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Day 12 Kielder – Selkirk via Hawick
Weather – Very wet middle part of the day.
Dr Pepper – Poor availability put down to lack of civilisation.
Terrain – Pretty hilly but average for the trip.
Campsite – Recommended: Victoria Park Caravan and Camping Site, Buccleuch Road, Selkirk, Scottish Borders, TD7 5DN
A great day of cycling not because it was easy but because of crossing into Scotland and some of the beautiful scenery around. In the Peak District and Yorkshire earlier in the trip the scenery was perhaps more spectacular but we were too busy walking up hills to notice, but now we had time on our side and knew we didn’t have to rush to get to Edinburgh, so were more able to enjoy ourselves, as Rich proved by executing this death-defying stunt (well almost!) shortly after setting off in the morning. This is not as easy as it looks with the heavy and unbalanced bags on the back and riding with no hands was impossible as we found out on day 1. The bags were unbalanced because the last time we packed them properly was in our hut on about day 4, since then we had just lived out of them with them still on the bikes.
In fact thinking about it we didn’t rush away from the campsite but instead went down to the waterfront to take the pictures on the previous page. Early on we bought breakfast of chocolate, jaffa cakes and jelly babies as we passed Kielder and also commented on the hundreds of Forestry Commission 4x4’s driving around. Seeing as there was only ever one person in each 4x4 we decided they were just being important and didn’t seem to be doing anything useful. In any case soon we found the Scottish border, quite a milestone for us as now we had at least cycled ‘the length of England’ if nothing else! The Scotland sign was unexciting but this picture came out well with the camera stood on Martin’s helmet in the middle of the road since there were no cars. We also took a picture of the altogether more impressive England sign afterwards.
This was definitely the quietist road we travelled on although unbelieveably a couple of lorries passed by just seconds after those photos were taken, but other than that we only saw a few cars until the end of the road at Saughtree and little more when on the B-road up to Hawick. Being intelligent young men we occupied ourselves for a while (well ages actually) by playing the ‘My Grandma went shopping’ memory game and in fact we covered distance quickly in this way by taking our mind off the hard work!
Shortly before we arrived in Bonchester Bridge one of my pedals fell off, quite a common problem with black mountain bikes that I have owned. Out with the rather limited tool kit and we screwed it back on with the pedal-extractor tool that we never knew existed until the week before we left (see background section), but we were certainly grateful for it because there was no way the multitools would fit (it needs a plug spanner). We were even more grateful for this tool when shortly after we got to Bonchester Bridge to find there were no shops at all, or none that we could find anyway.
We were particularly interested in finding shops here anyway because in the original plan one of our overnight stops was between here and Hawick. Having written to a campsite owner here at Bonchester Bridge I received the nicest letter in reply of all those campsites I wrote to. In fact the reply was that there is no longer a campsite there and the previous owner Mrs Wilson, who wrote the letter, told us that she now ran the Post Office instead - so we were looking out for it as an ideal Dr Pepper stop. Disappointed we carried on and the pedal seemed fine as we reached Hawick and visited Sainsbury’s for lunch. Here it started to lash it down with rain, and also of note was a man in an old Cavalier who pulled onto a roundabout in front of us requiring swift braking all round. He signalled an apology but it goes to show how careful you have to be. Anyway here is Sainsbury’s car park in the rain.
At Hawick we got a major surprise when at the Sainsbury’s cash machines we unexpectedly received what I shall henceforth term ‘funny money’. Having lived in Great Britain for 19 years not one of the three of us had any idea that they used different money in Scotland (obviously same money just different notes). The notes were not printed by the Bank of England or even the Bank of Scotland but instead the Bank of Scotland PLC, and did not feature the queen’s head. As a royalist the Scots have now gone considerably down in my estimations as a result – I mean even in Wales they use proper money… anyway we were surprised to say the least but almost as surprised when we got English change inside the shop. It seems they use both quite happily and you can spend English money no problem, even though the notes are not even the same size as the normal ones. Besides this however and the obvious just-nod-and-agree language barrier we found everybody very friendly although carried on the tradition of people getting slightly nuttier the further north we went.
Traffic was busy in Hawick for the first time in Scotland but as we hit the A7, which sounds like a big road, on the way out, in fact it was very empty. The A7 is the main road to Edinburgh, in the afternoon on a Thursday – we were not exactly combating mass traffic like back in Skipton.
Shortly after leaving Hawick where we could have done something about it, my pedal indicated that it was once again about to fall off. Stopping to fix it we were glad of the plastic covering over the nut which we almost threw away last time we stopped but in fact had stopped us losing the nut altogether. Without the nut there was nothing we could do so fortunately we never lost it but had to keep stopping because we either couldn’t screw it on tight enough with the tools we had to make it stay there, or something was broken.
Between Hawick and Selkirk we stopped a total of nine times to screw it back on, and found that the amount of time before it fell off again had nothing to do with either the style in which I pedalled or how much effort we put into tightening it up. On one of our stops we took this picture of the A7 (above), again with no traffic and hills we weren’t looking forward to cycling up in the background.
Assuming the problem was something wrong with either the nut or the pedal we were looking for a bike shop really but we also stopped at a couple of possible garages to see if they had a spanner, without success. At one garage we were tempted by an air pressure thing which looked like it was the most fun this side of the downhills earlier in the week, with bright colours and a huge needle gauge. Obviously it had the standard ‘not for bicycles’ sign on it but we came close to using it especially since we suspect our earlier tyre problems were due to under-inflation. However common sense won as we had gone a few days without a puncture so we left things as they were.
During this time and also the following day there was a lot of activity in the skies with the RAF busy making a racket with their tornados low enough to make everyone deaf. I think there are a few bases in this area so I assume this is normal but there were loads of them and with the noise you knew all about it.
Finally in Skipton after all the stops, and I suspect this was the slowest stretch of the trip with the exception of walking up the Yorkshire hills, it was past closing time so without much hope of a bike shop we looked for a campsite instead. After asking at a pub we were directed down a massive hill which was to become familiar, to a well signposted campsite. This place was the strangest arrangement I have seen for a campsite, as camping was on a public rugby pitch and the booking in was done at the adjacent swimming pool. With not much option we booked in for a reasonable price (£8.50) and found that the facilities were excellent, rivalled and beaten only by the very first night at Land’s End.
However the arrangement was all a bit strange with a key to get into the toilets because otherwise anyone could have wandered in there. The whole place was very public just in the local park and people were walking pretty close to us on a footpath. Although the night we spent we had no problems I can’t imagine wanting to spend a holiday there but there were others there doing just that, and in the swimming pool car park there were a couple of static caravans as well.
In general we would go back there but only for the one night. Here is the tent on the field. There were some others in caravans and assorted tents off the left of the picture, and the swimming pool is the blue building on the left. The background is Selkirk up on the hill with what I assume is a castle but we never went anywhere near it. After setting up and bringing all our things inside the tent and locking up the bikes thoroughly, we headed back up to the pub we asked directions from and spent a while in there amusing ourselves listening to the non-English speakers across the room and reading the uninteresting Scottish Sun, after which we bought a takeaway and took it back to the tent.