INNERLEITHEN

Sheila arrived at Innerleithen at around 6.25 pm and with 468 miles under her belt, she has 424 miles to ride before she reaches the finishing line. It is 31 miles from Innerleithen to the next control point at Eskdalemuir.
Eskdalemuir is, apparently, famous for two things. First, it is home to Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery, the largest Buddhist Temple in western Europe where both Leonard Cohen and David Bowie were students in 1969. According to Wikipedia (so it must be true), Bowie almost became a monk but, instead, became a singer and had hits with “The Laughing Gnome”, "The Little Drummer Boy" and other songs.
Secondly, Eskdalemuir is the location of Eskdalemuir Observatory which, founded in 1908, has one of the longest climatological records in Britain. Wikipedia reports that “the data shows Eskdalemuir to be a very wet, often cloudy place”. We think that this may be a very accurate observation but wonder whether 109 years of uninterrupted weather data was actually needed to reach this conclusion. Scotland – wet and cloudy? Who knew?
One mile out of Eskdalemuir, Sheila will have completed her 500th mile.