Take the skinheads bowling, take them bowling.

THW Big Borders tour - Cockermouth to Carlisle, 10 June 2007

Morning again, up before most everybody else again today. I didn't sleep so well most of the trip, so if I got a bit crabby at times, sorry all. But I had been eyeing that river for a few days now and was determined to try it out. If those local kids could manage it, then surely I could too. I wander around the garden and trees before hand, steeling myself for it. Supposedly there are red squirrels out here somewhere but I never end up seeing them. I did see them in Scotland just back in March, so I'm not overly disappointed. I try to figure out how the mill works too.

There is a waterwheel, but the water must have come in from pretty far upstream, or the river has sunk quite a bit since they used it. Not really sure. But enough goofing around. Yeah, it was cold, quite bracing. It was a hot evening though and my arm wasn't feeling so well, so it was quite refreshing despite the cold.

So, my porridge seemed to go over pretty well yesterday, so I go in and start to make more for breakfast today. We need to move on today, so things have to be packed up and ready to go soon too. My glorious plan to have the perfect packing system in my two bags is already starting to fall apart. When I get a puncture a few days later, the merits (or lack of) of having my tool thingys in the very bottom of my bag are highlighted. Everybody assembles outside and packs their bikes up.

I end up taking one of the left over wine boxes from last night since there is room on my rack. Rob grabbed it off my bike when we reach Carlisle later that evening and I never see it again. Wonder what happened to it.

Our route today will take us west to the coast at Maryport and then we will work our way north and east along the Solway coast and then cut over to Carlisle from there. Matt, Brenda, and I end up in front and speed our way to Maryport. The day is nice and the route is somewhat downhill much of the way. We are quickly there and we stop first to see if we can find any food and then head down to the harbor to take a look at that. It is pretty, lighthouse, Scotland off in the distance, and all that stuff. Eventually we think we should go look for the rest of the group, surely they would be here by now.

We find them on a high overlook and we all decide to head on north to Silloth. But we are not sure of the cafe situation there, so maybe picking up some food, maybe even a picnic sort of situation would be nice. Unfortunately, not much is open in town and the sandwich shop we pick seems completely unprepared to handle more than maybe one or two orders a day. Every time you order something, they have to run upstairs to see if they have it, then to place the order and then keep running up and down to see if it is ready. Maybe one of those hollow tube things they yell into on ships would help them (engine room, full speed ahead). So, it ends up taking absolutely forever to get the food. It is getting so late that I'm tempted to just eat it right there. But I'll hold out. Well, for a few minutes at least.

Back on the road again. We encounter a rather stubborn small child on the north side of town. We have to pass through a gate, the type of go into it, swing it around you and then go through that opening type. (I'm amazed at how many different ways there are to secure a gate. I think in the 10 days, I'm not sure I saw more than 4-5 gates that were secured the same way.) But the gate was barely big enough to take a bike, especially one loaded down with baggage. But he insists on standing there with his tiny bike watching us try to squeeze past him. But that done, off to face traffic and the wind. Our drafting skills are greatly improving now, forming a rather efficient peloton.

But Matt complains about sore feet and wants to stop and shift his shoes around. I take the opportunity to devour my sandwich. So much for waiting for lunch, which is fine because 2nd lunch is at least 20 minutes away. When we arrive, we park our bikes in the park in the center of town and go and join the queue for fish and chips across the street. Still, I don't understand fish and chips. Maybe it would be better if you could slather it with ketchup or something to actually give it flavor, but then again, they always charge like 20p for each of the tiny little bags of ketchup. And so much oil too, it hits hard in the stomach. (Fish and chips moratorium, in addition to the bacon one.)

We set off again after lunch. Dave A seems keen to try the drafting rotation. Although the first time he leads, he zooms off and we all have to try and chase him down. Well, his first shift was on a horribly potholed road too and that adds to the challenge. His next shift, he never takes his eyes off the speedometer and maintains a steady 12.77 mph. A little practice and we all have it down pretty well. Around the coast and inland for a bit until we pop out on the north side and see the ocean and Scotland off in the distance. We stop just inside a gate for a snack and then head off again for Port Carlisle for the meet up point for lunch.

The rest of the group was supposed to take the shorter route and not take the whole route around the peninsula. Maybe they did, maybe not, I don't know, out of sight, out of mind. But they show up for lunch a bit after we get there. And Gary and Aileen had a train to catch in Carlisle so they had to rush out there ahead of us.

