The long and winding road

Today has felt loooooooong.

We felt bad about having to leave Stef and Oli so early last night, so we arranged to meet them in Dores for coffee.

We ended up staying there for a couple of hours, which meant we had to alter our plans for the day, but it was worth it to spend more time with them.

Since we had nothing planned for tomorrow (other than ride home), we decided to bypass Edinburgh today, stay overnight as planned in Peebles, then go back to Edinburgh tomorrow morning.
We are only going to do the Real Mary Kings Close tour, as we didn't get time when we visited last year.

Today has been great but really scary in parts; the wind has been horrific. I always feel safe with Mr A, but even he admitted it was nerve wracking at times.

We've travelled through the Cairngorms today (which is my chosen blip; I'll upload all the photos from this trip to Flickr once we are home), which had some fab roads and spectacular scenery.
We stopped off for a late lunch in Aviemore; this reminded us of Palm Springs with all the little terraced shops.
Next stop was Pitlochry, to see the smallest whisky distillery in Scotland; which we found out to be closed on Sundays! We don't like whisky and couldn't sample it even if we did with being on the bike, but fancied seeing the distillery. Never mind.

Our hotel tonight is the Peebles Barony, built in 1536 by the Murray family. It's a huge place, complete with spa. Shame we've no swimming gear.

There's nothing else around here, so we've a table booked in the hotel restaurant for 10 minutes time....best get ready! :-0