SW300 – Day 6.
Total mileage: 266
Mileage today: 49
Desasters: 0 say no more….
We woke to a cold but dry day. Breakfast was a new culinary low even for us.
It was such a cullinary low that we had to stop in Wigtown for a decent breakfast. Wigtown is the bookshop capital of Scotland.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about Wigtown…
Today Wigtown is known as Scotland’s “book town” and is thus compared to Hay-on-Wye in Wales. However, in contrast to Hay-on-Wye, Wigtown’s status as a book town was planned, in order to regenerate a very depressed town (the main employers, the creamery and distillery, having closed in the 1990s), although the distillery (Bladnoch) has now re-opened and is distilling its own malt whisky. There was a national search in Scotland for a candidate town. The Wigtown Book Festival was first held in 1999 and has grown to be the second largest book festival in Scotland.
From Wigtown we had an easy cycle on quiet roads to Newton Stewart where we had some navigational fun avoiding the A75 death road. We eventually followed the Sustrans 7 cycle route to Creetown.
We refuelled with an egg sandwich and jelly babies at Creetowns only shop before a long section of wilderness to Gatehouse of Fleet.
Despite the hilly start the route to Gatehouse was great with one long section shut to motorised traffic for road works.
At Gatehouse we deviated from the SW300 route in favour of quieter roads mostly following the Sustrans route 7 again.
This took us down towards the coast and a view of the Islands of Fleet that Edna had recommended. A beautiful area well worth a visit.
The next stop was Borgue for Jelly Babies and then Kirkcudbright where we’re treating ourselves to a night in the Selkirk Arms.
The Selkirk Arms is great. We were met by a guy who said the staff are all cycling mad. They were really helpful, gave us route info and even carried our bags to the room – I must have looked fucked !
Here’s us dressed for dinner in the clothes we slept in last night…
I think we’ll be back here for a weekend cycling sometime soon ?
Today’s route…
One thought on “SW300 – Day 6.”
Great read. Glad you enjoyed it