Day 7: Tobermory to Mallaig - Go speed racer go.

Very early wake up today. We have a 7:20 ferry to catch to Kilchoan. Tobermory seems like a pretty nice little town when it isn't covered with buckets of water, but no time to goof around looking. We all spent the ferry journey over hopefully looking for signs of sunlight. Past a lighthouse and a rather impressive column of light off in the distance, confidence was high.

We land, part of the group heads off to Archnamurden Point, the western most part of the mainland of Britain. Sort of a dubious distinction there. I think I was close enough. So, if you were there and you took another step to the west, was it better. Was there another step you could have taken to be even further west after that? So, ha, you probably didn't actually make it there. Although later DT came back and proudly announced that he had run the western most red light in Britain.

But enough of them, this is my story not theirs. Heading through the mountains, we spot a herd of deer heading over the mountain top. We struggle over the passes and they probably wander back and forth all the time without really even thinking about the effort. Two lambs come running up to me before their mother scolds them and they head off too. We go by a nature center with a tea room, it appears to be closed though and it is rather painful riding on by. JA, our temporary adopted friend, is just beyond there changing a tire. So, what exactly is the etiquette for passing a relative stranger like that. He seemed to have it well in hand, do you say cool dude, looks like you got it covered, and keep going, or do you stand there watching him change the tire and doing about the same amount of useful stuff. But the rest of the group starts showing up and we head onward. We assume he got it fixed, never saw him again after that.

Soon, the tea stop becomes a slight group obsession. One hopeful town ends up having nothing so we sit on the wall around the loch and drink our own tea and snack on stuff. The rumor is that there is somewhere a few miles up the road. Perhaps not everybody is so obsessed, ok, maybe it was a bit back from the road and we parked our bikes on the side of the building, still, where's G.? That's today's question. It ends up eventually having a happy ending but it is a burning question through most of the day.

Feeling a bit better now, we press on and run into, what the hell, a motorcycle race. I can't figure it out, the seats are all weird and very low and for the longest time I think it is either a bunch of kids or just really short people. It seemed a bit weird for a bit, random motorcycles wizzing by us going the other way, much of the road here was single track. Well, and not so great either because they weren't politely waiting and there were tons of cars following behind them who also seemed more than happy to run into anybody in their way.

We go by what looks like a local school let out so they can cheer them on. One guy is doing spinning wheelies and nearly puts his wheel right down on me because he was in the middle of the road and hadn't bothered looking around to see who might be nearby. Thanks dude, you are awesome now get the hell out of my way. How many miles of this mess? They follow us on flats and curves and up hills and down. Well more like they keep running into us because they are going the other way. Idiots. How annoying.

But all good things must come to an end and eventually at the end of a very long climb and then a short and fast descent where the motorcycle riders go off road for a while, we come into Glenuig (I think, I lost track of where we were during a lot of the day) and head for a quiet place by the loch to eat lunch. Oh, and at the top of the hill GC asks one of the motorcycle crews if they saw a lone rider headed this way. They thought maybe they did but he didn't look anything like the rest of us, whatever that means. Perhaps that might fit G.'s description.

Ahh, a nice restful lunch on the waters edge. The moon is just above the mountain and looks nice in the briefly clear sky. The rest of the Archnamurden Point group shows up and there is a flurry of excitement over a possible Great Northern Diver sighting. Nobody can conclusively say they saw one though. Does it count or not? Discuss.

We still have a ways to go. We move on and make it to Arisaig. A rather touristy town, surely we can make a good tea stop here. But alas, the storm last night knocked out the power in town. It starts coming back on while we are there and CS sweet talks a cafe owner into making us all tea and coffee, despite him having been up since before dawn dealing with the power outage mess and being completely wiped out. Nice guy, we try to give him a pretty nice tip for his trouble. And wonder of wonders, G. is back from his walkabout.

Another ten miles or so go to on the windy coastal scenic road. We make it to Mallaig. We take over the backpackers hotel and they close their restaurant for the evening. A. shows up a little bit after that to join the group for the rest of the trip. We all take over their terrace with bikes and sit out enjoying the rest of the day. We have the hopeful idea of finding some fresh fish and making a seafood stew or something, it is a fishing town after all, but they have all gone home for the day so many of us just get some fish and chips instead with a bit of wine. I still don't really understand fish and chips, but at least this time it was much better, probably the 58.76 miles that made it better.