The Moffat Off-the-Map-ster with LG. Fantastic dreamy circular ride starting and finishing at the Well Road Centre in Moffat.
Another one of those times where you make a plan and then 5 minutes later throw it away and make a new one. Having studied our OS map, we intended to go North or South following Sustrans Route 74 but at the first junction we got to it was sunny to the left and so I headed off on the A708 towards the sunshine in the East and straight off our map into a dreamy world of friendly old men and smiley helpful barmaids.
We rode on the A708 towards Selkirk for 10 miles surrounded by stunning scenery and we hardly saw a car. One of the few we did see had Clay and Frances in it and we stopped at the Grey Mare’s Tail waterfall car park to chat to them for a bit. When we set off again, LG was desperate for a coffee. At 15 miles into the ride we met a grey and bearded local cyclist and his less grey and beardy pal at some public loos. They directed us to the idyllic TibbieShiels Hotel on the edge of St Mary’s Loch where we encountered the friendliest barmaid in the world who offered us proper coffee and a selection of chocolate cakes with a perfect Scottish accent and a smile. We took them outside and sat by the Loch and messed about taking photos and drinking coffee and felt like it was all a dream.
The less grey and beardy one of the two cyclists we’d met earlier came to find us and he recommended a circular route to us which would bring us back to Moffat via Lockerbie rather than just doubling back on our route so far into the wind. At this point Clay and Frances reappeared and we checked out the route in their road Atlas and decided it looked pretty good.
We followed the A road along the loch edge with the wind behind us for about another 5 miles until we reached a crossroads with the B709. We considered going left as it was only 7 miles to Innerleithen but instead we turned right and things got tougher from here on in as we were both uphill and into a headwind. We rode through the forest for a while which was a lot less appealing to the eye than the early mountaintops and at this point I wished we’d done a shorter route.
After we’d done about 40 miles in total we reached the Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Centre, where we stopped for coffee and quiche. I thought about a cheese and ham toastie but it soon became apparent that none of the food on the menu featured dead animal so I stuck with the quiche which was delicious. There were only about six people in the café and after being served quiche by a German I was just mentally drifting off into the crossover world between Scotland, Germany and Tibet when I heard two women in the corner with tons of cheap-looking jewellery on moaning about the bus serivces in Middlesbrough, which brought me right back from wherever I was dritiing off to.
As I left the Buddhist centre I felt lighter. When LG asked me what I meant by that I said I meant that I felt lighter, as in not as heavy. It soon wore off but it was good while it lasted.
We knew that eventually we would re-enter our OS map but we weren’t sure exactly where. Thankfully we didn’t have to go all the way to Lockerbie as we found a minor road back to Moffat which wasn’t on the map. We could see the noisy A74 in the distance and even riding parallel to it a couple of miles away from it it seemed loud so we were quite pleased we didn’t take the Sustrans route after all in the morning as that would have taken us right next to it.
We got back to the hostel just before 6 pm and just in time to have jacket potatoes with various fillings (including a very hot Chilli courtesy of Sarah Moran) and we ate and drank to our hearts content feeling pretty smug about what a great day out we’d had. Another amazing October day.
