Transportation

While Mme Fidra the Pan European was being looked at by the garage this afternoon, I took a long, slow wander around Bonnyrigg.  I visited the nearby swimming pool for some intel on opening hours and facilities, I ambled through the back streets and spotted a row of unexpectedly elegant cottages that I will perhaps blip sometime, and then tried to find a bench for to have some of my flask of tea.

Of course, it then started raining.

This view of an old railway bridge was as far as I got.  It carries the A-road from Eskbank to Howgate, and is the first overbridge heading north on what was once the North British Railway's Polton Branch.  Although it was only two miles long from its junction with the main line to Peebles to its terminus at the Springfield Paper Mills at the foot of Polton Glen, they gave it a bit of everything.  It featured three stations, two river crossings of which one was an immense stone viaduct, and a 400 metre long tunnel.  The tunnel portals are filled in now and you can't cross the viaduct anymore, which is a shame because it would make a good walking and cycle route from Lasswade to nowhere in particular.

Happily, Fidra passed with flying colours and we rode home in the descending drizzle, stopping for some fuel on the way.