{"id":13536,"date":"2014-07-17T15:12:53","date_gmt":"2014-07-17T19:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tourdebocrie.com\/?p=13536"},"modified":"2014-07-17T15:29:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T19:29:47","slug":"day-20-thursday-july-17-perth-to-calvine-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tourdebocrie.com\/?p=13536","title":{"rendered":"Day 20. Thursday, July 17 – Perth to Calvine, Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning’s 57\u00b0 seemed more than two degrees warmer in sunshine\u00a0versus the rain of yesterday. \u00a0For five miles we biked up the River Tay. \u00a0\"DSCN9203\"<\/a>Golf courses and flowers surrounded us.\"DSCN9204\"<\/a>Though the trail looked flat, \"DSCN9215\"<\/a>the gears on the bike said we were climbing. \"DSCN9213\"<\/a>\u00a0The climbing became more aggressive and the course a combination of dirt, gravel, trails and occasionally the road, \"DSCN9224\"<\/a>but all spectacularly gorgeous.\"DSCN9236\"<\/a>Though we continued to follow the river, we zigzagged up\"DSCN9248\"<\/a>\u00a0and occasionally down,\"photo\"<\/a>the foothills of the Cairngorms National Park Hills<\/strong>\u00a0bent dramatically down to the river’s edge. \u00a0The sun danced on the\u00a0greens\"DSCN9244\"<\/a>as the clouds passed. \u00a0We finally dropped back to the river \"DSCN9266\"<\/a>on a rugged trail, but it led us to our meeting of Herbert and Iris from Germany.\"DSCN9268\"<\/a>They were on the last day of their bike holiday. \u00a0As we continued, the course led us quickly uphill again\"DSCN9272\"<\/a> along the rivers’ edge. \u00a0The scenery continued to be amazing,\"photo-2\"<\/a>the surfaces we traveled …. “creative”.\"DSCN9293\"<\/a>We began to doubt the course as it was taking us further up and away from the river, but at 1:30 we finally reached the fork in the road<\/p>\n

\"DSCN9301\"<\/a> that would send us further or have us stay for the evening. \u00a0With only 34 miles done, we felt we should go on, even though our last four had been a lot of climbing 15%+ grades. \u00a0As we travel farther north, accommodations will become more difficult, so we needed to be judicious on our stops for the night. \u00a0Most importantly,\u00a0the town of Pitlochry had more tourists than flowers. \"DSCN9304\"<\/a>\u00a0Once rested and fed, the memory of the earlier climbing faded, we felt energized and decided to go on…..plus, it was an incredibly brilliant<\/em><\/strong> day! \u00a0 Our last 12 miles was on a straight road, while not flat, it had much milder climbs than that which we had already experienced. \u00a0A midway stop for more liquid, led us to meeting Haakan, Mret and Lisa from Norway.\"DSCN9317\"<\/a>Lisa is on a quest (she will surely complete) to be the youngest person to complete the North Sea Cycle Route (6500k); her 14th birthday is Monday, Amazing!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Our stop for the night was a darling B & B\u00a0\"DSCN9333\"<\/a>in the middle of nowhere; but they had a bar and a restaurant, \"DSCN9340\"<\/a>so it was perfect.The 48 miles today had been tough and we were more than ready to stop; didn’t we say that about yesterday?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\t\t