Sharpshin

I haven't seen many tour logs here, though the byline for this forum included "Trade ideas, adventures, and more".

So, unless I get requested to desist I can post a day by day account of my recent England-Scotland-Ireland-France-England tour, a bit at a time, as I have the time.

I was born in America, but my English mom got homesick and when I was four months of age we rode to England on a boat. There my American dad (AKA "Johnny the Yank") at different times drove a taxi, drove a truck (delivering TVR sportcars) and did factory work. My mum and dad both ran our fish and chip shop for which us kids were regularly pressed into service to tear newspapers for wrap and sometimes helping peel spuds.

We moved back to the 'States in '69, when I was twelve. Kinda neat to be an American (for such I always was) with a foreigner's perspective on this wonderful place. I had been back twice, briefly, in the intervening 47 years, the last time in 1983, so this 40 day odyssey was very much a homecoming trip, a bucket list event, to discover the land of my roots.

Anyhoo...

Day 1: Blackpool to Ambleside. 65 miles.

Starting things right: a sidewalk breakfast, a pot of tea, and a paper....



The official starting point, the old neigborhood, June 22nd, 2016.

47 years ago that corner residence was our fish and chip shop, the shop windows gone now. Us kids' bedroom was the window above to the left, right over the shop, where sometimes we would hear our dad brandish a baseball bat to disperse rowdy drunks after the pubs got out.



Over the wall in the background was the rail yard, where in the 1960's steam engines still puffed and shrieked. We used to play on them when they were parked, it ain't like they started with a key or anything.

The end of our street and the North Pier. We used to make wooden carts out of discarded pram (baby carriage) wheels so as to work for tips carrying the bags of holidaymakers arriving at the train station. These carts did double duty for recreation. I don't want to think of all the skin I lost to those cobbles rolling down that slope...



Eight miles up the coast, the ferry across the Wyre at Fleetwood, had to wait 90 minute for the tide to come up. As it turned out the ferry ride was all of 300 yards long, to the the background in this photo.



On across the Fylde towards Lancaster....



The Lune at Lancaster.....



..and the first canal path, this one leading me north towards Kendall....



The Lake District at last, this looking west towards Windmere....



...that evening I camped gratis in a field at the suggestion of the local Youth Hostel. The view from the tent, Lake Windemere, just south of Ambleside.....



Mike

bwgride

Thanks for the post. The Lake District is such a nice place, but weather conditions there can be brutal.

jamawani 

Have you visited Crazyguyonabike?
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/

Neil's website is designed for touring journals.
He has done a wonderful job creating a touring community.
(And he's a Brit, too.)

Sharpshin

Yep a tremendous resource, and an inspiration

I tried to blog there during/after my 30 day, 2,000 mile TX-NY trip in 2014 but found it impossibly tedious to use, especially with respect to posting photographs.

Mike

Sharpshin

Day 2: Ambleside to Hartside Summit, 38 miles.

Woke up early (first light is like 4am in June at that latitude) and stopped in Ambleside for a leisurely greasy breakfast, pot of tea and a newspaper, which was to become my usual pattern on the tour. Next goal was Haltwhistle, and Hadrian's Wall, but I wanted to get there via Kirkstone Pass and the North Pennines.

From Ambleside one can ride maybe four miles south to Windemere and then six miles up the gentler grade over the pass. Alternatively, one can take the more direct three mile route, up 20% grades along a route aptly and officially called "The Struggle"....



Photos never seem to adequately capture steep grades, but it was on that first stand-on-the-pedals uphill grind that a problem became apparent with the bike. Back in the States I had grafted a twenty-tooth granny onto my crankset, with a 12-36 tooth 9spd cassette in back giving me a wonderfully low 15 gear inches. Just the thing to haul 70 lbs of bike, bags and water up steep grades.

Might have worked too, but what worked fine on the gentle grades of San Antonio failed on Kirstone Pass. Turns out that I had failed to machine away enough clearance for the chain around the miniscule granny...



Under heavy load the chain rubbed against the chainring mounting bolts, lifting it enough off of the chainring to cause it to jump teeth. So on just the morning of Day 2 I was stalled.

Fortunately there is in Ambleside a great bicycle shop, Ghyllside Cycles, that caters largely to touring bikes...



Though this was the busy season they put me at the head of the line. At 22 tooth chainring was found and a new bottom bracket while they were at it. Great people, great service. Even so it was early afternoon by the time I was on my way once again. This time with a definite destination; Hartside Summit, 38 miles east in the North Pennines, a scenic spot where travellers commonly wild camped.

First The Struggle, which in practice turned out to be very much like hauling one's bike up a three mile flight of stairs. I am not too proud to admit that getting off to push is still my lowest gear

Like I said, inclines rarely photograph well.....





The top at last, and a pause for a cup of tea.....



Then down the otherside through Patterdale to Ulswater.....



Subtle cultural differences; a sign which would likely not go over well here....



Much later in the day, which ended with five miles of a steady 7% climb up Hartside Fell. OK, only 7%, but on a 70lb bike, same day as The Struggle up Kirkstone, second day of a bike tour. This South Texas transplant weren't accustomed to this sort of terrain. During this trip I concluded that a 50 mile day in the UK is equivalent in time and effort to a 75 mile day in Texas.

Looking west to the Solway Firth from Hartside Summit.



I was so weary when I made it to the top I could barely walk, and bending my legs during setting up camp brought on paroxysms of leg cramps.

I did sleep well that night, upon clumpy uneven turf amid scattered piles of sheep poop.

Mike

AdvXtrm

Beautiful! Thanks for sharing this!

