Day 3: Lochranza to Kilmartin

Leaving Arran today. Even though G. had scouted out the shop yesterday with pretty decent bacon sandwiches right by the ferry, when it came down to it, we completely forgot, terrified by GC's strict set of rules, the 9 pm check in policy (or he is calling the police) or the no futzing with your bike any later than 15 minutes before the assigned leaving time, and some other ones that I forget now. You know GC, blah blah blah.

An earlier group had gone to ride a longer distance, but being the lazy person I am, I opted for the more sleep and less distance option. We swing by Lochranza Castle, considering it is like 20 feet off the main road, it was silly not to. I was a bit disappointed by the plastic sheeting and scaffolding. If I wanted to see historic scaffolding, I would go back to Brooklyn. Some of that stuff has been in the same place since the beginning of time. Caught the ferry on time and all was good. I seem to remember a bit of rain then, but that could cover most days.

We started out again at Clanoaig and started up over the pass towards Redhouse. Not awful but practically nothing jumps out of my memory about it all. I was a bit mesmerized by the alternating black and white striped poles. A few steep sections but overall not bad. A descent down towards the water and turn north towards Tarbert. As things go, my thoughts turned to thoughts of the next tea stop. In Tarbert, I toyed with the idea of the full Scottish breakfast, but I didn't want to deal with black pudding. If you start pulling items out, then what's the point, a lot less full breakfast then.

Later, up north in Lochgilphead, we slowed down to use an ATM and we encountered a chatty old man who wanted to talk about birds and lumber shipping and parts of London he knew and blah blah blah. We disengaged and moved on. We did a bit of shopping in town and decided on a picnic by the loch. I'm still a bit bitter at the couple in the shop who was behind me in line and who hopped ahead and then proceeded to order every stupid thing on the menu. And since I ordered something that needed to be heated, everybody else was far into their lunch by the time I got mine and across the street to the bench. Started raining a bit too then.

We found an entrance to the canal, just past the local BMX youths goofing around and jumping around on their bikes. We thought we were breaking the law by going on an un-GC-approved route, but we ended up catching up with the rest of the group on the canal before we got to Crinan. Were we still rebels by going that way before we knew it had been approved independently? Well, I'll choose to think so. Breaking the law! Breaking the law!

We admired the Moine Mhor and the fuzzy faced cows and their standard of life clomping around in the mud eating substandard grass. But, the next tea stop, on to more important things. Crinan was a lovely little town, boats and locks and the whole deal. There was some famous boat there, some rusty thing that apparently was on British tv at some point but since it wasn't the General Lee or the motorcycle that Ponch or Jon rode on CHIPS, I can't be bothered to be excited about it and look up what it was. And the tea and scones were lovely too. C. and CS continued their tradition of buying every post card on the rack.

Back down the canal to the turnoff to head through Moine Mhor and a last glimpse at the fuzzy faced cows. Flat, fast, and scenic. Ohh, more standing stones near Stockavullin, must go see those. Then a fast final bit into Kilmartin, the lovely church quickly coming into the foreground, with a nice looking cemetery off the side, and the day was a rousing success. 39.28 miles for the day.

Oh wait, lodging for the night. Yeah, not all was right with the world. J. was the hero for the day. While we all sat in the pub drinking and GC frantically made calls trying to find somebody to open the hostel, or make alternative arrangements, J. tracked down the guy, interrupted his drink and followed him home to get the key. So, crisis averted. Nice detective work there.

We all had dinner in the pub, sort of a grateful gift to the bartender for all his offers to help. The food was quite nice though. Although the hostel was totally stocked, we could have pocketed enough supplies to keep us on the road for weeks.