Scotland Part 3

DAY EIGHT
12:05 PM Thurs 25th
AROS visitor centre, Portree, Skye.

Andy
Just a note to say that outside the windows here right now it’s hailstoning - big ones. We’ve ridden 25 miles or so in a mixed bag of sunshine and heavy rain showers – the frequency and fieceness of which have gradually increased as we have ridden along the coast road from staffin. We opted for the north (east?) coast road as it’s quieter and the views over to torridon etc plus those of the Trotternish (Storr etc) here on Skye itself are most impressive. The Black Cuillin themselves have not long come into proper view and loom menacingly now in the near distance. The big tops of it’s north end: Gillean, Bastier etc tower above the rest of the island over there and there’s a fair amount of snow still on them. They do live up to their BLACK title very much from here.

Anyway – I digress - it’s not been a bad day so far. Indeed the early traverse of the Trotternish from Uig to get over to Staffin really was wonderful, and we were pushed along uphill by a stiff tail wind. The drop down to Staffin was steep (1:7) and exhilarating, and the road along the coast has been undulatiing and pleasant, spoilt only by rain showers as we eventually approached Portree.

Rich has ordered food and is now off in the shop looking for souvenirs - in particular one of those little things you turn over in your hand and it goes “moo”.

Last night was quite good fun in the (3 Star) Uig Youth Hostel with it’s hippy lady warden. First order of the evening was that I raced on my bike to the shop which was a bastard 2 miles down the hill at the ferry pier…

Rich
.. in search of provision, and we ate a hearty meal made up of bangers, mash and beans which andy then went and spoiled by putting cheese on and coleslaw with (he should never open a restaurant).
We spent yesterday evening in the YHA chatting with folks: 2 cyclists from of all places, Calverley; an Aussie couple and two young midwives from Croyden. The latter two pairings were on road trips and came out to Skye on a bit of a whim. Fair enough.

The riding today has been most scenic… except when the hail came down of course. We are now lounging replete and slightly steamy: not an unpleasant experience for us, but I can’t speak for our fellow diners. But they all came here by car so they don’t count.

Andy
Cheese on baked beans is genius. And coleslaw is a nutritious addition to any meal.

I’ve just bought a couple more of the long postcards – good ‘arty’ ones to put in frames at home. Trouble is they are too big to go in the bar bag so I am going to have to diamantle one of my panniers to get them to where they are safe from getting folded and/or wet.

5:10 Youth Hostel, Broadford. Skye
Well, after the Portree stop the weather was fine and sunny all the way here so we made good time with the wind behind us virtually all the way.

Personally I was most distressed to find myself racing past the Sligachan Hotel without at least stopping to pay my respects! Just goes to underline that a biking holiday is a biking holiday and the whole point of it is to be on the road. But still, to pass by such an iconic place with only a swift gaze about at the ridiculous mountain scenery and a quiet salute is a bit off!

I did notice a bot of a wobble in Rich’s back wheel today and thought nothing much of it as I presumed that he would have noticed anything awry when he was braking. But he didn’t – and we spotted the reason for the wobble when we were unloading the bikes in the shed here – he had about 6 very loose spokes! Sorted now though, and just in time by the looks of things.

We had considered going on to the next Hostel at Kyleakin – another 10 miles down to the Kyle of Lochalsh – but we took one look at this place and opted to stop here. It’s very nice. Great spot on the side of the loch looking over at Applecross etc, and anyway apparently the Hostel at Kyleakin is a noisy backpackers hangout with a non-existent curfew. AND there’s pub quiz in one of the local pubs here tonight organised by one of the wardens at theis hostel. Cool.

DAY NINE
Glencarron Hotel 1:35 PM
En route back to Torridon

Andy
It’s Drowned Rats day today – a LOT of rain so far and we are about half way on a big day with a fair few climbs still to do. A sense of humour failure (our first one) was not far away from both of us earlier on in the rain. We are cold and wet.

On the plus side the scenery is as ever wondrous and this café is very good. Top drawer lentil soup and warming sweet hot chocolate. Yum.

Oh, and we won the quiz night last night accompanied by two lady Scottish coppers!

Torridon Youth Hostel
Later that day

Rich
Yeah, that was weird. Andy had stopped on the way to the pub quiz to throw “skimmers” into the sea (quite amusing if you are 12, that is) and these two ladies from the hostel were going our way, one swinging a wine bottle… They were a good laugh: Kirtsie and Leslie (a 2nd Dan black belt at karate) and did not take and shit from anyone, including the locals which was pretty useful when we won the quiz! We then proceeded to spend the (£20!) prize money at the bar…

We woke up with hangovers and rain, neither of which looked set to go away in a hurry so we set off anyhow. After an easy start [up until just after we got across the Skye bridge] we hit some bad weather. Things were not helped when I was temporarily blinded by road salt pouring off my head and into my eyes. Although I was in serious danger of looking like a middle-aged crisis ridden Harley Davidson fanatic I nevertheless accepted Andy’s kind offer of his bandana (next stop – an inappropriate tattoo…?).