Sharpshin

Yer welcome.....

Day 3: Hartside Peak to Brampton via Hadrian's Wall,,,, 35 miles, 137 miles total.

Day 3 dawned early, with blowing mist and temperatures in the 40's, one of those times my wool sweater was a Godsend....



It was here I made the acquaintance of these big fugly slugs, all over the place in parts of the UK. They would crawl on the tent and leave slimy streaks of black slug poop.



I was camped behind the Hartside Summit Cafe.....



...it came as a sobering realization that those benches set out over the vista were actually memorials, mostly to dead motorcyclists....



The winding route I had climbed was indeed prime motorcycle territory, and even though it was a Thursday evening I had climbed it, there were four or five motorcycles screaming up and down it. Prob'ly it is packed on weekends.

After the sun rose and cut through the mist a little, I off on the free six-mile downhill roll to Alston....



In Alston, in what became a familiar routine, I sat around and waited for ninety minutes for a hotel dining room to open so that I could do my pot of tea/big greasy breakfast routine. Places just don't open up early over there like they do here. The pattern I fell into on this trip was a leisurely morning over breakfast, often not getting on the road until 10am, and then riding until nearly dark, my best pace occurring in the final hours of the day.

After too much tea and thoroughly caught up on the news and associated editorials in the paper, I headed to Northumbria and Hadrian's Wall on the A689.

A sign along the A689, I’d guess the EMT’s grow weary of picking up the bodies, same as on motorcycle roads in the USA.



Coming across signage for a bicycle route, I took it, Shortly thereafter I discovered my major complaint about the British National Bicycle Routes; the people who laid out these routes seem to take a perverse joy in routing the unsuspecting cyclist up the steepest terrain in any given area. I forget what bicycle route this one was (the Pennine Trail???) but here’s a view not long after I turned on to it. See that railroad bridge way down in the valley? The A689, the quiet road I had just left, runs right by there, and we were both going to Haltwhistle a few miles further on.



Heavy rains on the approach to Haltwhistle, so broke out the rain pants for the first time. Typical English weather, this being one of those “if you don’t like the weather wait five minutes” sort of places. So it looks sunny in this photo on the wall, but I believe my rain gear is still wet, and shortly thereafter the deluge began again.



Of interest, petty quick on this trip, despite the frequent rains, I wouldn't bother with the rain pants, I got too hot in 'em. Instead I would just let my lower half get soaked. On the bike the rain jacket and my "smartwool" sweater preserved core body heat, and I kept the rain pants dry in my bags in case I needed them for extra insulation at night. And a brief shout-out here for my trusty Ortliebs, whatever the weather my stuff in the panniers stayed bone dry.

After seeing Hadrian’s Wall the plan was to headed NNE towards Gretna and Scotland. Meandering east, I discovered my second complaint about the bicycle network routes; they often seem to take the most indirect route they could find to get anywhere.

There were three times on this trip I coulda easily got run over, and shortly thereafter I encountered the first. Having taken in the wall and the excellent Roman Army Museum, it was now getting towards late afternoon. I was getting frustrated because I had scarcely made 30 miles yet that day, and the rain turned torrential, with heavy rain forecast into the night.

Close by was the A69, and just a few miles on it would get me to Brampton. The A69 is a typical British “A” road; two narrow lanes w/no shoulder, on a late Friday afternoon (for such it was) packed with traffic far in excess of its original design. Knowing it was crazy to do so, I ventured out, gingerly riding the fog stripe in low gear in the heavy rain with cars and trucks flying by just a couple of feet off of my right shoulder.

Many places the edges of the asphalt were under water, and in one such place I dropped a wheel of off the edge into the mud and in recovering veered way out into the middle of the lane. A few moments before or later and I would have gotten hit, hard.

Shaken, I got off the A road for an exit into Brampton, ready to quit for the day despite the hours of daylight remaining. Passing through the centuries-old downtown in the deluge I came across a rather chic and pricey historic restaurant/hotel. Not the sort of thing I was looking for, but on impulse I stopped in for the night and got their last available room, my dripping-wet drowned rat appearance a source of humor for the patrons gathered around the bar.

They had a dry room for bicycles and inside there were three others there, premium road bikes.

Mike

djb

this was timed well, I've been thinking for a week or two to contact you to pick your mind about the UK part of the trip. My family over there are moving up to Scotland in the next few months, and I've added another trip idea to my list of trip ideas in my head. Whether or not it actually ever happens, I had thought of getting in touch with you with some general questions about route choosing, but already some of your comments about the cycling routes have reinforced a bit of what I reckoned--the sometimes goofy sustrans route suggestions and also the bad luck nature of very narrow roads and no shoulders....

will keep on reading, nice to see the photos and hear about it. May still get in touch sometime....
cheers
David

Sharpshin

Well David, ya know where to find me, and stay tuned, because after I leave Scotland for Ireland on the morning of Day 10, I come back in again to the UK from France about Day 32.

Day 4. Brampton to Crawford, Scotland. 60 miles, 197 miles total.

Thinking back, Day 4 might have been the easiest day of riding outside of Brittany. IIRC, checkout time at the hotel was 12 noon and it was close to that before I rolled out. Before that there was breakfast, an all-you-can-eat deal included in the price of the room. No restaurant could make a profit offering that deal to touring cyclists This was just the morning of Day 4, but already the soon-to-be-familiar bottomless pit feeling was settling in. You might not even feel hungry. I don't get hungry on bike tours, rather you just "bonk" if ya ain't eaten and run out of energy.

But when ya DO eat you can eat three times what a normal person eats and it seems to just disappear.

