Day 12 Loch Maben to Strathblane
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I got to bed nice and eatly last night. I knew I needed an early start if I was to make the distance today.
I'd seen a good campsite north of Glasgow near the start of the West Highland Way. Proper campsite with a "Just turn up" policy. I wanted to get there as the only alternatives were ghastly holiday parks around Glasgow. These places are always grim, expensive and full of weirdos. So 90 miles to the campsite it was to be!
I set off just before 7. I would have been earlier, but I fell back to sleep after I initially woke up!
I had a nice, straight, quiet road to take me back to my planned route. Things went smoothly and I was ticking off the miles.
I rejoined my route after about 12 miles. I had a bit of a GPS issue. So I wasted a good 10 minutes sorting that out. Turns out you can't load a route from RWGPS whilst you're recording. I got there in the end though.
The route was on the B7076 which would have been the main road before the M74 was built. I saw very few cars - probably single figures over several hours. Like a ghost road.
Progress was good, although a little hard as it was uphill into a headwind for miles. It topped out at about 1000ft and it would then be generally downhill all the way to Glasgow.
Signs of life finally started to appear (honestly, if you ever need to bury a body, the B7076 is the place to do it!) and I eventually found a shop for some supplies.
There was a change of scenery as things got a bit more urban. Pretty good cycle paths all the way to Glasgow though.
Once through the centre of town, there were lots of pleasant parky bits and I was closing in on my destination. I stopped for some final supplies and hit the last 10 miles.
Things got a bit tasty at this point! I got on to the WHW, which was fine, but I took a wrong turn at some point and ended up on a totally unridable path. It was an absolute nightmare, but this has happened plenty of times before and I'm sure it will happen again! I wasted a good hour lugging my bike through that nonsense.
I eventually made it to the campsite. It's really nice. Got a building with a café and stuff, but I'd already bought stuff for a cook up.
I'm all done now and ready to relax for a bit before bed.
Today was definitely the best of the tour so far!
Not sure what's in store for tomorrow. I shall figure it out in the morning.
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