lugging 8 beers and 2 bottles of wine all that way.

Oh, yes - Over dinner Steve admitted to accidentally forgetting to hand in his room key for last night. Considering the grief we’d given Andrew for the same blunder last year, this was a brave admission. He decided to call them and explain. The rest of us hoped the call would be answered by the stern matron who would doubtless give him an earful but unfortunately he spoke to squiffy barman who was far too understanding, in our opinion!

57 miles

4393 feet

Longer but less hilly tomorrow 


 






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