So I did the newspaper and breakfast thing, took a post breakfast nap, charged the iphone and the battery pack, all the 21st Century stuff. Headed out around noon.

This turned out to be also the most America-like day of the tour in that, for the most part the roads were not crowded and, once in Scotland, the "B' roads paralleling the A7 (which divided limited-access Interstate oughtta be called the M7) were lightly traveled and, more importantly, had generous America-like shoulders upon which to ride. Lowland Scotland too (for such it is commonly called) appeared surprisingly sparsely populated, this wasn't remote and desolate moorland, it was well-forested rolling hills that reminded me of Upstate New York.

Anyhoo.... first came twenty miles on quiet backroads mostly East to Gretna. Speaking of 21st Century technology, although necessity had driven me to purchase an iphone (my flip phone wouldn't work overseas) I wasn't using it as a map, I was still using paper maps, or at least such maps as I could find. But this time logic, and the compass on the phone let me find my way to Gretna, and Scotland, pretty quick.



There was a restaurant right across the way, so, my recent gynormous breakfast notwithstanding, of course I immediately went in search of haggis. I found it under the beans.



Ya know, there just might be a reason why haggis never took the world by storm.

Right then, off to the north into Scotland. Everyone raves about the Highlands, and this was the Borderlands, so I wasn't expecting much, but as it turns out, I was blown away....



Something else about this oddly American place. I freely admit to observer bias. See, I believe the American Frontier culture sprang from the Scots-Irish, and the Scots-Irish sprang from where I currently was in Scotland.

Exibit A: Ecclesfan, an old weaving town, and the signage there. If ya don't think these guys look like 19th Century Southerners, well I do....



Exibit B: I'm riding along and I keep hearing cars being absolutely flogged up on the hillsides, and then mud-splattered cars with numbers commence flying up and down the road at decidedly extra-legal speeds, and then I come across this sorta-pit stop along the road...



Every single spectator I saw was sitting inside their vehicles. They were a decidedly taciturn bunch, but I was given to understand they watch from inside their vehicles in case those responsible for enforcing traffic laws show up.

OMG.... speeding cars, mud racing, clandestine pit stops.... I think I just discovered the ancestral roots of Southern Red Neckism...



Ya heard it here first. Hey, some of my closest friends are Southern Red Necks, one was best man at my wedding.

And then another remarkable group of folks. Not particularly Scottish.

I pass a Landrover parked by the side of the road driven by the nicest couple. They offered me hot tea, fruit and snacks, and they were impressed by my journey, even though it was just Day 4. The thing is, they were the sag wagon for the North Tyneside Riders....





These guys (and there were women in another group) were on a TWO HUNDRED TWENTY miles-in-a-day ride to Edinburgh, which was going to be followed the next day by a one hundred thirty mile return to Newcastle (??).

....and they were impressed by MY trip.

Onward into South Lanarkshire.

I had heard much about how wild camping is legal in Scotland, but now that I was there, first night, I had absolutely no inclination to trespass even if I knew it was legal, which I didn't. Finally, where the "B" road I was on ran alongside the Interstate (AKA A7) I found a downhill access entrance to a sheep pasture, just out of the line of sight from the road. And there I pitched, amid 80 million swarming Scottish midges, give or take.

Here's the view outside the tent the next morning....



Mike

Sharpshin

A quick return to Day 4, another shot of what was either the Borderlands or South Lanarkshire, as one of those speeding rally cars was passing. What you can see also is the terrain and the vegetation, along with the rare-in-the-UK rideable shoulder. No wonder I kept getting Upstate New York flashbacks...



Day 5. Other side of Crawford to Glasgow. ~50 miles, 247 miles total.

At the start of Day 5, the first task at hand was to locate caffeine, preferably tea, and then find breakfast. I was three miles south of Crawford, a sort of wide spot on the map, a comfortable collection of brick houses with yards, sort of an upper middle class commuter enclave. Fortunately, and sleepy as it was on a Sunday, there was a place open for breakfast, where I got this, in the interests of culinary and cultural exploration:
A Square (sausage), haggis and black pudding.



Yes I ate all three and no, I wouldn't order that combination again. What they all had in common is that they had lots of grease and you probably wouldn't want to watch them being made.

Past Crawford I picked up the Clyde Valley as I headed north the environs of the Glasgow Metropolitan Region, 1.2 million in the city itself, another 0.8 million in the surrounding areas. Scotland really is a small country in terms of population; just 5 million people, as opposed to 50 million in England. Fully 40% of all Scots live in and around Glasgow.

I left England in 1969 at age twelve, hardly been back since, so on this entire visit the inside of my head was a time capsule of Britain as it was in the 1960's. I was raised Working Class in Blackpool, most Americans would be totally surprised at the degree of recreational violence common to the British Working Class back then. British football hooligans did not just spring up out of nowhere.

So you had all of that, and then there was Glasgow, which scared everybody. Not too long ago justifiably regarded as the murder Capital of Europe, "booze and blades". Mostly peopled by the descendants of Irish immigrants, and the two warring factions were nominally Protestant and Papist, which two factions still collective comprise 95% of the population. A city like nowhere else on earth, except maybe Belfast.The murder rate in the core urban areas of Glasgow is STILL three times that of where I live, big and impoverished and loaded-with-firearms San Antonio.

I was south of Glasgow going north, and I had to go through or around it to get to Loch Lomond and then the Kintyre Peninsula. All I had was an inadequate map. Ya of course I had a iphone and a Lenovo Notebook in my bags, but all I can say is I am from an earlier time. Still, I offer no defense for the mostly self-induced confusion to follow.

