#cycle tour
So i have been a bit absent from this blog for a bit because my commute into London changed and then finally my bike went ca-pout!
well im looking at getting a new bike soon. a full size folding so i can travel on the train still but then also during the weekend can go on trails and things. i think i have decided to do the Dahon Espresso because it has all the things that i look for in a bike. is it top of the line? no, will it have its flaws? yes but i feel it ticks all the boxes for me
Ive also started to look at luggage racks and panniers again and i really like the look of Thule products and like the look of the Pack’n Pedal Commuter Bag to add to my wish list (a rather long one) of gear to add to the collection.
Very recently I’ve had a personal and life change, and sometimes my first reaction when these things happen is to turn inward and that sometimes very self damaging. then my next reaction to avoid first reaction is to do something active, and then also something outdoors. so i think soon i want to do a cycle trip.
Ive never done one before and i think i will start small and saw a company called Pod ‘n’ Pedal in a cycle travel magazine. where is basically glamping in the lake district in UK. so fingers crossed that soon i will have a post and some much needed happiness coming back to my life.
The first of the real autumn storms, coupled with increasing Covid-19 cases, really began to bite as we spent a night on Colonsay and then sailed on to Islay. Almost nothing at all was open on Colonsay, and restrictions in Scotland meant no alcohol could be served indoors, so our plans to visit the Lagavulin distillery had to be paused.
As if taunting us, we could smell the whisky in the air as we cycled inland from pretty Port Askaig. The whisky lost from the barrels during the ageing process is known as ‘the angels’ share’ – and the sheer quantities of it on Islay must mean the angels get good and drunk.
We cycled across to Port Charlotte and one of M’s favourite pubs of all time, the Port Charlotte Hotel. It rained for two nights and a day without letup, and we hung out anywhere indoors that we could find, including the away team changing room at the community centre (“visiting linesmen will run the line closest to the shore”). A dram in the garden of the Port Ellen Hotel during a brief sunny spell was the closest we got to a grand whisky tour. We’ll just have to come back.
40mph gusts followed us on the ferry back to Kennacraig on the the mainland. Luckily the trees saved us from the worst of it, but we still got cold and wet in some sharp showers on the way to Crinan. The Paps of Jura towered above us as we crawled up the coast, though our reward was spotting three red squirrels in space of a few minutes. One sat on the mossy stone wall near us, clutching an acorn and twitching its little fluffy ears.
Crinan was jammed with yachts with polished wooden decks; one was so huge it had its own motor launch strapped to the back. The harbour was beautiful, with a clutch of whitewashed buildings and a tiny lighthouse. An old boatshed had been converted into a gallery, with horrible oil pastels on sale for £6,000 a pop. We quickly realised that Crinan was a little out of our price range.
We made it back to Oban along the wet logging road just as night fell. It was the first night after the clocks had changed, and darkness at 5pm came as a real shock. We sailed for Mull with the end of a hurricane coming for us, after smashing America to bits: our time on the island was mainly spent trying to keep the tent upright, and then sitting by the fire in the Mishnish pub in Tobermory, drying out socks that had been wet for days. 60mph wind was forecast and we managed to squeeze onto an earlier ferry than planned, narrowly avoiding getting stranded.
The end of the trip came sooner than we had hoped. England was about to go into a second national lockdown, so we needed to get home pronto. Luckily it was far easier than last time, when I almost got stranded in Delhi in March 2020; this time it was a two-day cycle from Glasgow to Edinburgh and then a long, slow train south. As we crossed back over the English border we raised a glass: to a truly memorable adventure in a topsy-turvy year.
Read the first Island Hopping blog: Back in the saddle
As we sailed to Ullapool across a lake-smooth Minch, it became clear that autumn had started without us. The road to Inverness – a stretch of the NC500 packed with camper vans – wound through tall trees that were already golden brown. The strong winds that would have shoved and shaken us on the Hebrides were softened to the rustle of a branch. I have really, really missed trees. We stopped at Corrieshalloch Gorge and walked the wobbly suspension bridge, with the bizarre perspective of seeing a waterfall from directly above. The whole woodland glowed.
