I set off from the campsite in Gretna, and made my way along the Sustrans route towards Dumfries. In Annan, I stopped to speak to another cycletourist asking for directions, and found that we had both started from Gretna that morning and were both following the Sustrans route for the next few days, eventually both ending up at John O'Groats. So Gillian and I decided to cycle on together
As we travelled, the weather worsened. By the time we got to Dumfries we were cold and wet and asked at the tourist office for somewhere good to eat. One of the pubs they mentioned was the Globe Inn, a photograph of which I remembered seeing on the front cover of my map. So we decided to go there in search for food. A very warm welcome awaited us in this pub, but unfortunately they didn't serve food, so we took advantage of their kind offer to look after our bikes and looked around town. We came across Robert The Bruce, a Wetherspoons type of pub which had two for the price of one offer on food. £5.75 for two meals. So, energy mostly replenished we wended our way back to The Globe for a couple of orange juices and a chat with the locals and staff. We were lucky enough to be shown around upstairs, and take a look at Robert Burns's room, bed, fireplace etc. It was a shame to have to leave this pub, I could have stayed there all day, but we left promising to send them photos in the future.
We set off again, making our way to Castle Douglas. On the way I bought half a dozen eggs from a roadside stand. The weather worsened again and by the time we got to Castle Douglas I was very cold and shaking quite badly. We stopped in a pub and had some hot drinks to warm ourselves up. After this I located the campsite and set up the tent. This campsite was quite expensive at £10.15 but I had showers and washing machine / tumble tokens thrown in for free.
Back at the tent I heard a shout from the caravan on the other side of the road - Mary and Alec - who invited me in. Very friendly couple and the conversation covered a wide range of things. One I remember was about Haggis skins now having to be changed to synthetic material due to European regulations. Another was square sausage.
I was very glad that night that I had reproofed my tent before this trip. The following morning I had my cycle shoes dried out very impressively in the high speed spinner. Mileage to day according to the 1998 Sustrans interim route map, was 53 miles. This map incidentally is well out of date, at 4 years old now, and as we should see, the route has been modified in a number of places. Surely Sustrans it is time for an update of this map?
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