Half term holidays and our family has decamped to the Scottish shore of the Solway Firth. We’ve been here before (one village along) and it is lovely – gorgeous views, pleasant walks and miles of gravel forest tracks to explore on my bike.

This is a test of our car-free status – we love renting a cottage for holidays but access can be tricky and it makes little financial sense to hire a car to sit outside doing very little for a week or two. On this trip, our village, Rockcliffe is just 21 miles from the nearest railway station at Dumfries, but it takes two bus journeys to get here. So three of our family took the bus(es) and two of us cycled – not only so we can go on leisure rides, but also for quick trips to the nearest shop (3 mile round trip) or the nearest town (Dalbeattie is a 13 mile round trip).

Travelling like this requires an element of ‘the journey is part of the holiday’ and the cycle ride was lovely – we got lucky with the weather. But for permanent residents and the vast majority of visitors it pretty much requires car ownership, which is a great shame. You can’t expect people to make sustainable choices if the ‘good’ option is so much more difficult than the ‘bad’.

One other thing I did note was that EV owners had to pay a negotiable surcharge on the rent or face a £250 penalty. You can tell things are starting to mainstream when clauses like this appear.

Anyhoo, the rain has just stopped, so I’m going to sign off here and wander to the next village for a coffee. On foot.