The West Coast and the Isles
From the Hebrides Bluey and I caught the ferry to Skye with the idea of sticking together for as long as it suited us both. Bluey originally had only three weeks leave but then the person he was a personal carer for decided he liked Bluey's replacement better so Bluey got shafted, he now has another offer in the pipeline. We had three great days on Skye, riding from Uig around the top and down to Portree the first day, a very scenic 38 miles. On the first half we had great views of Harris across the water and on the other side good views of the Scottish mainland. Plus Skye it's self is pretty scenic as well with some beautiful mountains and cliffs and rock formations like the Old Man of Storr and the Kirk Rocks. It was pretty hilly and hard work so we were looking forward to our shower and bed in Portree. Now we hadn't book quite as far ahead as we should of so when we rang at 5pm and were told the hostel was full but there were £10 beds going in the hostel owners house, we thought that sounded nice. We arrived though to discover that the house was just vacant for a few nights with people moving in the next day. We had a king single (almost double) futon on the floor to share between us (three Italian guys in the next room had only a double between them too) and were told first told we couldn't use the kitchen but then the guy said we could if we cleaned up. Having done that we figured it wouldn't hurt to use the washing machine. From there it went downhill. The owner turned up about midnight, told us we shouldn't have used the kitchen and the that dryer didn't work anyway and then kicked us out the next morning into the rain with wet luggage an no breakfast. We went around the hostel we'd originally called were I'd hung out the night before with people we'd met in Harris and come across on the ferry with but the owner (same guy) had rung there and told them not to let us in. We were getting desperate, setting off on a bike into the rain with no breakfast is not exciting prospect. So we went to the other hostel and asked if we could use the kitchen, they had no problems, so we had breaky, cleaned up and then found it had stopped raining. So we rode off thinking we'd actually done pretty well and it could have been a lot worse, the wet washing in our bags would soon dry.
As it turned out I decided to make this my longest day on the bike riding a fairly scenic 30 miles down to Broadford and the turn off to Elgol, reputedly the most scenic part of Skye past the Cullin mountains. Since we had to come back through Broadford though we decided to leave our bags at a hostel and pick them up on our way back. As we set off though we discovered it was 15 miles to Elgol not 10 turning a 20 miles return trip into 30. Bluey decided this was too much for him and went back for a kip, while I pressed on. At first I thought I might not go all the way, but then i realised that this bit plus the 5 further miles we had to do to get to a hostel at Kyleakin (we'd booked a bit further ahead this time) would take me to 65 miles which is past the 100km mark - and I was up for the challenge. It wasn't easy either, two long and reasonably steep hills into a head wind really took it out of me - but coming back was nice and the scenery was pretty stunning. The first half was dominated by two contrasting groups of hills, one black basalt group with jagged peaks looking ominous beneath dark clouds, the other smooth and rounded red granite hills that looked white in the bright sunshine - you couldn't have more of a contrast. Then at Elgol you have a magnificent view across a bay of Cullin range, a whole series of dark jagged mountains. I'd love to spend days walking through but it doesn't look like they'd be any flat ground to camp on!
Kyleakin was a pretty little spot, good for recovering from a long days ride. The next day we rode over the bridge to Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland and then back down to Armadale, ferry to Mallaig and another 10 miles to Arisaig to stay with another Servas host (Bluey has now applied to join Servas). A fairly uneventful day (38m) with a few showers and pretty scenery but not as good as the day before. The coast road between Mallaig and Arisaig had some nice beach views but is very undulating and not quite so good on a bike.
Our day in Arisaig turned out to be a beautiful day, the one you get about every six weeks according to our hosts and they offered us their canoe to go out on the bay. This we did exploring a few islands as we went. We got to the open sea which was very calm and decided to try and paddle to large cliff island quite a way out but after goin for a while we decided it would take too long and we didn't have enough food so turned back and just dotted amounst the islands for the afternoon. One island we landed on had sand that you walked through like freash snow, your feet disappearing halfway up your calf and air bubbles pouring out wit every step you took. Some how the sand was extremely airated both above and below the water level - I don't understand why. But we had a truely beautiful day amongst the islands, waves and seals.
