Day 21- Abington to Lockerbie
Actual distance 52.35Km or 32.53 miles (or 349,000 black tip reef sharks)
Total Ascent 266m (or 295.6 macaws)
Staying at St Anns Scout Campsite
It was a relatively early start this morning. John, our support, went to do his 214th park run and completed one of the most difficult runs in Scotland- Lanark Moor and came home with a respectable time. Impressively one of the runners he met there had already heard of The Great Woggle JOGLE through Facebook!
The rest of us were also up bright and early to strike camp and make breakfast before we had a special guest drop in- ‘Sharkey’- Andrew Sharkey, Scouts Chief Commissioner for Scotland. It was lovely to meet him and he even consented to be interviewed by Ollie- available here.
Just before leaving Abington Jennie went for a quick wander to the village shop and saw a red and green macaw and a yellow and blue macaw flying in the sky opposite. They were settled in a tree when she came back out of the shop, and sadly the photo she took was such poor quality that we all think she’s gone a little mad!
We headed out relatively early for us and headed south along the 74. Today started with a moderated climb (through sun, with wind and driving rain for a short time), followed by a lovely downhill run into Beattock. We had therefore managed a whopping 30km before stopping for lunch at a convenient pub.
The afternoon was more difficult due to the weather. We had been making good progress, but with 8km to go we hit a severe and persistent headwind and heavy rain. The pleasant day’s cycling quickly became very tough, especially for Ollie who had to really fight to continue against the elements. We were all very relieved to see Lockerbie in the distance and more importantly the John and the car!
After picking up the van from Abington we headed for St Ann’s campsite where we were pleasantly surprised to find Mitch, the incredibly handy and affable camp warden, along with Mariann the DC for Dumfriesshire, Janice the District badge secretary and Fred, the District President who had made a warm fire and greeted us with an even warmer welcome. We were shown around the campsite, chatted by the fire and exchanged badges. We even had an impromptu photo shoot!
We had hot dogs and campfire bananas for tea, accompanied by a mug of hot chocolate… just what was needed to warm everyone after such a cold and wet end to the day. We even found time to play cards, read and sew on some badges this evening!
