This is the second post in Jim’s “Bike Ride” series. If you’re new here, I’d recommend starting with Part 1!
Thursday 4 July: Dumfries to Stair Inn
I turn on the TV, but after a few government inanities, I turn it off and go for breakfast. I set off at 7am, then discover that I have got the time wrong and it is only 6am!
The town is looking peaceful in the early morning. I cycle past the Camera Obscura and into the countryside down tiny roads. It’s a bit complicated and by 8 a.m. I am lost. I backtrack a bit and by 9 a.m. I realise that I have the sun on my left, which is not good as I should be going north with the sun to the east, on my right. Back on the right route, I am soon skirting the river Nith. More lovely Scottish hills. This part of Scotland seems to have a lot of really grim history. ‘Covenanters’ (Scottish Presbyterians) were tortured here around the mid-1600s. They believed that the only true faith and way to salvation was through the Scottish Church, and they must renounce all forms of Papistry.
Appropriately, I cycle through Keir Mill, which is the birthplace of Kirkpatrick Macmillan, who was one of the inventors of the bicycle in about 1840.
The route takes me through the grounds, miles of them, of Drumlanrig Castle. Like all good castles it has its own wandering ghost of Mary Queen of Scots. She walks around carrying her head in her hands. ‘With her head tucked underneath her arm, she walks the bloody tower’, as the old music hall song would have it. The grounds and the castle look immaculately cared for; I would think that they are bound to be pictured on the lids of Scottish shortbread tins. It isn’t possible to go into the castle as it is ‘Closed to All Visitors’. It is owned by the Duke of Buccleuch, who is reputedly the second largest landowner in Europe. I bet he seldom visits it. Come the revolution I will turn it into the ‘People’s Palace’ – well, not really, but I would love to have a quick look around the place.
I pass a crossroads, where two Covenanters were hanged. I suppose this beats the favourite Scottish sport of the time, of rolling them down steep hills in spiked barrels.
I leave the castle grounds and join a small, pretty road alongside the river Nith. At about 3 p.m. I start to feel a bit tired, probably due to my very early start. I stop in a small wood and sleep like a babe for half an hour. Awake feeling great, so onwards for another two hours. Time for another short break, so I sit beside a stream. I get my book out, but in about thirty seconds my saddlebags, bike, hands and face, everything, is covered in MIDGES. I jump up. Scotland on summer evenings, near water – I have forgotten about the little swine. It is the one thing that is never mentioned in all the guidebooks with pictures of these wonderful views. I am determined to ignore them, so I sit down again. Two minutes later I am back on my bike cycling down the road, being pursued by a black cloud.
I pass through Mauchline, one of the two places in the world where curling stones are made. Scotland is very good at getting gold medals in curling. The sport involves sliding a huge stone along a strip of ice, while furiously sweeping a smooth path in front of it.
Through Auchline, where Boswell and Johnson began their tour to the Hebrides, then Cumnoch, which is where Keir Hardie started the Labour party.
The rolling hills start to be completely ruined by open-cast mining, which carries on for many miles and alternates with stinking landfill sites. I arrive with relief at the Stair Inn, a pretty pub in a pretty village. Distance travelled about fifty-five miles, plus about twelve miles going around in circles.
© Jim Anderson, 2025
Jim Anderson 