The town of Port Carlisle is hopping. A bowling tournament is in high gear across the street from the pub. They all look sharp in their whites. The competition looks fierce. Apparently the home team eventually wins, so all is right with the world. We try a variety of tables in the pub and eventually settle on one outside in the back. Four teas please. Umm, and a latte. Brenda makes the poor bartender struggle with the machine, taking, it must have been five minutes to make that latte. All that work and he charges like a ridiculous 80p or something for it. (Ok, compared to what prices they normally command.)

We try a variety of industrial strength pre-packaged cakes. They claim to be different flavors, but mostly they seem to be a bit of spongy doughy things with a thick coating of sugar on the outside. Amazingly, some of them don't get finished.

Once the rest of the group arrives and has their drinks and food, we wander off to look at the old canal, see, Port Carlisle is the port for the inland Carlisle. Then back on the bikes and off for the last bit of the day. I can't remember much of the stuff before Carlisle, so I don't think it was terribly memorable then.

Carlisle is fairly big. We have no idea where we are going, just have an address and a map that vaguely shows us where the train station is. We could have sworn that Caroline and Dave A were right behind us as we get to town but maybe not. We go way out of the way, busy roads, large circle off ramp and end up down in the pedestrianized central part of town. We find the train station but Gary and Aileen's train already left a few minutes before, so we couldn't say good bye. Hmm, now where, anybody know where we are going? We have an address but have no idea where it would be. Eventually we ask a few people and get a general direction to travel.

Once we find the place, we are slightly surprised that we were the first ones there since it took us a really long time to find the place. The B&B owner seems slightly stressed out by the room arrangements and spends about 10 minutes going over and over them with us. Brenda gets a single room and Matt is slightly sick so he takes the other one to not spread whatever it is he has. The remaining rooms are some sort of arrangement of twins, doubles, triples, or I'm so glazed over from his explanations (and the sun and the need for a shower) I have no idea what they are. The only thing that ends up registering is that here, you are in this room number, it is a double, and something about Dave T. Then he explains it a few more times and it makes even less sense.

See, I see where I went wrong, just tell me, this room has one bed, this one has two, etc. Don't deal with technical terms like twin/double/etc. Especially when I'm tired and just want him to stop so I can go take a shower.

I get to the room, oh no, this can't be good. That bed (the one bed in the room) is tiny. Now, I have nothing against Dave T but I tell you, that bed would be much too cozy sharing it with anybody, whoever they might be. First things first, must shower then I can be distressed later. So, after Dave A and Caroline arrive, my panic returns and we go and get the explanation again from the B&B guy. Dave T is actually in another room, so everything is fine. I still don't know what that guy was going on about, but all was right in my world, so that's good then.

So dinner, it is a B&B so we must go searching for food then. Caroline had been in town before so she said X, can't remember the name of the place, was pretty cheap and the food and beer were fine. And yeah, it was, nothing amazing but the chicken sandwich was fine. What was it, black sheep ale or something, was nice too. And apparently my sandwich isn't sold without a beer, so I had to have another one when that arrived too. Great trauma, I tell you. We sit outside and enjoy the night, the last warm and nice day for a while.

Bedtime. I think like 57 miles for the day.

Take me to the water

THW Big Borders tour - Cockermouth to St Bees to Cockermouth, 09 June 2007

Up really early this morning. The room was really hot, a bit noisy with snoring, fortunately though, nobody reaches Steve levels. I get up at 6:30 and wander around outside and dip my feet in the river. It is pretty cold. I help start breakfast, make a vat of porridge, which seems comically gigantic but ends up being completely devoured in the end.

We have a number of options for the day. Nothing is planned and we will be at the same place for the evening. The "we want to go to the beach for a swim" crowd (proud member of) wins the day and we decide to head for St Bees for the day. But more options, the long way, the short way, over big hills. Oh, Dave and Caroline, lead us, don't force us to make decisions. Anyways, hilly group and less hilly group. I join the hilly longer group and go to prepare my bike and all that for the day.

We assemble, Gary and Aileen are going to go off on their own (hee hee, more on that one later) since they just have folding bikes. Brenda, Dave T, Dave A, Matt, Ian and myself form the hilly group. Everybody else (anybody not involved in things I do ends up lumped hereafter with "them", "doing something else", well, unless it is funny like Gary's adventure today) goes on their route.

