Day Eighteen - Oban to Inchtree

We hung around in Oban for a couple of hours pretending to do some shopping and drinking coffee in Tesco’s before setting off in the rain.
It was a wet day, such a shame as I had been looking forward to this scenic day.

We picked up the cycle path on and off from the sea life centre.  We didn’t follow it all as it meandered in true Sustrans fashion but the bits parallel to the road were good and on smooth tarmac, picking up the course of the old railway. Near the bridge at Ballachulish it was really pretty and all the rain meant some spectacular waterfalls.


We knew there was a pub coming up.  As it happens the one we found wasn’t the one we were looking for, but the Four Seasons bar, attached to the adventure centre in Inchtree advertised a real fire and real ale, both of which sounded tempting.  We called in for a pint and ended up booking a room for the night.  One slap up meal and several pints of beer later (Trade Winds from the Cairngorm Brewery and when that ran out, Red Cuillin from the Isle of Skye Brewery) set us up nicely.  We just wondered what the weather had in store for us tomorrow….

Stats:
Miles: 38

Beers: lots but we felt we had earned them

Route here

Day Seventeen - Lochranza, Arran to Oban

Gutted.  Absolutely gutted.  This was the most spectacular day of the whole trip.  Or it was supposed to be the most spectacular day, up the West Coast of Scotland. We caught the ferry from Lochranza to Claonaig Bay and then took the minor road over the top of the Mull of Kintyre. 


At Tarbert we went to the cafe and squeezed in along with a hundred walkers also trying to crowd into the tiny cafe in an attempt to get some shelter.  A huge piece of cake set us up for the next leg of the journey.

Up to Ardrishaig on the A83 which wasn’t too busy, where we picked up the Crinan Canal towpath.






Back on the B8025 towards Kilmartin the house martins were in abundance, swooping and diving in front of us as we sped along, master flyers skimming the ground before shooting up into the sky and then diving again. Kilmartin looked interesting, I would have liked to stay longer.  Surrounded by ancient burial sites and stone circles, it has been a place of settlement for thousands of years.  Sadly we only had time for a quick coffee at the museum cafe before heading off.

The next section should have been fabulous but the weather was so poor it was miserable.  We followed the coast up and ever up, on the edges of lochs with mountains and glens aplenty.  We were soggy. Our bags were soggy.  We decided to forget any idea of camping, not that we saw any sites, and keep going to Oban.  We rolled into the town at eight o’clock.  We had landed on the mainland at ten that morning.  Most of that time had been in the saddle. We were tired.  We quickly found an acceptable B&B, went to the Tartan Tavern which had an interesting concept of tartan and leather wall coverings and two very large screen tv’s showing football which cheered Mick up.  A couple of pints of Old Speckled Hen and a whisky each was quite sufficient to send us off to the land of nod.

Stats

Miles: 64

Beers: 2 (me) 4 (Mick) Whiskies 4

Route here

Day Sixteen –Troon to Lochranza, Arran

After a late and copious breakfast we set off from Troon leaving not quite enough time to cycle around the coast to Ardrossan. We got to the port to see the ferry waiting.
Mick, however, still unsure as whether taking the ferry was cheating decided to cycle to Arran after all.

The sun was shining when we reached Brodick and we thought we might spend a couple of days here.  



We headed up on the road to the north of the island, passing the majestic Goatfell and some amazing erratic boulders. 
We soon found ourselves climbing out of the leafy coast and onto a very windy moor before descending into Lochranza on the northern coast.  We pitched camp in the site next to the golf course, amused to see sheep grazing on the green – not a sight you would see in Troon!  We called in the Lochranza Hotel for a couple of pints at eye watering prices before retiring to our little tent to listen to the rain hammering down on the canvas.




Stats
Miles: 32

Pints of beer: 2 (couldn't afford any more)

Route here

Day Fifteen – Dumfries to Troon

We looked around Dumfries a bit more whilst looking for a replacement for the jacket I had covered in oil yesterday and we decided we liked it very much (Dumfries rather than the jacket). We did note however that Robbie Burns seemed to have more than one favourite pub in the town. But by all accounts he did enjoy a spot of convivial drinking so perhaps its not so surprising that so many pubs claim to have a held a special place in his affections. 

It was eleven o’clock by the time we left Dumfries, having checked the route with a local postie, down the back lanes to Moniaive.  It was a lovely run, not too hilly, and the weather was finally being kind to us once more.  Spaghetti on toast at the very nice Green Tea Cafe set us up for the cycle over the remote top road to Carsphairn which was spectacular.  We hardly met a car for miles and miles.  Long upward pulls up of five or six miles were rewarded with equally long coasts down and we passed the day very pleasantly. Until we decided to settle on somewhere to stop.

