The evolution of the Scotland Trip

The Formartine & Buchan Way

The seeds of the Scotland cycling trip were planted when I found out about the Formartine and Buchan Way. The Formartine and Buchan Way is a long distance shared cycle path, built on the bed of the former Formartine and Buchan railway, that starts at Dyce Railway station, on the outskirts of Aberdeen, and runs some 25 miles through the heart of rural Aberdeenshire to Maud where it splits, continuing north for 15 miles to Fraserburgh and east for 13 miles to Peterhead.

Maud is where my mother is from, and growing up I spent many summers at my grandmother's house, Bank Villa. I have many fond memories from that time, one of which is running up the steep back garden to the top of the hill and watching the daily freight train go through Maud station on its way to, and back from, Fraserburgh. After the line closed in 1979 I remember walking the trackbed towards Peterhead on a later visit, although at that time it was still just an abandoned railway line.

Having found out about the F&B Way. I thought it would be great to ride it, and revisit the old haunts we used to go to when we visited. So began a long process of working out how best to do the route, where to stay, how many days etc. Eventually I settled on three separate trips, based around staying in or near Maud itself, each heading in a separate direction. That done, I then thought about how I could extend it for a couple more days to make a real holiday of it. I looked at a couple of options around Aberdeenshire, including the Deeside Way from Aberdeen to Ballater, and the Isla Way running 13 miles between Keith and Dufftown, passing by 11 whisky distilleries (so, so tempting but very dangerous!). However, these would mean a six hour journey both ways, which wasn't ideal, so I decided to look closer to home.

We had planned a holiday in Oban and Fort William in 2020, but the Covid pandemic put an end to that. I'd always wanted to go the Western Highlands, and so investigated potential routes around here, and this unearthed a few rides in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. This meant that I only had a four hour trip from home, and a two hour short hop linking the two centres. I created a couple of rides, based around Callander, by merging together some of the short ones I'd found and hey presto - holiday created!

It has been great fun planning and researching the rides, with Google Maps and You Tube being very useful for seeing what I would come up against. Now I just can't wait to get there and get the pedals turning!

Football's coming home, to Robin Hoods Bay!

25 years ago today England beat Scotland 2-0 at Wembley at Euro 96, with Gazza doing his famous 'dentist chair' celebration. At the same time me and five mates rolled into Robin Hoods Bay at the end of a seven day Coast to Coast trip,  starting in St Bees and following the Wainwright route for much of the way. We were blessed with good weather for most of the journey, with just one afternoon and early evening of wind and heavy rain, and stayed in some fabulous places. Most of us were working for Barclays at the time and raised money for charity using the Bank's matching scheme.

I have some really good memories from that week, and 23 years later did a Devon Coast to Coast for charity. Might have to look at the Scotland MTB Coast to Coast at some point in the future 😎😎

Don't worry, be happy......

On Monday the government will announce their plans for removal of the next level of restrictions in place for the COVID pandemic. I'm hoping that, even if the next set of easing of measures is delayed by four weeks, as is being suggested, it won't prevent me from going to Scotland at the end of the month for a cycling holiday.

It seems the biggest risk at the moment is whether or not the Cheshire East area will have some additional restrictions set due to the recent rise in the number of cases, particularly the Delta variant.

Whatever happens, it is out of my control so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I'll lose sleep because the cat keeps jumping on me and poking me in the face, but at least I can control that. If necessary I'll rebook my holiday for a later date.

In the meantime, I'll keep getting out on one of my bikes and enjoy the freedom it gives me. And the excuse to eat large pieces of cake of course!