Let’s go cycling

23rd June, Torridon to the Isle of Skye.  74.6km and 1020m elevation, lots of rain, Max 13degrees.

A big day of riding and soooo many hills!  Nothing super huge- just lots of ’em.  My legs were complaining by the time we got to Skye, that’s for sure.

No need for a ferry today as there’s a big bridge that connects the Scottish mainland to Skye at Kyle of Lochalsh.  Super nasty headwind as we tacked the height of the bridge, but at least there was a cycle lane to keep us separated from the traffic.

Skye is busy, touristy and rather pricey! But beautiful…we’ll have to come back some time and explore the north of the island.  This time was just a taster and a little corner of the Isle.

24th June, Skye to Arisaig (near Mallaig), 43.5 km plus a ferry ride… and somehow another 550m elevation

Seemed like it should be a short and sweet ride to the Ferry and across to Mallaig. But…we misjudged the dampness and didn’t get our wet weather gear our quite early enough, so were soaked, cold and miserable by the time we arrived at the ferry terminal. At least we’d booked the ferry- we sat and watched as several punters were turned away from the fully booked ferry for the day.

Back on mainland Scotland and we just had a 15km or so ride to our hotel (yes, living it up tonight… no camping!!!). Thought we were on the home stretch, just 40m of elevation remaining on my garmin device, then somehow we took the “alternative coastal route) and the elevation quadrupled, just like that. Sigh…

But Arisaig was a pretty little town and the hotel was excellent value. We may have splurged a bit on food, but it was good…

25th June, Arisaig to Fort William

A superb Scottish breakfast to start the day and a 60km ride to Fort William. Way too much traffic today and a fairly lacklustre ride, but the destination was pretty worthwhile!

Camping in a whopping big site at Glen Nevis, with a lovely hillside view 🙂

26th June

A little hillside hike, along with maybe 200 others.

Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK at 1344m. And a surprisingly accessible walking path to the top. We set off around 10:30 after a lazy morning waiting for the rain to stop.   Lovely sunshine for a while, giving us awesome views as we trekked up the hillside.  Glad we stopped for a few happy snaps,  because by the time we reached the  3/4 mark the clouds descended, the rain and hail started and bitter cold set in.

A bit of a slog for the last section and we weren’t too keen to hang around at the top!

Time for Neil’s rant.  Prominent places, like the top of Ben Nevis and the Butt of Lewis and various other picturesque out points, are destinations for memorials.  No issue there, what a lovely thing to do, to spread the ashes of your loved one in a remote and beautiful location. But… please don’t leave the urn, or the plastic flowers, or dangly mementos, or even real flowers in a remote mountaintop environment.

June 27th, Fort William to Oban, 85km, and incessant rain. Plus tired legs from yesterday’s hike.

A tough day. Wet weather gear on before we got out of the tent, and an early start to catch the first ferry across the Loch from Fort William so that we could cycle on the quieter roads south.

Back on another ferry 15km later to cross back over to “route 78”, the cycle route that took us all the way to Oban. Gotta say we were pretty grateful for a dedicated cycle track today.  It poured down for most of the day, the wettest day we’ve had so far. A good test for our wet weather gear- Neil’s new jacket definitely failed…but we were both sodden through by the time we arrived in Oban somewhere around 9 hours after leaving this morning’s campsite.

The rain stopped very briefly around the 80km mark, to coincide with the biggest hills of the day.  One of us was cheery and way too chatty about this apparently wonderful turn of events. The other one was me…

Anyhow, we thankfully had a room booked for the night with a roof, a warm shower and a heater to dry out our sopping wet selves and gear.  And a cheap but filling Wetherspoons meal to fill our bellies.