We decided Stair might be a good place to aim for, for no other reason than a woman in the garage where we stopped for coffee said she had heard that they did good food there. We had a swift pint (whilst sat outside) and went on to Tarbolten where the guidebook marked a campsite. The campsite was no more and the two pubs in the village were both pretty dire. We decided to cycle on and stop at a campsite or B&B, whichever came first. Twenty miles cycling saw no sign of either.  We finally rolled into Troon and then spent a miserable hour looking for somewhere to stay.Finally we booked into South Beach Hotel. We managed to down a couple of pints of Northern Light beer from the Orkney Brewery before turning in, exhausted.

Stats

Miles: 76

Pints of beer drunk: 3 (bought 4 but fell asleep)

Route here

Day Fourteen – Hesket Newmarket to Dumfries

The day started well.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing. Mick, although still suffering the effects of a cold, said he was good to go.  He did get bored waiting for me to pack and decided to take up Tai Chi to pass the time…



We sailed into Carlisle where we had a lovely scrambled egg on toast and picked up a miniature bottle of whisky to toast our triumphant crossing of the Border. Following the advice of a friendly local chap in Carlisle city centre we easily found the back road out of the city to Rockcliffe. Then it all started to go wrong.  It was raining and I stopped to put my raincoat on. I dropped it and I got oil all over the sleeve.  I reached in to my barbag and found my pen had leaked ink everywhere.It was raining. We were drenched and cold when we crossed into Scotland.  We stopped for photos and a tot of whisky before peddling on along the B725 through Gretna and Annan. 





We headed west and the wind was in our face as we battled along.  Miraculously the sun eventually came out as we drew near Dumfries and we watched a couple of lapwings skimming on the breeze but we were soaked and we soon headed for the centre of town to find a B&B.  We quickly found a lovely place near the river, where we were givena fabulous room and a beer on the house, and after laying out our stuff to dry we headed into town where we stumbled across The Globe Inn, a favourite drinking “howff” of Robbie Burns and which also served a fine pint of Criffel from Sulwath Brewers Limited. From there we headed to the Jewel in the Crown where we had an excellent curry. Things were looking up.


Stats

Miles: 51

Pints of beer: 2 plus a kingfisher

Route here

Day Thirteen – Windermere to Hesket Newmarket

I am Routes and Mick is Maintenance. This has been agreed from the start.  But Mick said he had a proposal for a route and so, unwilling to be too dictatorial, I agreed he could plot the route today. Big Mistake.  Windermere to Ambleside was fine if rather wet, a downhill coast most of the way.  By the time we got to Ambleside it was tipping down and we dived into a cafe for an hour. 

Kirkstone Pass, if you have never been there, is very steep. 


The pub at the top was smashing however and it proved to be a bit of an End-To-Enders convention.  Two other cyclists were also doing the journey although on a different, faster route (no towpaths!).  They were on day eight. We also discovered that they also came from Bristol!  In the pub, the landlord said he had also cycled End-to-End, but he had gone north to south. Like everyone else we spoke to who went this way he had a headwind all the way.




Mercifully the sun came out and we had a lovely couple of hours ride along the banks of Lake Ullswater and then up the hill past Aira Force.  We found a track at Troutbeck which bypassed the A66, finally crossing it to follow the lanes through to Mungrisdale and Hesket Newmarket. At Hesket we firstly called at The Old Crown.  This is a great pub. We set up camp at Mr and Mrs Todhunter’s farm next door which has the best appointed toilet of any campsite I have used, before repairing to the pub for a fine meal and a couple more pints of beer from the Hesket Newmarket Brewery. 

Stats 35 miles
Pints of beer: 4
Hills pushed: 1 The Road from Hell.

Route here

Day Twelve - Preston to Windermere

At last we are out of the conurbations and we really feel that we are in “The North”.  We tried the A6 out of Preston for about five minutes before diving onto minor roads up to Garstang, and then onto Glasson Dock.  It was dead flat and the weather was fine. Better make the  most of it as the forecast for tomorrow is appalling.  Just before we reached Glasson we spotted a hare in the field.  A minute or two later, to our delight, another hare appeared and the hares started boxing. 

Glasson is an interesting little place, the gateway to the sea and linked to the Lancaster Canal.  We stopped for fish chips and mushy peas.
The cycle path along the Lune to Lancaster was an excellent choice, and when we reached the town we only had a mile or two on the A6 before joining the canal path to Carnforth.  This was excellent under the wheels and a very enjoyable afternoon it was looking at the ducklings and the boats along the way.

Eventually however the towpath turned to grass and after a while bumping along we gave in and got back on the A6 to Levens. We were heading into the Lake District now and I realised that it was very hilly. Very hilly indeed.  And no campsites.  By the time we pedalled up the hill to Windermere proper I was exhausted. 





Stats:
Miles 61
Pints of beer: 2

Route here