When non-bicycle inventor Kirkpatrick Macmillan didn’t ride from Dumfries to Glasgow in 1842, he would have not gone along the modern-day A76. Not a particularly enjoyable ride then, but even less nowadays.
So, seeing as it’s all fantasy anyway, I ‘retraced his steps’ today a much more enjoyable way: via Wanlockhead, Scotland’s highest village and gold-panning centre; and Lowther Hill, Scotland’s highest road that’s closed to cars but open for bikes; and, tomorrow, NCN74 up to Glasgow, one of Britain’s longest car-free cycle paths.
First I had one more replica ‘Macmillan bike’ to collect. He worked for a time as a smithy at Drumlanrig Castle, a couple of miles north of his home village at Keir Mill. The magnificent 17th-century pile and sculpted grounds will be familiar to watchers of the TV series Outlander, whatever that is: many scenes are filmed here, and indeed the castle was closed for filming today. However, the castle’s kind and friendly PR person Gillian showed me round.
KM would have worked in the castle’s courtyard, now home to a few artisan boutiques and workshops. You can visit the courtyard when the castle is open as part of their guided tours, and there are plenty of cycle trails in the grounds you can use all the time. The castle also has a cafe, and there are picnic tables in the grounds.
In the castle’s reception area, on proud display in the fireplace, is Macmillan’s velocipede. The plaque claims it as the ‘first pedal bicycle’, which I would dispute, but I’d agree wholeheartedly with its conclusion, ‘…Dumfries and Galloway is fast becoming one of the most cycle friendly regions in Scotland. The bicycle has made the world a happier place to live.’ Yay!
I followed the estate road and then country lanes north from Drumlanrig, through woods. All nicely timeless; KM would have felt at home.
He wouldn’t, however, have recognised the giant golf ball atop a tee at the top of Lowther Hill, looming there in the distance. (Golf balls existed of course – the Scottish game had already been around for hundreds for years when KM didn’t pedal up here in 1842 – but tees didn’t appear until the 1890s.) The remarkable object is a radar station for air-traffic control body NATS, and I was heading for the cyclable road up to its summit.
At Mennock I peeled off right, to climb up the thrilling and scenic Mennock Pass to Wanlockhead. At 467m / 1530ft it’s Scotland’s highest village. (Perhaps surprisingly, England has two higher.)
Wanlockhead is known for its gold-panning opportunities, and has a lead mine whose tunnels you can visit. The friendly lady there was happy for me to stow my camping stuff and panniers while I cycled up Lowther Hill in return for buying a postcard.
Fortunately Wanlockhead has plenty to write home about.
The road up to Lowther Hill is closed to motor traffic but you can cycle it, right up to the top at 725m / 2380ft. (The highest motorable road in Scotland is Cairnwell Pass in the Grampians, at a paltry 668m. Hah! Take that, low-level drivers!)
The views on the way up are sweeping, and at the top on a fine day you can see both the Irish Sea to the west and the North Sea to the east.
Today wasn’t a fine day. It was thick cloud and steady rain at the top. I could barely see the golf-ball tower itself until I was next to it, and it loomed eerily out the fog like a spacecraft landing.
The fast descent back was gripping, literally – I was squeezing the brakes for dear life, and my front blocks had almost totally worn out by the time I got back to my bags in Wanlockhead. I resolved to get to the nearest bike shop rather than risk going all the way to Glasgow on one and a half sets of brakes, but then discovered the nearest bike shop was in Glasgow.
Campsite availability meant today was a short day. I had a site booked at a remote farm only a handful of miles downhill from Wanlockhead. Fortunately en route was Leadhills, whose village store may not have stocked brake blocks, but had the next best thing: a bottle of Shiraz.
Miles today: 34
Miles from Dumfries: 43