Click to enlarge the route
The ride home wasn't all bad either, we left the Queens Arms (via the Fire Escape as you do) quite early and took off for the twisty road to Alston through the Northern Pennines stopping for our final full breakfast in Barnard Castle. A bit of good stuff afterwards with a good run through the Dales to Grassington and Skipton in the general south west direction to join the M65 near Barrowford avoiding the North West traffic. I said farewell to Mark at one of the M6 Services. Always my preferred option is to get off the M6 as soon as possible and enjoy the sunshine and the rolling hills of Cheshire and Shropshire tracking back home near Telford and Bridgnorth to arrive home around 4:45pm.
A superb week riding around Scotland. The weather was fantastic, perfect temperature for riding my new GS and while we were away we missed a heatwave back home too. The only real rain we saw was the morning ride out of Oban, and that had cleared by mid-morning on the way through Glencoe. The Torridon hills up to Gairloch, Skye and that wonderful late afternoon ride around Loch Fyne really made the trip for me. Great company in Mark too who also enjoys getting a bit of a lick on these days, at times I had trouble keeping up with him, though mostly due to me admiring all of that wonderful Scottish scenery!