Where I started it was still pretty, the upper Clyde Valley.



An entrance ramp to the A7 Motorway, and the sort of signs you have to put up when you drive on the other side of the road from the rest of the World.



I started to hit urban around Lesmahagow, about 20 miles south of Glasgow proper, mostly an upscale suburb, or at least the parts where I went through. There I had an amusing conversation with an elderly gentleman about Donald Trump (note, this is NOT a political thread). It seems Mr Trump had acquired a fine old golf resort in Scotland, and then had the temerity to alter one of the holes. As the gentleman put it, the only way that course should ever have been altered is if God himself had appeared in person and dictated that it should be so It seems they are serious about their golf in Scotland.

From Lesmagahow my intention was to head straight north passing east of Glasgow proper and then angle west around the north of it to reach the Loch Lomond area. So I headed north on dead reckoning. This didn't work out too well, I was soon attempting roads way too busy for bicycles, and as it turned out this course brought me through East Glasgow which from what I gather most folks would recommend avoiding.

Broadly generalizing, folks in much of Glasgow walk with a truculent air, as if they have been in more than a few fistfights and might get in another. Neck tattoos among Working Class urban folk are common, along with tattoos on the more usual locations. Those worried about the demise of the pit bull terrier in the UK following the ban can rest assured that the breed is alive and well in Glasgow.

All that being said, everyone I spoke to in all parts of Glasgow was friendly and helpful. Case in point; early on I was riding up a narrow sidewalk against the direction of traffic on a busy urban one-way street, looking for a marker for a bicycle route. There was a sound system set up on a chair outside of a garage, in attempting to get by it on my bike I inadvertently knocked it over.

I have spent quite a lot of time in my life around motorcycles and bikers, not owning a car of my own after I left college until age 44. I guess you could say I was sort of a biker, but not the outlaw kind. The guys in the garage wrenching on bikes were the outlaw kind, and from Glasgow as well.They reacted angrily. I dunno that I was fixing to get thumped but getting knocked over myself was a distinct possibility.

Thinking quick, as they approached I said with the most American drawl I could muster... "Well hey, clearly I am lost." On hearing me speak they all stopped, looked at each other and burst out laughing, wanting to know what some old guy from America on a bicycle was doing in that neighborhood. They helpfully gave me directions, which I partially understood (it would get worse in Ulster, where English would become my second language, and I didn't have a first).

What followed though was two hours of confusion, plus it began to rain. The problem was by that point I was attempting to follow a marked bicycle route to downtown. As would become apparent upon my return to England much later on this journey, British Bicycle Network routes can take the most bizarre twists and turns through urban areas. Worse, they'll be well-marked through a few turns, and then suddenly leave you hanging, you end up losing time meandering around the area of last known route marker looking for the next one.

This was a Sunday, the European Cup was on, but by now the game was over, most folks I asked directions from were somewhat intoxicated but still friendly, curious and helpful. I was warned twice over not to let my bicycle and bags out of my sight for a moment anywhere in Glasgow.

By late afternoon I was tired, wet, still lost, frustrated and growing alarmed that I wouldn't be clear of Glasgow before dark. To hear them tell it, there were no hotels or motels around the areas I asked folks. At length I came across a Subway on a busy urban street, some sort of old downtown, and thought to eat there, regroup, and use their internet on my laptop.

The internet thing was a no-go. As an interesting aside, across the street was an old pub, and in the doorway looking out into the rain lounged an older guy in a suit, looking for all the world like a crime boss in a movie. To complete the impression two large and loutish-looking individuals with shaved heads pulled up in a car, got out and plainly got some sort of instructions from the guy, got back in the car and drove off. I dunno maybe they were actually Christian Missionaries or something.

Anyhow, the Subway wifi was a no go, to get on I needed a UK phone number. Then, out of desperation, I pulled out my iphone and looked at an app I had bought some time previously called CycleMaps.....

OMG, remember when Frodo in the spider's lair pulled out Lady Galandriel's vial of pure starlight? Well that is what CycleMaps was like at that moment in time. "Go two blocks forward and turn left" it said, "turn right and the light and go nine blocks" it said. Stuff like that. Not too much later I was on the Clyde waterfront in downtown Glasgow, but wasn't out of the metaphorical woods yet. Maybe I was being paranoid, but not too far away were things like these four hi-rise towers, I dunno about these, but in many cities, hi-rises are sort of an international warning sign saying "stay away from here".



It began to rain again, hard, I was ready to quit. Having just spent hours coming through Glasgow from the East, I expected leaving Glasgow from the west was going to prove equally time consuming.

Poland must be full of lonely guys, because all over the UK and Ireland there are friendly, charming Polish girls working hotel counters and in retail, plus their English is more intelligible to the rest of us then,say, that of your average resident of Glasgow or Ulster. The charming Polish girl I asked at the reception of a downtown hotel assured me that there were places just west of there that I probably didn't want to ride through, she also steered me to a neighboring, slightly less expensive hotel on the waterfront near to BBC Scotland, so I stopped for the night.

Mike

Sharpshin

Day 6: Glasgow to the other side of Balloch; 27 miles, 274 miles total.

Although grateful to be out of the rain, and safe, I was not a happy camper being in a hotel again. Five nights, two of 'em already in decidedly pricey lodgings did not bode well for the rest of the trip. Plus I was actually uncomfortable in hotels, far more "luxury"or whatever than I needed, or wanted (later on in the trip youth hostels would prove to be about ideal for nights spent under a roof). Still, I lingered long over the breakfast buffet, thereby recouping somewhat on the cost of lodging, followed by a now-typical late start after breakfast and a newspaper.