On the road, we avoid the rocky path up from the hostel and take the flat path through the park and past the fire station. We head out of town and head south looking for our turnoff. We pass Gary and Aileen on the side of the road, looking at maps or something like that. (Yeah, wait for it, be patient, I'll get there.)

The pace is pretty fast and we make it to lonely country roads. Well, lonely except for the kamikaze tractor driver (woman, we think, looked like long curly hair as she sped off into the distance) who barrels past us, possibly under control but I doubt it. The bouncing trailer she is pulling seems to come awfully close to many of us as she gives us inches of clearance.

We miss our turns twice, once we decide to backtrack and find the correct road and the other time we just keep going. Brenda and Matt are speeding ahead as Dave A and I see the bench. I had been asking about birds, my typical question, umm, what's that bird? It might have been buzzards. But we get rather excited when we realize, that's one of Ray's benches. I believe it was either number 3 or 4 on his top 10 list. It really is a pretty setting and the view is just great.

It overlooks Drummock Water. We take turns sitting on it and taking pictures of each other sitting on it. Brenda must have realized that nobody was behind her anymore and comes back to find us.

We set off again, Brenda and Matt slightly reeled in and head for our planned meet up with the other group near Rowrah. It turns out there is a home and garden center with a cafe in it. You English people are weird. So, we sit in chairs and at tables with large price tags on them. I guess you can try out the furniture before you buy it. But is it is tea stop or a lunch stop? I decide to split the difference and declare it both, sandwich, tea and a bit of cake.

We eat lunch and sit in the sunny patio and then the reports start to come in. So apparently, mere minutes after we saw Gary and Aileen on the road, Gary had managed to lose her. Completely. For the rest of the day. On their anniversary. So yeah, we might never know exactly what happened, we only have a bit of forensic evidence as clues.

Dave T horrifies us with his camera which is haunted by a mysterious ghostly naked man picture. He blames it on something that must have happened when his sister borrowed it, but again, we have no real evidence about this mystery.

Anyways, we have a beach to get to. Brenda changes, again. Now we can go. The part after Rowrah is on an old rail line. I'm not quite sure of the theme of the trail. Apparently all the sculpture and benches and stuff are made out of the old pieces of the line, rails and bridges and stuff. Beyond that, I'm not sure what links them together, like there are old rail tie benches and large sculptures of phoenixes. But there isn't really time to notice because it is a smooth road and slightly downhill and we fly on it.

We go so fast that we overshoot our hoped exit point and end up in the outskirts of Whitehaven instead. So we have to detour back onto the main roads and over a rather steep hill to St Bees. It is a long climb and it is a luggage free day and it isn't so bad. Coming over the other side, it is a fast nice descent into St Bees.

We park on the overlook to the beach and those who are swimming change, or somehow prepare themselves. It was a rocky approach to the beach and I regret not bringing my sandals today, but I was trying to travel light. Ouch ouch, and finally to the sand. Stepping into the ocean, ohh, it is so nice and warm, this is fantastic. Keep walking and oh my, it got cold really fast.

But there is nothing to be done, the pain will only last so long. Some plunge in and the rest never make it past the warm water parts. It is a funny ocean, there are warm and cold pockets. Once you find a warm pocket, it is nice but then they seem to move and you have to go search for another one.

The tide is coming in and the wading group notices that our shoes and towels are in danger of getting wet. Ahh, thanks. It is getting a bit late too and we should start heading back. Dinner needs to be made and all that. A few decide to zip off and catch a train to Maryport (I think) and the rest of us head back the same way we came, meaning up the steep hill. Down in the village, there are loads of matching tents (well, in about 3 different bright colors) lined up on the green. As we climb up the hill, a mysterious unmarked military looking helicopter takes off and patrols back and forth along the valley.

The rail section again, it is nice but this time it is just slightly uphill. Still, we make a pretty fast pace on it and quickly make it to Rowrah again. We stop at the bridge there and wait for the rest of the group to catch up before heading onto the main roads. We don't particularly mess around and decide to take the A road back to Cockermouth, with the option of ducking off onto the smaller roads if it gets too bad. But it is fine. We make a fast pace and Brenda, Matt and I start the beginnings of our little team to fight the wind. We haven't quite gotten the transitions of switching the front position down yet but it works fairly effectively to get back to Cockermouth quickly. 51.15 miles for me today.

