A nice dry sunny day today, so I managed to escape for a ride this afternoon. I had to go into Castle Douglas to collect something, so that pointed me once again towards the A713 CD-Ayr road, which was no hardship as it’s an excellent riding road. New Galloway was looking nice on its hill in the sunshine.
I carried on for a few miles as far as Dalry, where there was a good view westwards towards the Rhins of Kells.
I turned right at Dalry on to the hilly and twisty (but rather potholed) road to Moniaive, a pretty and unusually unspoiled village with narrow winding streets. Rather than taking one of the better roads out of the village, I took the single track road up the very steep Dunreggan Brae, which is a lot steeper than it looks on the photo and climbs for about a mile.
Stopping higher up, there’s a great view back down over Moniaive and across Glencairn.
Once over the top of the hill, the narrow road winds steeply down again, with some fine outlooks across to Nithsdale.
I eventually reached Thornhill, a large and busy village with an impressively wide main street, where I joined the A76 southwards towards Dumfries. Two or three miles before Dumfries, I stopped for a nose around at Holywood Service Station: a motorcycle dealer specialising in selling and servicing Royal Enfield, BSA, Indian, Voge, Benelli and others. The quality of Chinese and Indian bikes seems to have come on by leaps and bounds in recent years.
From there, I rode into Dumfries and then home by the coast road. Ninety miles in total: not that far, but I enjoyed every mile.