On looking at my iphone to plan my route out of the city, I was surprised to see that, from where I was, Glasgow hasn't got much West Side to escape from really. Balloch and the legendary (to me) Loch Lomond were just 20 miles from my downtown hotel.

Turns out that the British Bicycle Network trails are best followed on a smart phone, in that context the little blue signs are just reinforcement, reassurance that you are indeed on the right track, even when they are pointing you through the valley of the shadow of grafitti, pee odors, and broken glass...



But in no time at all things became suddenly rural, and I found myself riding the tow path of the Forth and Clyde Canal.



And so it was a farewell to Glasgow, on the way I met a teacher, a cyclist, on some routine errand. We stopped and chatted for a bit. He taught English overseas and him and his wife were home for a spell. A careful guy with a nice road bike, he told me he had two bikes stolen in as many years in Glasgow, and one thing he didn't like about the city was all the places he couldn't ride after dark. Still he said, its not nearly as bad as it used to be.

As for me I think I could live in Glasgow. Might be my Irish Catholic/English Working Class roots, it felt like these people were my people, tho I suppose that could be a silly notion.

...a little while later and I was on the Levern, the seven mile river that drains Loch Lomond....



An amazingly quiet and tranquil place on a Monday at least, considering it lay immediately adjacent to a metropolitan area of some two million people.



Atlantic Salmon is the thing on the Levern, though it I was told it was catch and release for all but sea trout. Catch and release seemed to be the norm for all the fishing I encountered in the UK, and which I expect is true of Ireland too.



Along the way I met Leon, a septuagenarian retired Royal Marine, and two teachers, they were loosely chaperoning a party of around ten teenage kids on bikes from Edinburgh, Scotland. They were completing something called the Duke of Edinburgh Challenge, one of a series of different sorts of outdoor expeditions designed to get youth outside and active. As part of the challenge the teenagers have to plan and execute the whole challenge themselves, so the role of Leon and the two nice ladies (I forget their names, like me they were teachers) was more of observers as opposed to trip leaders.

We fell into conversation and they kindly invited me to camp with them at a site seven miles up the eastern side of the Loch. I was somewhat disappointed with my mileage so far on this trip, not quite 250 miles in five days, and stopping early would mean a short day, but I was enjoying the company, and I was hoping to catch up on my laundry.

Turns out doing laundry wasn't happening, but that evening, while the kids were preparing macaroni and cheese or something similarly spartan, we all piled into a car and went to a fine restaurant in Balloch, the town at the south end of the Loch. I forget the name of what I ordered, chicken breast stuffed with haggis, the name of which ended in a guttural "...och" sound.



The real Scotland is quite a bit different than the one of popular imagination, for better or worse its actually a very socialist place, and current with all the latest PC trends.

I gotta say though, it might just have the toughest money in the world



Mike

Steve B.

Great ride report Mike, enjoying every bit of it and looking forward to the rest.

Sharpshin

Hey thanks.

Day 7: Other side of Balloch to Inveraray. 47 miles, 321 miles total.

Leon and crew were headed north, I was headed mostly west, so we parted at the campground that morning. I headed back towards Balloch to look for breakfast and a newspaper. One thing I had learned from Leon's group is that Glasgow and Edinburgh are only 60 miles apart, across fairly level terrain. After 47 years in the US I was being constantly surprised by how small the UK really is. The British Isles are exactly that; islands.

So it was with Loch Lomond, a near legendary place when I was a kid. My dad bought an old Austin van, must have bough it around 1966, one you had to crank with a starter handle through the front grill to start. We were practically the only ones in the neighborhood to own any sort of vehicle back then. it might have been 1967 we took a camping tour of Scotland, seemingly a major expedition, and it was at a campground probably on the east side of the lake that I cut the bejeezus out of myself with a pocket knife my dad bought me, I still have the scar

Balloch is of course a touristy place, and there was a newspaper shop open (they still have newspaper shops in the British Isles) so I read the paper and drank a cup of tea until the first restaurant offering breakfast (in a hotel) opened up some time later (waiting for "early" restaurants to open was a common theme on this trip, they just don't open for business as early as we take for granted over here).

After that I visited an outdoor sports store and bought a head net for the anticipated midges of the Kintyre Peninsula, a totally unnecessary expenditure as it turned out (I later gave it away).

...and then north up A82 up the western shore of Loch Ness, as with everything else an enormous body of water back then, not so large in perception today....



Seventeen miles later, after a pot of tea in Tarbet, I turned left on the A83 and rode the two miles west over the slight divide to Arrochar at the head of Loch Long, which as it turns out opens into the Irish Sea at its far end about fifteen miles southwest....



Glaciated terrain, if it were Norway we'd be calling them fjords.

Around the head of Loch Long and around the western shore to Ardgartan, three miles distant. Then right following the A83 west climbing the next five miles through Glen Croe....



The top is called "Rest and be Thankful" Pass, after a stone inscribed there by the men of one General Wade, during the construction of a military road built to subdue the Highlands after the failed uprising of 1745. I 'didn't know of that stone or that name at the time, but it might explain a multitude of recent memorial markers apparently at the site of scattered ashes at this point overlooking the Glen....



The road I took was the original, lower one, the newer "A" route higher up the hill being too narrow and too busy to comfortably cycle. The lower road was good, except I had to lift the bike over four actual gates along its length.

The crest gained, a rapid downhill to the top of Loch Fyne, likewise a Sea Loch, but this one forty miles long, I would ride down its northwestern shore the following day.