In Inverness we visited Leakey’s Bookshop, a crazy emporium where tall bookshelves teetered perilously close to the woodburner. Then we tried a deep-fried Mars bar at the chippie that claimed to have invented them. We ordered and the kid behind the counter said: “Salt and vinegar?” M and I looked at each other – when in Rome, do as the Romans do, I guess? – and then the kid said “oops, I didn’t mean to say that,” and we sighed with relief. Though who knows, maybe it would have been an improvement.
The start of the Great Glen Way to Fort William was a beautiful road, threading through the woods. Loch Ness sparkled grey between the trees. We set up camp on its pebbly shore, and rain began to drum on the tent. It poured all night and much of the next day: driech weather (the only Gaelic word I’ve learned).
We picked up General Wade’s Military Road, the ‘first straight road in the Highlands’, which shot up a ridiculous hill. Modern builders had put a bend in it so the gradient wasn’t quite so severe, but you could see the old road merrily ploughing straight on. We laboured to the top in driving rain and then a voice shouted over the wind: “Would you like tea or coffee?"
Standing in the doorway of a camper van was our saviour, Doug, on holiday with wife Sam and daughter Shona. They brewed us a coffee and said they were on their way to Skye to swim in the Fairy Pools, which sounded extremely cold. We wished each other happy adventuring and zoomed downhill to Fort Augustus to drip-dry in a pub. We tried to time our exit to dodge the next shower but it started up again. "Ahh, if it’s not shite now it’ll be shite later,” the barman said cheerfully.
Towpaths, forest tracks and old railways took us from the foot of Loch Ness, along the shore of Loch Oich, and onto Loch Lochy. Tiny whitewashed lock-keepers’ cottages peppered the canals linking them. We camped under the boughs of an old oak on another section of General Wade’s road, down on the lakeshore. The 18th century road was overgrown by grass and bushes but it was absolutely solid: we couldn’t stick the tent pegs in more than an inch, and had to weigh the tent down with stones. Then came a bizarre noise like the rumble of thunder and a military jet came tearing up the loch, so low we could have repaid the day’s favour and offered coffee to the pilot.
The woodland was dripping wet in the morning and I stuck my foot into my trainer and encountered an enormous black slug curled up in the toe. It was an inauspicious start to a rather miserable day on my part, and I was very grateful to get to Fort William. The weather finally lifted and we were bathed in golden evening sunlight. Ben Nevis rose above with snow right at the top. The soft light faded out and we could hear stags bellowing mournfully to each other in the trees.
The weather app said it was 1C when we woke up, the skies crystal clear. We caught the Corran ferry and then picked up Route 78, the Caledonian Way cycle path, all the way back to Oban. We span along the remains of another old railway line with frost in the verges where the sun hadn’t yet reached, and then a beautiful woodland path. We stopped for a sunny pub garden pint with a view of Castle Stalker, and then returned to Oban’s ferry terminal for the next round of island-hopping.
Read the next Island Hopping blog: Way out West
Harris is one of the best places in Scotland to see golden eagles, and I was on high alert, yelling “EAGLE!” and pointing wildly into the sky several times a day, often at a seagull. M is a very patient person. We saw only soaring buzzards and a helicopter on the spectacular coast road to Tarbert, though the helicopter kept landing on a fishing vessel and carrying a full barrel of something up into the hills, which was very exciting. Initially we thought we’d busted a drugs smuggling ring with a James Bond mountain lair, but we now think it was salmon restocking.
In Tarbert we picked up the binoculars we had each ordered in, plus some brake parts for M’s bike that had got corroded from all the bracing sea air. We refuelled with an enormous burger each near the Harris Gin distillery, and then set off on the road to Scalpay (a bonus extra island). The road swept down across a bog and then up and over the headland above Tarbert. We crossed the tall concrete bridge onto Scalpay and could see Skye’s Cuillin Ridge once again.
Just before the village was a sign declaring HOME BAKING, and in an honesty box were piles of delicious things. The baker herself, cheerful Riona, was just emptying the box for the evening but let us buy some millionaire shortbread. We were cheerfully describing the measly dinner we were about to make ourselves (“couscous again!”) when she went inside to get us some fresh eggs, refusing payment but requesting the pink egg carton back in the morning.
