Today was definitely a day of two halves.  The morning in the hills and the afternoon by the sea.

The morning ride was glorious.  I doubt the road is busy at any time but leaving early on Sunday morning, we only saw a handful of cars for the first 40km. The scenery was stunning – misty to start with then lovely sunshine. Having battled a headwind for the last 2 days, we had turned north and the wind turned to a southerly so we were blown along. Two big climbs but reasonably gentle and the second descent was wonderful – 10km hardly touching the brakes.

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We ended up on a pretty main road for a few miles into Ayr but we are getting good at putting our heads down and pressing on through these – there have been very few on the  whole trip. We turned off into Ayr and headed for the sea front. Time for coffee but unfortunately the first place was full so we pressed on – big mistake as we found that most of Ayr is shut on Sunday and so was every coffee shop – in fact that was the only coffee shop that was open all da and we missed our chance (but maybe that was why it was full)!

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The afternoon route took us on cycle route 7, hugging the sea shore – only diverting around a series of golf courses, including Royal Troon. The route twisted and turned along paved paths, sometimes shared with pedestrians. Most of the route was pretty built up.

Towards the end we had got fed up with the bike path , which was adding kms to our route, and decided to do the last section on the main road. Wrong decision as we found ourselves riding down the slip road onto a massive dual carriageway! Luckily there was a turn off after only a few hundred meters and we were able to pick up the quiet bike route again into Ardrosssan.

Tonight we were in a ‘traditional’ B and B. I’m not generally a fan of these places but there was no campsite and no other accomodation. This one did nothing to increase my enthusiasm – the owner was very friendly but covid had (necessarily) added to the (long) list of rules to be followed. But the shower was little more than a trickle, the TV failed to work and the ‘breakfast’ was both inadequate and inedible (left out in a paper bag from the night before).

Eating possibilities were limited in the town on Sunday evening so we ended up with a microwave meal, a large bag of tortilla chips and a bottle of wine, which marginally made up for everthing else and a longer than expected day.