Dinner, two different sorts of pasta, I believe, salad, a fair amount of wine. Quite nice. Gary and Aileen are heading off tomorrow to go home, we try to find out what happened today, but it is still a mystery.

Ray entrusts us with the task of locking up at 11 pm so that he can go to bed. We finish dinner and drinks and a grumpy old man comes down to tell us off for being noisy. (Still intrigued by this "ticking off" expression which seem to be the opposite of the Americanism, or at least somebody is ticked off at somebody (annoyed) as opposed to being ticked off by somebody (told off).) And bedtime.

Jumping somebody else's train

THW Big Borders tour - London to Penrith to Cockermouth, 08 June 2007

Friday morning comes early. I've mostly packed last night. There have been piles of stuff on my floor for a few days now and I've gotten them all stuffed into my panniers. I think about how completely unprepared I was for last year's tour. I have waterproof bags this year, much nicer bike, better waterproofs, in better shape, I know what to expect and what I should pack. Still, it will be a long way to go and I hope I got it all right. Being more ruthless with the packing helped but there are still a few things I can do better next time. I'll have to revise that kit list and post a new improved copy. One without 3-4 different sorts of caps.

Anyways, because of the way the train tickets were purchased, I was given the crushing responsibility of holding the tickets for the three other people traveling with me. I'm a few minutes late leaving for Euston, but I figure I can just haul ass and make it up on the way. Traffic is mostly ok but it gets a bit bad near the station. Still, I make it there in about 25 minutes, so far so good. Ok, where is everybody. Eventually I spot Ian waiting. One down, two more to go.

Train goes up on the board, still no Tom or Alex. We go and wait by the gate but still not there. Caroline had sent out all sorts of techy details about what the train will be, which end to board, and all that, and warned that there might be a hassle about bikes. But I completely expect that. I'm trying to think of a long train journey I've taken where there hasn't been some sort of hassle about bikes, not many come to mind.

Anyways, finally Tom and Alex show up and we head to find our places. The train manager intercepts us and four bikes, he radios somebody, sorry, only three spaces on the train, one of you can't go, even though we had reservations for all four of them. Crap crap. We argue with him for a while and eventually just blow past him and try to get our bikes on anyways. Even if one gets denied, no point in the other three missing the train which is leaving in a couple of minutes. The engineer at the front helps us load the bikes in and he doesn't see much problem with there being four. The train manager comes up then and starts lecturing us about trying to get the fourth bike on.

He relents and says there are actually four spaces after all but if there had turned out to be three, he said he would have waited until we boarded and then chucked one bike off onto the platform just as the train pulls out to screw us over. Prick. (Note to self, must file complaint with Virgin about this one. Late update - reference 4-1694659, better get some satisfaction from them.)

The rest of the train journey was fine. Nothing exciting to report there. Arrival in Penrith a few minutes late. Had texted Caroline to let them know as she and Dave were waiting for us there. It is a bit after noon when we get there. Nobody is really starving, snacking on the train, so the six of us decide to head out for a lunch stop in Keswick. So, Greystoke, there is a Tarzan link (I think) but the castle was closed, nobody really wanted to see it anyways. The village is pretty typical small village. But there was a "Cycle Cafe" just before town, although I couldn't see what was all that cycle-ish about it except that they made cars park a few hundred meters away in the village parking lot.

So, Sustrans routed us through a rather odd diversion. As we head through it, it strikes us as kind of the perfect Sustrans route, or one that seems to meet almost all their criteria. Small road which heads two miles up a valley and two miles back, saving about 1/2 mile on a main road, check. Lots of gates to go through, check. Steep off road sections, check. Plenty of sheep and other animals (highland cattle, llamas) to go through and past, check. Somehow they missed a cattle grate though, not sure how they didn't have one put in just for the occasion. Still, the route was lovely and worth the diversion. We stop at a bridge across the stream at the top of the route and admire the view.

The llamas were funny. After observing them for a few minutes, we came to a number of conclusions about llama society. All of them sit in the exact same spot, every day, all day. One of them rubbed its neck on the ground, and the grass there had been worn down by endless repetition in the exact shape of his neck. They all face the same direction every day, all looking in different directions, never looking at each other. Presumably they would have to come up with small talk if they did, and who knows what llamas would talk about.