Around the top of the loch, and then nine miles down the shore to Inveraray (rhymes with "Tipperary"), traditional seat of the Duke of Argyll...





It was evening by then, and still loathe to trespass, I pitched my tent by the side of the road just outside of Inveraray. As I was pitching the tent a Police Constable pulled up in a Scottish Cop car and suggested that I pitch on the front lawn of the local supermarket instead. It was legal for travelers like me to trespass in Scotland he said, and no one would complain.

As I was pitching the tent again in front of the Supermarket, two young women on holiday from New Zealand stopped to chat, underscoring probably the biggest change in the British Isles over the forty-seven years of my absence.... travel, and the degree to which people there engage in it.

When I was a kid, most folks lived their lives where they grew up, people from just ten miles down the road spoke with a detectably different accent. I have long lost my ear for the nuances of spoken Brit, so I don't know how true that is any more. I do know that travel and the internet have transformed the whole place for the better.

In 1966, my family drove on holiday from Blackpool to Cornwall and back then it was like going to the far ends of the earth.

My observation in 2016 was, take any five Brits, and at least two of them will have been to Orlando and/or Las Vegas. Probably the same thing applies in Scotland, except perhaps to some residents of Glasgow. In Ireland what I found was this; take any five Irishmen, and at least two of them will have cousins working in the US or Canada.

Mike

jonc123

Is this the same place he is talking about?

larry michael lee / ozark mountain daredevils | tales & notions : On The Way To Windermere

Sharpshin

That would be the place.

Day 8: Inveraray to Kennacraig: 43 miles, 363 miles total.

The next morning in Inveraray the usual dilemma; on June 29th in Scotland first light like 4am, three or four hours before anywhere that sells caffeinated beverages opened (hey, I'm not an addict, I can quit anytime).

In the meantime, Loch Fyne from Inveraray in the morning, looking east....



...and the Argyll and Sutherland War Memorial...



The Great War (WWI) was apparently especially costly for the scattered small Highland communities, a generation of young men lost, perhaps ironically in a large part due to of their vaunted martial traditions. Scottish regiments have always been conspicuous for their courage, and in WWI they fell in droves before German machine guns and artillery while pressing home valiant attacks.

The grief at the time among their families is reflected in a multitude of Great War memorials, one in every village bearing a long list of names. One Niall Diarmid Campbell was the 10th Duke of Argyll at the time, Honorary Colonel in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The 10th Duke commissioned a battlefield memorial on the Somme in France, and in Inveraray erected a large memorial bell tower adjoining the All Saints Espiscopal Church...



From what I gather, when they crank up the bells it is really something to hear. Of interest, IIRC on the statue by the water, in addition to the names of the fallen and the battles there is a plaque explaining why so many non-Highland surnames appear on this memorial to a Highland regiment. If I remember right, in the 16th Century a devastating smallpox epidemic decimated the isolated populations of the Kintyre Peninsula, such that the Earl of Argyll at the time encouraged the immigration of large numbers of Scottish Lowlanders to augment their numbers.

One thing that does become apparent upon riding along it is that Argyll and the Kintyre Peninsula south and west of Inveraray was never "highlands" as we popularly understand the term today (ie open moorlands). More than seventy miles long and around three or more miles wide for most of its length its gotta represent at least around 250-300 square miles of mostly rolling terrain, today given over to grazing and forestry. No wonder the Campbells and whoever the Argyll was at any given time were such a big deal in history.

Didn't fully realize it until this trip, but the British Isles and all its inhabitants have always existed (well, since the last ice age at least) in a sort of meteorological Never Never Land where it never gets too hot nor too cold, courtesy of the Gulf Stream (which originates down in my current part of the world). This especially true along the west coast of Scotland, such that plants like this can grow virtually frost free out behind the Inveraray Memorial Bell Tower at the same latitude as Hudson's Bay and already be this big by the end of June (bike added for scale)....



By this time the local hotel restaurant had opened, and I had a genuine Loch Fyne kipper for desert....



Salty and oily.

After breakfast I went in search of a stuffed toy to send to my little granddaughter (I was trying for one each week) and some affordable scrap of tartan to send to a good buddy who does Highland games in Texas.
By this time Inveraray was already beginning to fill with a steady stream of Glasgow tour buses and this gentleman was piping a welcome to each bus as it unloaded.



We had a long conversation, about the Highlands and history, and about the Alamo, where I get to dress out regularly all 1836. FWIW his tartan, the same as used by British Caledonian Airways, is actually a legit old tartan that goes back a long way.

There is a pleasant is small Youth Hostel in Inveraray, and they had vacancies for that evening, and I was looking for a break and still needed to do laundry, so I decided to stay over. This was a Wednesday morning, Campbeltown where I planned to take the ferry to Ulster, was 75 miles down the peninsula, so I called and bought a ticket for the Saturday morning departure. Giving me a leisurely Thursday and Friday to cover that 70 miles.

Around 2pm the ferry called me back and told me due to anticipated rough weather, Saturday's launch had been cancelled, did I want to reschedule? I did, bumping it up to Friday morning..... "SIGH"..... No shower, no laundry, no pleasant evening in Inveraray. I was tempted, but I didn't want to stay over 'till Thursday morning and be obliged to cover the whole 75 miles in a day. I expected I could make it but I would be covering unknown ground and unknown road surfaces. Nothing to do but head out, despite the lateness of the start.

More tropical vegetation seen along the way we have palms very much like this in the warmer parts of Texas....



...and a nicely-kept cottage along the road....



