Today was dry, bright and fairly warm with even some sunshine, so it would have been ungrateful not to go for a ride. It was a year or two since I had been on the A708 Moffat-Selkirk road, so I set off via Dumfries for Moffat, which is a cheerful, bustling touristy place at this time of year, and quite popular with bikers. The A708 leads off the bottom of the High Street, and soon leaves the town north eastwards and climbs up the side of the Moffat Water valley. To begin with, the valley landscape is relatively soft and well wooded.
As the road goes on, the valley becomes steeper sided and more barren, and after a few miles you reach the Grey Mare’s Tail, a spectacular 60m high waterfall tumbling down from Loch Skene, with a dangerous steep path beside it up to the top.
The road leaves Dumfries and Galloway and enters the Borders. It goes over a steep pass, rather like a smaller version of the Dalveen, and winds onwards until it reaches the Loch of the Lowes.
There’s a wooden hut cafe beside the loch, which usually has quite a few motorbikes parked outside in the summer months. Just separated from the Loch of the Lowes by a narrow strip of land is the longer St. Mary’s Loch, which is as far as I went today.
Sometimes I have turned left at St. Mary’s Loch and taken the single track road by Megget and Talla to Tweedsmuir, and back to Moffat by the A701, but today I had enjoyed my A708 run so much that I turned round and rode back along it. A great afternoon out.
