So today, after the week-long tour through the Home of Golf, the tour to the Home of Golf: St. Andrews was the planned milestone. But Margaret Mitchell, Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable had something to argue with it.
From Montrose to St. Andrews it's not that far, a good 75 km ride. I would come through another very important place of golf, Carnoustie. Actually everything is said about this stage, if I notice: I drove through Carnoustie and didn't take a single photo there. I've never been here before and didn't have any prejudices worth mentioning. Anyone interested in golf knows the collapse of Jean van de Velde's 18th hole at the 1999 Open, which is one of the great tragic stories of golf. Below is a video that summarises the disaster:
But even without a photo I can say that I was very impressed by the place. I haven't arrived anywhere on my trip where golf has had such a presence. Everything here is dedicated to golf, it seems, everything is focused on it. The fact that The Open took place here this year certainly contributed to my impression, as this big event probably brought with it a lot of small and big beautification measures. Today I didn't feel like staying here to play golf at all, but I was impressed by the place. I will come again. And then take photos and probably even play golf.
From Carnoustie to St. Andrews it is only a little more than 30 km and when I was in Carnoustie it was still bright, sunny and even warm. But shortly after leaving Carnoustie I passed a campsite and decided: That's enough for today.
The mountain on the way, which I had to climb in the last days in its foothills, today led me over the pass road: Wind. As previously written, the last few nights were very turbulent and the golf game was also strongly influenced by the prevailing breeze. But when I packed my tent today, I had the idea to go back to Aberdeen, because that would have been a very fast journey today. I wanted to go straight south and that was exactly the direction of the wind. Despite a relatively bicycle-friendly terrain, the ride was the slowest stage of the whole tour, as this invisible mountain simply wouldn't stop. 45 km/h my favourite weather forecast reported, with gusts of up to 70 km/h. Whether this is generally a lot or little, whether the cosmopolitan cyclist born in the saddle only smiles patronizingly and talks about the fact that cycling is mostly done outside and there is occasionally just wind prevailing: It doesn't matter at all, because I can clearly say for myself that it overwhelmed me.
But it was kind of fun after all. Here is a photo of a beach promenade, which proves that even the heavenly child (as the wind is called in German sometimes to a quote of "Hansel and Gretel" by the Brothers Grimm) had to hold on to himself:
The price today can only be a wind turbine in gold. Or is it breadcrumbs to honor Hansel and Gretel? No, that doesn't make any sense at all, the wind would have blown them away.