Seemed like forty miles of road just disappeared effortlessly beneath my front wheel. I should have taken more photos than I did but at the time I was cranking to make distance. This here is the harbor at Tarbert, thirty-eight miles down the loch from Inveraray....



I finally stopped at set up camp for the day near the ferry landing at Kennacraig. I was still loathe to trespass, and the grounds around the terminal were sort of public. Just a handful of semi trucks and passenger vehicles waiting for the evening ferry to the Hebrides...

Sharpshin

I finally stopped at set up camp for the day near the ferry landing at Kennacraig. I was still loathe to trespass, and the grounds around the terminal were sort of public. Just a handful of semi trucks and passenger vehicles waiting for the morning ferry to the Hebrides...




Given the easiness of the going, I was wishing I had stayed over in Inveraray another night, and done the whole 75 miles thing in one day.

Mike

Sharpshin

An aside on tents.

The tent I brung over was an REI Quarter Dome, bought on sale in the Spring of 2014 as that particular incarnation of the model was being discontinued, I have always used it with a Half-Dome footprint, no matter. Very much a one-man tent, the Quarterdome is tall and narrow, with poor lateral stability in high winds and a dearth of guy lines to counter that stability.

Here it is one the last morning of this trip, in the Pennines about five miles east of Huddersfield, UK.



The main body of the tent is all screen, only the fly shelters you from rain. On my TX-NY tour most times I wouldn't bother with the fly, on that trip catching a breeze on hot summer nights was the goal. I'd not bother with the stakes either, just throw out the tent in a dark spot and crawl in. The tent is small enough you an do that, yourself and a pannier or two "staked" the tent down.

In the UK it was necessary to drape the fly at least part way, as seen here, to intercept heavy morning dew.

Same tent, wild camping in Ireland, in the morning after wind and rain.



One problem with a screen-type tent is that if you have to put it up or take it down in heavy rain, the screen tent that you sleep in gets soaked in the brief interval the fly ain't out.

I have to say tho', despite being marginal for the location, the tent did all right. If I pitched the tent and fly just right, the tent was indeed reasonably dry inside, even in heavy rain, and I learned to pitch it end-on to the wind to keep crosswinds from distorting it from the side.

At campgrounds, my tent drew curious looks. None of the locals had a tent like mine, theirs were all more substantial affairs with only small areas of bug-netted windows.

Mike

bradtx

Yeah, Mike, while this forum generally focuses on the technical aspect I really enjoy the tour photos that are shared. Being half British myself I have really enjoyed your account.

Brad

Sharpshin

Tks, I will say that a dedicated camera would have been well worth the bother. I was using a new iphone SE, with advanced photo taking software but STILL with a tiny objective lens. I was assured it took great photos, and maybe it does, but in cameras as in optics in general, there is no substitute for aperture.

Day 9: Kennacraig to Campbeltown: 32 miles, 395 miles total.

That morning I was happy that I had indeed started out for Campbeltown the day before, after the rain cleared I was faced with a stiff headwind. 75 miles in a day would have been an ordeal.

As it was, despite the wind, all I had was 30 miles left to Campeltown, practically just down the street. I laid up in the tent for a bit, waiting for a lull in the rain (the "Dark Sky" app helped enormously here). The tent was packed up soaking wet, in which condition it would mostly remain until Brittany, two weeks later. Didn't seem to hurt it any.

For an emergency morning caffeine supply, I had been packing along a 20oz bottle of Diet Coke, but even so I set out in search of decent caffeine a breakfast. Looking at the map in the months before the trip, I had imagined the Kintyre Peninsula to be remote moorland, located where it was on the Western Coast of Scotland. Actually its a substantial piece of real estate...



In the wide spot in the highway called Clachan I found an small convenience store open. There I had two cups of machine-brewed tea and some sort of sausage filled pastry while perusing a newspaper. The clerk, a local, was a young man of about twenty. Now an example of how the UK has changed so very much.... turns out the guy was a huge NFL (American football) fan. He had checked out a game on the internet out of curiosity and become a fan. Later in the summer, he and some friends were off to Las Vegas to catch an exhibition football team and then rent a car and drive around. He was quite appalled when I impressed upon him just how far from Vegas some of the places they had a mind from to drive to really were.

But anyways.... in a fairly remote Scottish village I was talking to a store clerk about to depart to Las Vegas to watch a football game. Remarkable.

Somehow in the jumble of photos I lost several taken from along the coast at this point, wherein you could see the distant Hebrides, or at least Islay, offshore to the north. But here, I do have a photo of lunch along the way.

King scallops on a bed of black pudding with caramelized onion relish. About fifteen dollars in Scottish pounds, give or take.



...and...

Rhunahaorine Primary School, AKA Bun-sgoil Rubha-na h-Aaorinn (where kids learn to spell early).



Actually, it might sound like heresy, or maybe gross cultural insensitivity on my part, but riding around the UK, Ireland and France felt very much like being in the US. Everywhere is the West, and we share a collective culture even if the accents are different. Or maybe my English boyhood in some subconscious way just made it seem familiar I dunno.

Some things are different tho, for example here in the US we don't have stuff like this.....

I came across this ruined chapel, looking to my untutored eyes early Medieval, surrounded by a crowded Nineteenth Century Protestant cemetery.



At some point, all the windows and doors on the little chapel save one had been expertly bricked shut....



The crypt, adjoining the main chapel, had a post-Medieval looking archway, an added-on smaller archway, a roof, and iron gates, I'm guessing from the Nineteenth Century, same time as the cemetery surrounding it. Nothing supernatural about the fuzziness of this pic, it was raining,several photos came out like that. I'd guess early on the crypt's roof had fallen in too, and that the crypt was subsequently rebuilt by somebody



Over the crypt entrance, a Nineteenth Century-looking marker....



