105+kms

Again, Arie was a bit quicker to get out the door in the morning, but we were closer behind him this time. (That's Toby the dog in the foreground, always around looking for a snack.)







Our first views of the River Tweed were as we crossed over it, just after a near-miss of a route sign.








The east coast is less rainy than the west coast. Another gorgeous day.








Et voila! Arie.








We wanted to make good time, and the most obvious way to do that is to cover many miles in one day. From Innerleithen to Berwick-upon-Tweed was over 60 miles by the map (Arie has the maps). We decided to aim for Berwick, and see how we did. Again the path meandered up and down hills and back and forth across the river. Not a level river route at all. We tend to ride a little faster than Arie, but he has been touring for longer than us and his constant speed seemed to get him places before our fast riding and long breaks.





There's the river, down at the bottom of the hill.








Arie opts for more frequent, short breaks. As opposed to our 2 hour long lunches that include a beer. But all together we rode with just a few snack breaks, and we made excellent time.







A little lunch. And Arie uses his tri-pod. We have one now, but haven't actually used it yet. New gadget. If we carry it, we'd better start using it.








We love his set-up. Handmade by a friend leather canister holds his tools. Suspended brooks. Brooks rear bag and a couple of Ortliebs. Very nice.















We rode up some pretty bigs hills. And then rolled down again. Beautiful day. Riding with three for a change was nice. I (Joshua) felt strong all day and spent a lot of time in the front pulling and keeping the pace up. At one point Arie told us that we were averaging 16 km/h versus his usual 12 km/h.




















Good town names and castles. And with legs fit to collapse we made it to Berwick, a sort of city-state that is part of the United Kingdom, between England and Scotland, but part of neither. Apparently a treaty overlooked them and they are still officially at war with Russia.

We quickly found a room, the last in the Mansergh House, and Arie went on to the hotel. We showered, gathered ourselves, and walked down into town a bit, only to run into Arie in a doorway when it started to rain a bit. We enjoyed another dinner accompanied by great conversation, and then all headed off to bed, exhausted. We probably would have stopped before Berwick if we hadn't been with Arie, and he seemed to think he would not have made it without us pushing on. Well done team.













- rolling post