Day 11 Lanark to Kippen

46.7 miles in 235 mins

I would like to take this opportunity to complain about the condition of the road surfaces in this part of Scotland. They are terrible, not only is the tarmac all worn at the edges, so that it has bumpy stones sticking up, but lots of areas have been gone over several times, leading to several heights of surface. Also, all the ironworks are raised up and all the drains are sunken into the road, leading to painful bumps if one is forced to go over them. There is then the debris and sharp looking bits by the sides of the road to contend with. The Scottish public must think of me as a somewhat drunk cyclist as I swerve this way and that to avoid all these obstacles (going over them is not an option when one has been sitting in a saddle for ten days, so when I am forced to do so by some thoughtless lorry driver I get a little upset).
Anyway, enough of the rant (it's about all I was thinking about during the cycle today). The day was fairly short, as we only needed to get to our uncle and aunt's about 50 miles away. This took us past Glasgow, which is somewhere not to be revisited in a hurry. Once we were past that, however, we got our first views of mountains, which made us feel a lot healthier. Ate a lot of pasta and listened to Oscar, the singing dog.