Too dark to see in when I was there other than carved funereal slabs in disarray. On the web you can find a photographer's website wherein these slabs are revealed as Thirteenth or Fourteenth Century-looking knights' effigies. Further googling will reveal that the Largies were a sept of the Campbells.


Tales from the Crypt indeed, I'll bet that one contains some real stories.

Another Great War memorial, showing the lay of the land....



..a view of the coast, looking towards the Mull of Kintyre.....

.

...and finally, in Campbeltown, a farewell to haggis.




Mike

bradtx

Mike, I would've said adios to the haggis much sooner, but the scallops and caramelized onions look fantastic!

Brad

Sharpshin

Indeed they were, and at that price I prob'ly shoulda got seconds.... and thirds.

Day 10: Campbell town to Ballycastle by ferry. Ballycastle to Maghera: 35 miles, 430 miles total.

As of that morning Wildcamping-5 nights, Campgrounds-1 night, Youth Hostels-1 night, Hotels-2 nights. 9-nights total.

Even though I had not been piling on big miles, an early night in the Youth Hostel in Campbeltown had been welcome. A chance to dry out, organize, get on the internet, and do laundry. This was my first Youth Hostel of the five I would stay in on this trip, and was typical in that the clientele was at least equal parts retirement age, in fact all 3 of us were retirement age that night. A gentleman from Germany and one from South Africa, both hiking. And a good thing I didn't try to get in the following night (Friday), that weekend a cycling group had booked the whole hostel (also typical).

The ferry left at 7am so I was down to the harbor early, and thinking I must have missed it or something because the quay was deserted.



At 6:50am the reason was revealed, there was only two of us riding on the ferry. Oour ferry was supposed to be the larger boat on the left, but that one, almost brand new, had a starter fail on one of the two engines when in Ballycastle the day before. The Captain and Copilot (??), ever resourceful, had started the one motor, switched starters and then started the other and drove the boat home, but it was out of action until a new starter arrived.

So to our good fortune we took the small boat on the right, a 34 footer, and a magnificent ride past the Mull of Kintyre in a somewhat less-than-placid sea.







Rathlin Island....



..and a first view of Ireland. Just setting foot on it was a bucket-list item for me, descendant of Irish Catholics on both sides. To approach it in a boat like this was awesome...



Ballycastle harbor.....




It was raining. First mission in Ireland....breakfast. The is a restaurant right on the harbor. I believe this is called a "full breakfast"



Mike

Sharpshin

I have to say I was a tad apprehensive about going to Ulster. In the 1960's time capsule inside my head were Ian Paisley, Bernadette Devlin, and the Troubles. On the news every night.

We were raised apart from all of that and took no sides unless it was against terrorism no matter who caused it. I can't say I ever had a stake in it either. I had never been to Ireland. Still, as one with Irish Catholic roots, I was a tad apprehensive.

First step was to climb up out of Ballycastle....





Ireland is indeed green as all get out. When you are there you realize that this is because it rains at least part of every friggin' day. If the weather is fairer in England that is because England sits in Ireland's rain shadow.



One surprise was the sort of fuel they sell out in front of the convenience stores..... coal. The smell of burning coal brings on instant nostalgia for me; when I was a kid we had no hot water without a fire in in the living room fireplace, the hot water tank being set in the brickwork above and in back. The same was true for everyone in the neighborhood. In the Republic itself, besides coal they sell bricks of peat, which apparently burns with a yellow smoke.



There are very few campgrounds across Ulster, no Youth Hostels that I know of either. I suppose wild camping was possible but this was pretty intensively farmed countryside interspersed with expensive-looking houses probably owned by urban professionals.



Late in the day I stopped in at a barber shop for a hair cut. Turns out the barber and his friends were all plainly Republican Irish, they informed me that wild camping right around there was probably not a good idea but called around and found me a hotel room in Maghera ("Maaheraa").

As I was checking in I heard the sound of fife and drums on the street. The hotel Concierge tried to discourage me from going outside.

It was an Orange Order parade, complete with police escort.



A few minutes later a second parade marched by.





The occasion was the 100 year anniversary of the Battle of the Somme in WWI.

These were parades like none I had seen before. The grim-faced marchers marched with impeccable precision, perfect step. People on the street either stonily ignored the parade, or muttered curses under their breath. The Orange Order lodges of course are primarily Protestant, and for the continued membership of Ulster in the UK. The tradition has always been to walk these parades through primarily Catholic, presumptively pro-United Ireland neighborhoods. That is what was happening here, the police were there to keep the peace.

The gist I got when I was there is that at long last this more than 300 year-old conflict has been fading somewhat in recent decades. Ordinarily one might become distressed when young folks forget their history, Ulster might be an exception.



Mike

kellichou

Mike, thanks for posting your trip--absolutely fascinating! I am glad to hear people are continuing to rise above the Troubles, despite dogged efforts to keep it going, as you found with the parade. And I'm glad you found your way out of Glasgow without incident.

Those full breakfasts look absolutely delicious. And what kinds of amazing cheeses have you enjoyed on the trip?

I'm looking forward to more of your updates!

Happy Feet

Great write up and pics that show different perspectives. Well done!

bradtx

Mike, It'll take another 300 years for Ireland and England to settle down, if ever. Hopefully history won't be forgotten, but rather remembered to heal a festering wound. My most brief soapbox episode, ever!

I knew peat and coal were still used in rural areas, but surprised to see it in suburban or even urban areas.(?) Another good looking breakfast!

Brad