After the debacle with the hire car in the Lake District, we had to engage Contingency Plan #437, not to be misunderstood for #473, which would have been impossible to implement anyway as we had a limited supply of coffee and were in no proximity to olive trees or for that matter a mongoose. This meant missing out on seeing Hadrian’s Wall near Carlisle, as well as foregoing the tour of the Smugglers’ Coast in south-west Scotland. We still made it to Dumfries, albeit a brief visit, limited to an overnight stay in the last two available rooms in a Travelodge, a quick break-of-dawn driving tour of the city, and a raid of the local Tesco Extra for supplies. We were willing to miss all this as a priority was to spend some time in Ayr.
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