The next morning was the complete opposite, completely fogged in and raining again, so we got on the train to Fort William - along the Harry Potter line including the great arched bridge. we had a bit of a look around Fort William where it cleared up and sun came out leaving a perfect afternoon for riding up Glen Coe. This was another great ride, along Lochs and then about 6 miles continuous uphill up the glen with a tail wind (we still averaged 8-9 miles an hour) and up onto Rannock Moor, a huge flat area on top surrounded by mountain peaks. After riding all the way up the Glen we felt on top of the world, so took advantage of being cyclists and just put our bikes to the side of the road and stopped to enjoy the moment - the cars didn't appreciate it the same way we did and all had to drive on to the car park anyway. Then we rode on and down to Bridge of Orchy (total 42 miles) and caught a train to Oban, skipping ahead due to a lack of available Servas hosts.
From Oban we decided to go out to Mull and Iona for a night, but as this meant two more 40 mile days (there and back) we decided to leave our bikes and most of our luggage and hitch hike. This was a first for me and a different adventure for us both. Mull is an island without the traffic of Skye but still some quite beautiful scenery. It took us three cars to get 40 miles to Fionnphort, a local, a French couple who stopped near us looking lost so we offered directions and they decided to go in our direction and take us and a guy coming out as a temporary director of the Christian Community based at Iona who decided he could use a hand loading his luggage from his Alfa Romeo to the ferry. So definitely offered an interesting perspective on a range of things.
We arrived at a nice hostel about 4:30 and decided to have an early tea. Then I found myself wandering Iona's beaches and rocky mountains (which have always been the two most spiritual places for me) aware of some of the spiritual history of the place and what a pilgrimage it is for so many Christians. But to find myself here no longer part of that faith yet none the less sensing that there was something out there. I spent three hours walking around the island remembering where I'd come on my spiritual journey and that I'd got to the point of 'If God's out there i don't know who or what God is' The thought occurred to me that perhaps God is just the name we give to the bits of meaning of life that we don't understand. It used to be that people thought the weather was an expression of God's will, but now we understand this differently. As we understand more and more of the world and ourselves, our concept of God is shrinking. If this is true then by God's very nature we can never understand God but we cans till learn more about life by trying to understand the things we don't understand - by trying to understand that we call God.
The following morning we visited the old abbey and reading some of the material about the Iona community I decided that it didn't really seem that different from many others I'd heard of, just that somehow it had achieved a bit more 'fame'. We ferried back across, already wet from about 20 mins walk in drenching rain and stood in the rain for a further half an hour before a nice family from Surrey picked us up and took us all the way back to Craignure - the ferry terminal for Oban. We had a quick look around Oban, a city with more character than we'd seen for a while, more than just a tourist town, farming village or ferry port which is about all we'd seen for quite a while. Then back to our bags, changed into dry clothes and caught a train down to Glasgow. Another train out to the fringe of Glasgow and about 5 miles in the dark to stay with my Uncle Derek and Aunty Shirley, a bit of a chance to stop for a few days.
Boy do I need it
James
As it turned out I decided to make this my longest day on the bike riding a fairly scenic 30 miles down to Broadford and the turn off to Elgol, reputedly the most scenic part of Skye past the Cullin mountains. Since we had to come back through Broadford though we decided to leave our bags at a hostel and pick them up on our way back. As we set off though we discovered it was 15 miles to Elgol not 10 turning a 20 miles return trip into 30. Bluey decided this was too much for him and went back for a kip, while I pressed on. At first I thought I might not go all the way, but then i realised that this bit plus the 5 further miles we had to do to get to a hostel at Kyleakin (we'd booked a bit further ahead this time) would take me to 65 miles which is past the 100km mark - and I was up for the challenge. It wasn't easy either, two long and reasonably steep hills into a head wind really took it out of me - but coming back was nice and the scenery was pretty stunning. The first half was dominated by two contrasting groups of hills, one black basalt group with jagged peaks looking ominous beneath dark clouds, the other smooth and rounded red granite hills that looked white in the bright sunshine - you couldn't have more of a contrast. Then at Elgol you have a magnificent view across a bay of Cullin range, a whole series of dark jagged mountains. I'd love to spend days walking through but it doesn't look like they'd be any flat ground to camp on!
