I was on an early (8 am) train to Edinburgh, and thanks to a very quick connection at Waverley, I spent less than five minutes there before I caught the train to Perth. I rolled out of Perth station at about 12 noon, pausing only to admire the nicotine-yellow colour scheme.
I had, of course, forgotten a few things, so I nipped to Morrison's to collect a hat, water, phone credit and bananas. They didn't sell hats and nor did JJB, but I finally found something appropriate and cheap - if not respectable - in TK Maxx. Which was where I suffered the second false start, realising that I had chucked my £20 PAYG voucher into the bin at Morrison's. I dashed back and found it in the rubbish next to the packaging from my bananas, only slightly mussed by a discarded strawberry milkshake. I studiously avoided eye contact with the lady smoking next to the bin while I credited my phone and checked in at home.
Then I was away. The sun was out and, though I was heading west into the headwind, I felt good. I was becoming accustomed to the feel of my fully-laden bike and even filtered past a quarter mile of stationary traffic in Perth. I followed a back road to Crieff which was pleasant to ride, a gentle introduction to Scotland through quiet lowland farms. There was a long downhill into Crieff, and plenty of cyclists on the road, all of us enjoying the sunshine.
I missed my turning at Crieff and ended up riding along the A85, which was fine. With a bike weighed down by loads of heavy winter gear and into the wind, I wasn't going quickly, but I wasn't bothered. The singletrack road at the south side of Loch Earn was quite lovely, especially when there were so many people camping, fishing and playing with fires. There seemed to be a campfire every ten yards. One lad asked me why I had so much kit with me when it was so warm. I couldn't be arsed to explain that I was out for the whole week and had to prepare for the worst, so I grinned and told him my panniers were crammed with beer.
I was half-tempted to stop there, but judging by the sun (I didn't bother taking a watch, and I rarely knew the time during the whole week I was there), it was early yet, and I wanted to get over the Glen Ogle trail, which follows the course of one of the old railway lines. I'd left the Landranger map at home to save some weight, and marked the rail trail onto a laminated map, but that blew out of my pocket somewhere in Perth. It wasn't marked on the other map I carried, and though I saw a trail, it was behind a fence which was too high to lift my bike over. Rather than carry on in the wrong direction, I thought "Sod it", freewheeled downhill into Lochearnhead, and rode over the A85. My gears needed some fettling, as the front mech wasn't reaching the granny ring and the rear mech wasn't reaching the largest cog, so I was limited to the 12 highest gears. I didn’t prove to be a problem, as the Glen Ogle climb was long, steady and never steep; I enjoyed it, despite the galling sight away to my left of the viaduct which I would have ridden over had I found the beginning of the trail.
At the top, I joined the trail for a fun blast down to Killin, bouncing along rough tractor tracks and ignoring the Sustrans warnings about the steepness of the hill. It was a pity about the gates, and the narrow barriers which appear to be part of the design. Negotiating those at speed with my panniers jiggling on the low riders was tricky at first, then annoying as I realised I could have travelled much quicker on the road. But I had the path to myself, apart from a heavily wooded section where I rounded the corner and startled a couple of deer which stared for a while as my tyres crunched along the gravel, and scarpered once I was thirty yards or so away.
After a quick wash at a pub, I camped in the woods at the south side of Loch Tay. Wild camping is legal in Scotland but illegal in England, where it's a slightly furtive activity, and I was a bit taken aback by how brazen the Scots were about it. My native caution wouldn't let me start a fire, so I had a perfectly satisfying, if unadventurous, meal of cous-cous with a cup of coffee prepared upon my meths stove.
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