Day 3 – Landing on the Island
Saturday, 14.07.2018
Arrived! Newcastle turned out to be quite a nice harbour after all. I think I arrived here before, but that was so long ago I can’t remember anymore. North of the Forth of Tyne sits an old cathedral or castle, which looks nice on the stretch of land. All around some old lighthouses and sea-beacons.
But Newcastle was still not my final Destination. Yet before I could continue on my trip, there was proper border control after disembarkation. England, right. The nice lady in her cabin actually talked to me like someone from HLS at a US airport. The only thing missing was giving my fingerprints and mug-shot. But she still asked me if I’m travelling really alone, if I would meet with someone in Scotland and that there was a lot of stuff on the back of my bike. Some simple “Yes I do. No I don’t and yes it is a lot of stuff, I go camping.” did suffice to get the usual “Have a nice trip” response.
What really confused me was that suddenly everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road and everyone pushed their horn when seeing me, if they didn’t actually try to drive me over. On a more serious note, it takes a lot of getting used to. Especially if there are no other vehicles near and one has to drive around an obstacle. Then it is easy to forget to go back to the left side. But tomorrow things will look up already. For sure!
Much more irritating was that there was no sign telling me the local niceties regarding speed limits. Besides both my speedometer and my Navigation devices where still happily showing km details. A short stop later Navi settings where changed and everything good. Well not quite. When the nice voice in my ear tells me that I should take the third exit at the roundabout in 900 yards, that doesn’t help me at all if there’s a roundabout after 200 meters having only two exits. Bad enough to manage going into the roundabout the right, wait, left way round, how on earth am I supposed to do distance calculations at the same time? But soon enough I had accepted my fate and the ride to the Scottish border passed like a breeze.
As soon as I passed the border the air changed, the colours turned greener and sheep became more regular. I was so amazed at arriving in my most favourite country that I got carried away and even took a “Selfie”. It’s always some sort of “homecoming” when I’m going to Scotland, and this time it was no different.
On the way to my stay for the night near Dunkeld, Perthshire, I had to pass by Edinburgh and cross the new bridge over the Firth of Forth. Inauguration by the Queen was only last year and of course it broke several national construction records. So I just had to make a stop in Queensferry and (again) take a few pictures.
But then, off to the campsite. Good decision it turned out, the site was nearly fully booked for the night and I didn’t want to look for a wild campsite already on my first night. This place was very well situated at the River Braan, which then joins the Tay River.
Dunkeld in itself is surely worth a trip, there are several cultural attractions, for example an old Presbyterian cathedral, or what’s left of it. But I was too tired for sightseeing so I only bought some food for dinner and breakfast and “retired” to my tent. The next day would then take me to my first “basecamp” in northern Scotland.
Today I rode 301 km.