Kyleakin was a pretty little spot, good for recovering from a long days ride. The next day we rode over the bridge to Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland and then back down to Armadale, ferry to Mallaig and another 10 miles to Arisaig to stay with another Servas host (Bluey has now applied to join Servas). A fairly uneventful day (38m) with a few showers and pretty scenery but not as good as the day before. The coast road between Mallaig and Arisaig had some nice beach views but is very undulating and not quite so good on a bike.
Our day in Arisaig turned out to be a beautiful day, the one you get about every six weeks according to our hosts and they offered us their canoe to go out on the bay. This we did exploring a few islands as we went. We got to the open sea which was very calm and decided to try and paddle to large cliff island quite a way out but after goin for a while we decided it would take too long and we didn't have enough food so turned back and just dotted amounst the islands for the afternoon. One island we landed on had sand that you walked through like freash snow, your feet disappearing halfway up your calf and air bubbles pouring out wit every step you took. Some how the sand was extremely airated both above and below the water level - I don't understand why. But we had a truely beautiful day amongst the islands, waves and seals.
The next morning was the complete opposite, completely fogged in and raining again, so we got on the train to Fort William - along the Harry Potter line including the great arched bridge. we had a bit of a look around Fort William where it cleared up and sun came out leaving a perfect afternoon for riding up Glen Coe. This was another great ride, along Lochs and then about 6 miles continuous uphill up the glen with a tail wind (we still averaged 8-9 miles an hour) and up onto Rannock Moor, a huge flat area on top surrounded by mountain peaks. After riding all the way up the Glen we felt on top of the world, so took advantage of being cyclists and just put our bikes to the side of the road and stopped to enjoy the moment - the cars didn't appreciate it the same way we did and all had to drive on to the car park anyway. Then we rode on and down to Bridge of Orchy (total 42 miles) and caught a train to Oban, skipping ahead due to a lack of available Servas hosts.
From Oban we decided to go out to Mull and Iona for a night, but as this meant two more 40 mile days (there and back) we decided to leave our bikes and most of our luggage and hitch hike. This was a first for me and a different adventure for us both. Mull is an island without the traffic of Skye but still some quite beautiful scenery. It took us three cars to get 40 miles to Fionnphort, a local, a French couple who stopped near us looking lost so we offered directions and they decided to go in our direction and take us and a guy coming out as a temporary director of the Christian Community based at Iona who decided he could use a hand loading his luggage from his Alfa Romeo to the ferry. So definitely offered an interesting perspective on a range of things.
We arrived at a nice hostel about 4:30 and decided to have an early tea. Then I found myself wandering Iona's beaches and rocky mountains (which have always been the two most spiritual places for me) aware of some of the spiritual history of the place and what a pilgrimage it is for so many Christians. But to find myself here no longer part of that faith yet none the less sensing that there was something out there. I spent three hours walking around the island remembering where I'd come on my spiritual journey and that I'd got to the point of 'If God's out there i don't know who or what God is' The thought occurred to me that perhaps God is just the name we give to the bits of meaning of life that we don't understand. It used to be that people thought the weather was an expression of God's will, but now we understand this differently. As we understand more and more of the world and ourselves, our concept of God is shrinking. If this is true then by God's very nature we can never understand God but we cans till learn more about life by trying to understand the things we don't understand - by trying to understand that we call God.
The following morning we visited the old abbey and reading some of the material about the Iona community I decided that it didn't really seem that different from many others I'd heard of, just that somehow it had achieved a bit more 'fame'. We ferried back across, already wet from about 20 mins walk in drenching rain and stood in the rain for a further half an hour before a nice family from Surrey picked us up and took us all the way back to Craignure - the ferry terminal for Oban. We had a quick look around Oban, a city with more character than we'd seen for a while, more than just a tourist town, farming village or ferry port which is about all we'd seen for quite a while. Then back to our bags, changed into dry clothes and caught a train down to Glasgow. Another train out to the fringe of Glasgow and about 5 miles in the dark to stay with my Uncle Derek and Aunty Shirley, a bit of a chance to stop for a few days.
Boy do I need it
James
posted by James Tonson | 9:18 am
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