After our tea and soup stop the weather cleared and it all became a lot more pleasant, although some big hills inexplicably sprang up in front of us. I got my ice-cream (eventually) in Lochcarron, and we greedily munched our Cornettos in the mizzle while the midges, in turn, greedily munched us.

Andy
I must just say one thing here – skimming stones is much more than “quite amusing” when you are 12 – it’s an art. One which should be practiced and honed at any given opportunity, and which Rich will never appreciate as, lets be honest, he throws like a girl.

Quite amusing that Rich also ended up wearing the bandana after he’d been taking the piss out of me all week for the Buff wearing. Still, it kept the salt out of his eyes which was most excellent.
Today has been hard graft - a LOT of hills on every stage, and in particular two or three nasty little climbs as we felt were were on the very last home stretch bit. Some glorious scenery though, as ever. Loch Carron I would wager is amazing in half decent conditions and the run down (some excellent new black top) into Glen Torridon really was beautiful. And we even had the sun out for a while there.

We prepared a “skyscraper of food” each on the tiny little hostel plates. You’d think they’d realise that people who come here have big appetites…

One thing I have noticed in this hostel is the prevelance of the wearing of socks with sandals and this is most distressing.
We bought some cornflakes: excellent. The omellete, bacon and beans routine will finally be broken!

We were pondering the fate of the “Old Lady” we met in Ullapool while we were cycling along in the shit weather today – how would she be coping in such adverse conditions? Rich reckons she’ll she’ll be on Orkney fuelled by a Finger of Fudge and a cherry
tomato.

The two Calverley guys are here – the did the Applecross circuit today on top of coming back from Skye and it half killed them. There’s cycling and enjoying it (which I reckon is what Rich and I have been doing) – knowing your limits and not doing stuff just because it’s there – and then there’s being plain stupid.

Rich
Agreed again. I don’t do this just to tell tall stories in the hostels in the evenings to try to impress total strangers. Jeez – get a life.

[And that was about it. Plans to go and do the Applecroft circuit by bike (or by car) were shelved as the weather was lousy and there wasn’t really much point withiout the views. So, we left a day early. Actually due to the shortened Outer Hebrides episode we were two days earlier than planned as our original intention was to drive back down on the Bank Holiday Monday. But it would be good to be back home with a day to spare and not having to go straight to work the next day etc. We had a bit of a lie in the next (Saturday) morning, eventually packed the car, said goodbye to the top warden chappie and set off on the long drive home. We did a pit stop in the Cairngorms at the ski place who’s name escapes me now as we were going that way and neither of had been there before. Looks a top town and we dined in a café above a climbing shop which did the most excellent food. We got talking to a couple of blokes, University lecturers, who were heading up to Assynt on a geology field trip, which was most pleasant.

It was here that we had our one and only technical of the trip – and it involved Rich’s car. It had been smelling of diesel a bit and when we returned to it in the climbing shop car park to find it sat in it’s own colourful pool of fuel. The leak was soon found - it was pissing diesel from a split rubber seal thingy. We fixed it using the glue from a puncture repair kit and sealed it good and proper with a zip tie. A truly marvellous bodge job.

Once diesel stench free we drove south, and we drove south some more. And some more until we reached England. Then some more south; east a bit and eventually arrived in Calverley on Saturday evening. Rich stopped over and he headed back to Reading on the Sunday.]

[A side story of note from the final day: On arrival at the hostel we encountered an example of the phenomenon that is the strange lone male cyclist. This particular one was called John and we initially met him just as we rolled down the valley towards the hostel. (We had seen him as he left Broadford that morning while we were faffing with the bikes in the shed.) Immediate conversation revealed that his 60+ miles that day was ‘disappointing’ for him as he usually averages about 90, or 100 preferably. This did look initially most implausable as this guy was riding an ancient Raleigh Randonneur tourer with trainers, jogging pants, no helmet and a seat adjusted to what looked to be exactly the wrong height for optimum pedalling power. The only thing that marked him out as an any way serious tourer was a pair of smart Ortlieb panniers. We noticed he was in our dorm that night too and it seemed only polite to offer him a seat with us while we were eating. Hmmm. He had a LOT of cycling tales to tell – tours in Africa and North West USA plus him owning a house in Africa somewhere and offering it up as accommodation for cycle tourists… etc etc. All very interesting, and to fair he seemed a nice bloke, but Christ he didn’t half go on. I think Rich at some point escaped to do the dishes and I ran away to the quiet room and read a book or something. By the time he found us again we’d been chatting to the Calverley lads for a while so we were able to bid our goodnights to them all just as John was starting his round of tales again!

We did our late start and caught up with John on the road as he’s headed for Inverness as well that day. Christ he’d really coverered a lot of miles by the time we saw him, and he’s probably still out there, cycling round somewhere – same as “Old lady”. There’s a lot of them out there folks so treat them with care should you pass them on the roads.]

TOUR STATS
430 odd miles in car each way (Calverley to Torridon); 315 of which is in Scotland.
294 recorded on bike computer (it cut out in heavy rain) + 25 (Harris) + 60 (last day)
Approx 375 miles cycled in total. Max single day: 93 miles.
Recorded average = 13.1 mph.
Recorded max speed = 42.3 mph (I think this was descending into Ullapool)
Touring satisfaction quotient: 100%