We went on to Eilean Glas Lighthouse, down a gravel track that bounced through the boggy ground. The red-and-white striped top showed over the last hill and then we could see the lighthouse in all its glory, with some old cottages for the keepers at its base and a fantastic rusty foghorn sticking out into the Minch. Just before it was a bothy, and lo and behold the door was unlocked. It was very basic, with just a wooden floor and a picnic bench – no electricity or running water – but it was shelter. We cooked up the eggs as the sky turned pink and the lighthouse began to flash its gentle warning into the darkening sea.
We retraced our steps in the morning and were just rising out of the bog when I saw the eagle – which was actually an eagle this time. It was a white-tailed eagle being mobbed by a tiny speck of a crow. It flew fast and low on its barn door wings, then twisted away so we saw its distinct white bum. It flew miles off but we managed to keep it in our sights and watched it soar over the tops of the Harris hills.
We dragged ourselves back over them in turn, through a brutal headwind and an icy hailstorm, and then cycled along the longest 2km of gravel ever to the North Harris Eagle Observatory. It was hidden deep in the recess of a valley, beside a silvery slip of river. We’d not even got through the door when a golden eagle came shooting over the top of the valley wall and sailed on the thermals in the tawny glow of sundown. We saw it again a little later, dark against a darkening sky, and then it was gone to its eyrie and us to ours.
Read the next Island Hopping blog: To the end of the rainbow
The Outer Hebrides are the last bastion of Sabbath observation in Scotland. As we cycled up from the southern cluster of islands, crossing onto Grimsay (island six of ten) and then North Uist (island seven), the dominant faith changed from Catholicism to the Calvinistic Free Church, who take the Sabbath very seriously.
Not a single shop, bakery or restaurant was open as we cycled through the last of the sea fret, which swirled around the mirror-smooth surface of the water. All the traffic was people in their Sunday best, making their way to church. No washing hung out to dry and no children played. Rumours still abound that people tie up playground swings to stop them being used.
We reached The Tractor Shed, accommodation in an adorable little wooden hut for two nights, which luckily was open. Storytelling Yorkshireman Duncan was our host. We settled in with a cup of tea and he told us about Hercules the trained grizzly bear, who was shipped over to the Outer Hebrides for a Kleenex advert in 1980 and went rogue (“he’d been watching too many nature documentaries”). He was on the run for 24 days before turning up, half starved, near someone’s croft. “Catching salmon is harder than it looks,” said Duncan.
Under the eaves of our hut was a deck and a little burner. M got a peat fire going in the evening light and we huddled around it as a legitimate hoolie began to blow. The wind howled all night and all of the next day. Two sets of frozen cycle tourists turned up, the first we’d seen going our way since we got off the ferry on Barra, and we swapped stories in the kitchen.
When it came our turn to leave, the wind was still whipping. At first it was a vicious, bullying crosswind, trying to shove us into the sinking peat bogs beside the road. Pouring rain came for good measure, and then the wind turned completely so we were pushing against it like it was solid. Every time I thought we were going to crest a hill and see the causeway to Berneray (island eight) laid out for us, there was yet another hill to be crested.
Finally we could see the grey water and the orange display board saying the ferries were all cancelled for the day. The tiny terminal had nothing but a hard wooden bench, but at least it was indoors. We took our waterproofs off to drip-dry and watched the energy-generating windmill outside trying to wrench from its concrete foundations, spinning so fast it was a blur.
Berneray’s little shop and bistro was just around the corner, so we braved it on foot to get some hot food. In the carpark was a Forecasting Stone. STONE IS WET: RAINING said the sign. SWINGING STONE: WINDY. STONE GONE: TORNADO. It didn’t feel far off.
The storm blew itself out and dawn came blue and gold and gorgeous. Just after sunrise we got on the ferry to Leverburgh. In 2006 this crossing had invoked fury amongst the islanders, and even a legal challenge, when operators CalMac added a Sunday sailing. An article from the time describes the ferry docking to posters that read “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy” but no protesters – that would have broken the Sabbath. There was no welcoming committee for us on Harris either (island nine!) but there was sunshine, which I would take any day.
Read the next Island Hopping blog: Hunting eagles on Harris
