Crieff Hydro Weekend

 Colin, Cherry and Hannah headed off for 3 days in a cozy cottage at the Crieff Hydro. The cottage was fairly basic but adequate although the double bed was a bit small and hard.

We had dinner three nights at the Terrace restaurant which was pretty good. It was pretty busy but with reasonable levels of spacing. 

We had booked lots of fun activities. Colin & Cherry did an hour or archery and we all did Air Rifle Shooting, Segway and Laser Combat.

The weather was a bit rubbish unfortunately.

Nice to get a bit of change of scene as we don't expect to be going anywhere else this winter.

Cycle to Cardrona

 As my October adventure I set out on a two day cycle "adventure" from Edinburgh to Cardrona - just over 40 miles of riding each day. I deferred the start from the weekend to midweek in search of some reasonable weather.

First headed along the canal to Balerno where I had a coffee break of a takeaway coffee and sausage roll from Scotmid - no sit in cafe available. Then onwards into the Pentlands and over the Red Road and grassy descent down Monks Rig to Nine Mile Burn.

Then a nice back track to West Linton and another Scotmid break for a chicken sandwich again sitting outside. From there I picked up the Borders Drove Road which was a nice remote mix of trails and tracks into Peebles. Tea and Pain Au Chocolat before a final road circuit of Cademuir and on to Cardrona.

Squeezed in a very quick swim at the pool and enjoyed a really excellent dinner. They were very busy and short staffed by managed admirably. Oh - and they had a bike store and a hose to wash down the bike which was quite handy.

A nice vegetarian cooked breakfast the next day and a fairly early start in cold dull weather. Route home was via Granites and Cycle Route 1. This was a bit dull due to over familiarity, tiredness in the legs and too many cars driving too fast and close. 

Coffee stop wasn't until Eskbank where I got a MacDonalds coffee and then a Costa coffee and panini near Newcraighall.

Arrive home just after lunchtime. Day 1 was good due to interesting route with Day 2 a bit of a grind.