Today I feel I did full justice to OS map 55. I pretty much spent all day in it and covered it from one side to the other. It was a long day. The trouble is that you can’t really cross it in anything other then a very zig-zaggy line, thanks to a plethora of […]
Author: ridealltheosmaps
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Map 55 – A clean slate
I should have been writing this ages ago; but I was instead having a long and interesting conversation with the owner of the house I am staying in on Seil Island, an hour’s cycle or so to the south of Oban. It turns out that we have much in common, and are both trying to […]
Things seem to be looking up for Scotrail. On a day when the rest of the country was beset by more train strikes, Scotrail ran a normal service. And by normal, I don’t mean their emergency timetable of late; but their full blown reinstated timetable of yesteryear. So it’s nice to be able to report […]
One of the many delights of this adventure, so far, has been that the vast majority of my cycling has been done on virtually empty, or at least very quiet roads, with respectful drivers when vehicles have appeared. There have been a few exceptions; but really there are not many of the roads so far […]
Today was perhaps the warmest and sunniest day of cycling I have experienced on this trip so far in Scotland. I even wore sun cream. Well, you can’t be too careful. But it truly felt that warm. A perfect day, then, for a morning’s excursion to Staffa and the famous Fingal’s Cave. After the Giant’s […]
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Map 48 – Mull
I’m in a pub again. When I leave here I will be on my own this evening in a cosy camping pod in Fionnphort, on the far western tip of the Isle of Mull, opposite Iona. But I still have 5 miles left to cycle there before dark and it is already past 8pm. I […]
There can be few more beautiful towns in Scotland, perhaps anywhere, than Tobermory. It even has a great name. And it sits squarely in OS map 47, which I wasn’t in, or even next to, having left Coll and map 46 by the only sensible option, the Calmac ferry to Oban. I needed to take […]
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Map 46 – Coll
What a difference a day makes. I was lucky to have the option to stay inside for most of yesterday, and happy to take it. Today began overcast and windy; but the clouds soon blew away to leave a bracing northerly breeze and warm, bright sunshine. Excellent conditions for seeing the island of Coll, and […]
It rained hard last night in Oban. A lot. It arrived and forgot to leave. By the time I crawled out of bed for the 7am ferry to Coll and Tiree it had eased a little; but we didn’t get much respite from it all day long today. Luckily, the forecast is for better weather […]
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Oban: New port, familiar problem
Having passed so many times already through the likes of Ullapool and Mallaig en route to and from various islands further north, it was a refreshing change to set out today for a ferry from somewhere new. I boarded the 10.36am departure from Glasgow Queen Street full of optimism that the weather would be better […]