Day 2 – South Queensferry (UK) to Skateraw (UK)

March 27th, 2022

In hindsight, we probably could have guessed that sleeping in a marina that has been conveniently built between two road bridges and a rail bridge may not be the quietest of camping locations. While I managed to block out the noise and get a few hours of sleep, Deborah reported that she hadn’t slept. We both also concluded that while our new North Face Blue Kazoo sleeping bags had a higher warmth rating than our 20-year-old Blue Kazoo bags they had replaced, they were poor in comparison. This is a little concerning, knowing that last night was above freezing, and we will have many nights camped out under the stars that will be significantly below freezing point.

Shortly after erecting the tent last night, we took a beautiful photograph of the tent, with two of the Forth Bridges in the background. It was, therefore, disappointing to wake to a wet, misty morning.

The Edinburgh Marina Academy RYA First Aid course students started to arrive as we packed up camp. We chatted to Piotr, a paddleboard instructor waiting, as we bundled the wet tent flysheet and groundsheet into our pannier in the knowledge that we would be getting the sodding wet mess out again to construct our camp later that day. We had a final chat and photoshoot with Alex, then pushed off into the morning mist, hoping that the day would improve. The day did improve about two minutes later as we passed the Scotts marina restaurant about 100 metres after pushing off when we received our first donation of the day.

The ride through South Queensferry gave us our first taste of cycling on cobbles before the cobbles were replaced by asphalt that appeared to head vertically upward. Granny gear engaged, we pushed on through Dalmeny and Cramond before arriving in Barnton on the outskirts of Edinburgh. At this point, cycling was through excellent tree-lined cycle lanes and residential roads lined with millionaire mansions. When I say excellent, I mean excellent apart from the branch that bounced up, stuck between the pannier and the rear disk brake rotor and bent it. With one of the bike parts that will be very difficult to replace on the road already damaged [1] on day two, my confidence in the Hase Pino getting us around the world could have been better.

^{[1] For those that know something about bikes, while a 180mm disk rotor isn’t too difficult to find, a 180mm disk rotor for a bike with a Rohloff Speedhub is!}

With the background tick tick of a bent disk rotor to keep our focus on our first mishap of the tour, we continued into Edinburgh or,,, more precisely, Leith, or Dock Place. Dock Place was our first home when I moved to Edinburgh with my first job in 1990, with Deborah joining me in 1992 after completing her time at Teeside University, so we couldn’t miss the opportunity to call in on the old place.

Leith appeared to be much more of a building site than I remember, so finding Dock Place was challenging. Apart from the old building our attic studio flat was in, very little was familiar. Even the children’s playground across from the flat was an ALDI supermarket.

As we parked up, we were greeted by a group of St Andrew’s First Aid cyclists interested in the odd contraption we were hauling around the globe. Another very generous donation by a stranger, one of the St Andrews First Aid Team, followed by a quick photoshoot of our old front door and we were off again. We had arranged to meet Honi at Dock Place, but with no sign of her we pushed on in the hope of her catching up a little further down the road.

Not being able to call Honi while she was driving to her aversion to technology, specifically smartphone technology connected to a car’s hands-free system, we decided to pull over at a prominent service station in Musselburgh and wait. As we had not had the opportunity to take the fully loaded monster on the road before the ride, this meet up was to offload a pile of gear that the steep banks of Barnton had convinced us we no longer needed. While every item in the growing pile on the grass adjacent to the bike had been bought explicitly for the trip for a reason, we had concluded that we wouldn’t make it to that part of the tour that it was for if we didn’t lighten the load.

By the time Honi found us, the panniers were repacked, allowing the pile of gear that must have weighed in at over 10kgs to be unceremoniously thrown in the back seat of her car. After one final hug, we were on the road again, determined to keep our heads down and get to our camping spot for the night before dark.

We passed through Tranent, Haddington and East Linton without incident, following a road that would seem relatively flat in a car but was taking its toll on our unprepared legs. Shortly before we reached Dunbar, we spotted a couple of ladies waving at us next to a car at the side of the road. Not being used to having ladies waving at me from the side of the road, I slammed the brakes on, almost throwing Deborah off the bike. The ladies had seen our CHAS t-shirts as they passed us a few minutes earlier and wanted to offer their support and hand us a donation. Amazing.

We passed through Dunbar without stopping as the starts and stops of the day had taken their toll on our bodies and the schedule, so we were looking forward to pitching the tent, cooking a meal and having an early night.

Our chosen campsite for the night was the small bay of Skateraw, adjacent to an old lime kiln, with Torness Nuclear Power Station for a backdrop. The soggy tent was erected in a few minutes, and while I prepared the inside of the tent, Deborah prepared the meal. With an expiry date of October last year, a premade chickpea curry was the chosen feast for the night, more due to its weight than its taste and nutritional value. To say the uncooked meal didn’t look appetizing doesn’t quite describe how bad it did look, but at least by the time we sat down to eat it, the sun had set, and we couldn’t see what we were shovelling into our mouths.

Leaving the washing of the pans to the morning, we snuggled into our sleeping bags, hoping for a quieter night than the night before.