Monday, June 10, 1996
From St. Andrews to Edinburgh
62.3 miles
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As usual it was raining a little bit when I got up in the morning and made breakfast. But the rain didn't last too long, although the sky was black with the clouds. I got all my things together and cycled down to St. Andrews where I arrived at the bicycle shop at 9 o' clock. As I mentioned before I wanted to go to Edinburgh that day and stay there for one more day. But the man at the bicycle shop first told me, that all he could guarantee me was that I'd get my bicycle back on the same day.
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After talking to him we finally agreed that I could get my bike back at noon. I would have liked to leave St. Andrew earlier, but there was nothing I could do about it. So I went and started on my tour around St. Andrews. First I went to the ruins of the cathedral. Nowadays there are only parts of the walls and some remnants of the pillars remaining, but they give you a pretty good impression of how the whole area once must have looked like.
After climbing the old tower that stands near the cathedral I had a wonderful sight on the cathedral ruins and over St. Andrews. After visiting the cathedral I went on tour through St. Andrews. This town is really nice although there are a little too many tourists there. But nevertheless I had a nice time there.
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When I got to the bike shop at 12 o' clock my bicycle was ready to go. The man who ran the shop told me that my back wheel was in a poor condition. He told me that should either have all the spokes replaced or at least to loosen them all, recenter the wheel and adjust them again. He hadn't done that because I wanted to leave at noon. But anyway I had the impression that he was the first one to really check my back wheel. And I had no more problems with the spokes after that day.
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As I left St. Andrews it had started to rain but that rain didn't last very long. There was one more shower in the afternoon but the rest of the day was sunny; but as on the days before there was a strong wind blowing. I first rode on the A915 to Kirkcaldy and the headed on along the coast to Dunfermline where I wanted to cross the Firth of Forth. When I came to these famous bridges I was glad to find that the road was going over the new bridge so that I had a wonderful sight over to the railroad bridge. And compared to the bridge over the Firth of Tay this crossing was much better because I didn't have to cycle on the road. There was an extra lane for pedestrians and bicycles at the side on the road, so that it was an easy crossing.
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I mentioned before that I had planned to stay for a whole day in Edinburgh. But for that I needed to find a B&B. But when I finally came to Edinburgh city it already was 7pm so there was no chance that a tourist office would be open. So all that was left for me was to look for a B&B myself. I headed into town on the A8 which is a heavily used road. So I was glad when I saw a sign saying alternative route to city center for light vehicles . I followed this sign, but after a couple of miles there was another sign hanging across the road saying no pedestrians, bicycles, etc ... . So I tried to find the way into the city center. But after a couple of roads I was lost in a maze of dead end roads and the sun already was getting low.
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I then decided to head southwards out of town in the direction of Dalkeith where a camping site was marked on my map. But I as I was still looking for my way out of Edinburgh I suddenly saw a sign: saying Mortonhall camping site . After half a mile I came to a camping site directly in Edinburgh and there I put up my tent. It was a nice place but it cost 8,50 pounds.
There was a small pub near the place and as I was sitting at the bar drinking my first pint I suddenly heard a voice in a heavy north-german accent saying "Ain't that our bicycle man?". As I turned round I saw the guy from Hamburg I had met 3 days ago on the camping place in Aboyne. They had been driving around the country on totally different roads and in Edinburgh, by a mere hazard, we met again. I joined them at the table and we sat there till midnight talking and telling stories about nearly everything. Together with them was a guy from Wuppertal in Germany whom I should meet again a couple of days later down on a C-road in the Lowlands.