Day 6. Tarbolton to Annan. 71 miles

Hours in saddle - 6. Hours of rain - 6. Sense of humour failures - 2 (one each for me and Darrin). We'd seen on the weather that today would be rainy but nothing prepared us for the amount of rain we got, along with a strong headwind. It really was horrible today. We started out and immediately hit some steep hills. I really struggled for the first 10 miles or so - just had no energy in my legs despite a really good night's sleep. Fortunately, the route levelled out after this and we made as good progress as we could despite the elements. We decided to ignore the route suggesed in the Book of Love (our pet name for our JOGLE guide) and stick to the main A road to Dumfries as this cut the distance by around 5 miles. It wasn't too busy and ran through some pretty nice countryside. Made it to Dumfries absolutely soaked through and then pushed on to Annan 14 miles away on a very busy A road. The rain got even worse and, coupled with the traffic, it really was a miserable run. Some kind soul in a Transit decided to throw a drink can at us which fortunately missed - just what we needed to lift the spirits! Finally got to Annan and found a B&B after one false start at a hotel that told us they did have rooms and then changed their minds just as we had unloaded the bikes.We hit the bar and the barmaid Jo got chatting to us. We think she was trying to get her hooks into Gandhi - poor sod wouldn't have stood a chance but we managed to smuggle him out when she wasn't looking. Forecast for tomorrow is more of the same, but we are doing an easier day of 55 miles (Gandhi is calling it our rest day; sometimes I could cheerfully shoot him) in order to stop at a good point before we tackle Kirkstone pass which will be our toughest climb of the journey. Still it's not all bad - we are only 7 miles North of Gretna, so we'll hit England in the first hour of the ride tomorrow. Hard to believe that we've pretty much done Scotland in 6 days!