Back to the Uists

The trouble with completing a coast-to-coast trip is that I have to get all the way back to the western most point of the next one to start again. Sometimes that can be almost as hard work as cycling through the maps in sequence. Scotland continues to make life far from simple. Today I got the earliest train east from Dingwall that there was, for as far as I usefully could (to Achnasheen), and still had a full afternoon of cycling to get me back to the starting point on Map 19 at Redpoint, where I left the car. To be fair it was beautiful all the way, and I finished in very fetching remote coastal scenery under warm sun and blue skies (which came and went all day, interspersed with a few showers). It’s the usual story: when it’s nice up here, it’s stunning; when it’s not so nice, just wear the right clothes and wait for a little while! Along the way, I had probably the meal of the adventure so far at the delightful Gorse Bush in Kinlochewe. It was busy; but I shared a table with a very friendly German couple who were having a marvelous time on their first trip to Scotland. If you ever get the chance to eat there, you really should. It was seriously good!

I got the bike loaded on its rack and was driving soon after 5pm. My bed for the night was in Arisaig, a 4 hour drive away along Loch Maree, Loch Ness and the famous “Road to the Isles”, so I had my fair share of A -list scenery once again. There wasn’t really time to stop for longer than it took to buy petrol, coffee and sandwiches; however, I arrived just in time to enjoy the lovely view out to the Small Isles over a pint (brewed in Cromarty) on a calm, light evening. It is an enchanting spot. I will surely be back, since the Small Isles (Rum, Eigg, Muck and Canna) have a whole OS map to themselves. You can get a passenger ferry from Arisaig, or a Calmac ferry from Mallaig. But there is plenty of other work to do before then.

The Calmac ferry to Lochboisdale in South Uist leaves at 9.55am from Mallaig, 10 miles away. I have swapped in clean clothes for dirty ones to get me through the next 5 days until I go home again. The weather forecast doesn’t look too inspiring; but it could change, as it often does. The locals up here seem highly skeptical of the forecasts anyway, and I have to say that the weather does seem to be very localized in these parts. So, we’ll take it a day at a time and see what happens. Some good news, however: I learned this evening that the North Uist to Skye ferry is back in service after its recent issues, so my careful plan – which relies on it in a couple of days time – looks like it can go ahead. That means my fourth coast-to-coast pass across Scotland from West to East will start tomorrow afternoon. This will be the longest yet and I won’t have time to finish it in one go; but I will make my way through seven maps in a very wiggly line before I head south. Adventure cycling is not for the faint hearted.