A lot of the rest of the way to Keswick was on an old railroad line. So, it was mostly flat, gravely, through woods and over funky bridges. We hear a cuckoo somewhere off in the woods and spot a heron in a stream as we cross a bridge. The pace here is good and we are approaching lunch. The road switches to paved and starts winding through hills. There is a big concrete bridge (Greta Bridge) that we cross under that has a plaque saying it is the concrete structure of the millennium (or something like that.) Didn't seem to be all that great to me, but whatever.

In Keswick, looking for lunch. Most everything seems to be closed. And everybody seems all picky, we want to sit outside, we want good food, blah blah blah. Ian says somewhere is the "best vegetarian cafe in the world" or something like that nearby, but it seems to be closed. Near to that, is a cafe that seems to meet most of the criteria (the key one being that they are actually open) and we stop there. I think I had tea and cake there. Or maybe it was a bacon sandwich. (As of today, I'm on a bacon moratorium for at least a month. I had too much of it over the week.) As we sit afterwards looking at maps, they seem pretty anxious to bring their signs and tables inside so that they can lock up and go home. That seemed to happen a lot on the trip, cafes would lock up their doors seconds after we left.

Last section coming up now. There are three possible paths to take, one over a pass, one flat along a lake, and another further north, maybe on a busier road. We opt for Whinlatter Pass, I can't remember the reasoning now, something like it would be a tough quick up hill and then a coast down into Cockermouth and good training for the rest of the trip, something like that. It was a steep one, two chevron sections and about two miles up.

I've decided that I absolutely adore my bike, although it is geared in a stupid Italian Campagnolo way, meaning way too high for a touring bike. I find that the second I put any luggage on the bike, that I always want to ride on the small front chain ring. Ok, after a few days, I was much stronger and it all worked better, but still, I want to change it eventually. It is nice having the really high gearing to try and break Dave T's downhill speed records, but I want my lowest gear to be a bit lower. There wasn't anything I could get up in low gear, but I would like to be a bit lazier and spin a bit more up the really long hills.

The view from the first lookout, after the first chevron section, looked out over the lake we might have gone around. It was a tough climb up to there and the day is pretty hot. We rest and admire the view and wait for the rest of the group to walk up. There is a grave across the road in the grass looking at the same view. From 1847, I guess J.W.S. gets that view all the time. But another mile up on a steep section before the eventual summit, wherever it is, it isn't marked. I go ahead and climb by myself, it is nice to be able to pace myself and just look at things.

It is pretty fast coming down the other side and fairly quickly make it to Cockermouth. Just one small little hill coming into town. Well, besides the very steep rocky one down the hill to the hostel. At least we get to go down it in the daylight. It is a pretty cool building, an old converted mill building next to a small river. Very stony and rustic looking. Local youths are swimming in the river. Hmm, swimming, noted for later. Gary and Aileen are already there (well at the pub already eating) and Dave T and Matt arrive a bit after that.

We have no food ready so we also head off to the pub to have dinner. It does take a while to pick the place because Ray, oh what can be said about Ray, the warden of the hostel. He has lots of opinions and information. His book of information about the hostel, the local town, stores and restaurants, his top 10 favorite benches to sit on (yep), and so on. Impressive but funny too. A lot of the pictures of the stores and restaurants have his bike sitting in front propped to the building.

Dinner, I believe I had sausage, I mean when in Cumbria, don't you have to. And Jennings pretty much dominates the beer market, it was pretty good though. A few stop at the store on the way back to pick up breakfast stuff. And deadlines, the doors get locked at 11 pm and Brenda and Rob haven't arrived yet. They took a late train to Maryport and seemed to be delayed a bit and had to rush from Maryport in the dark. Then when they are in town, it was hard to find the place. We sent out a few envoys to meet them and guide them back. Dave T encounters the "most boring person in the world" and just can't get away from him. We wait and watch the clock and field calls from the field, trying to give directions, dealing with conflicting information about location, that street might be on this side of town or maybe the opposite. All ends well, on time, nobody gets locked out and there is a quick batch of pasta cooked up for them and off to bed.

42 miles for me today. Excellent first day. Lovely warm weather too.

The boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider

So, I did something today that I never do. I was supposed to tape a segment for somebody, so I watched GMTV. God, I feel about 5-10% stupider because of it. It is amazing just how little actual content (oops, almost typed 'news' there) there is in 2 1/2 hours. I would be surprised if there was more than 20 minutes of actual unique stuff in the whole thing. Everything is repeated about five times. Well, at least they got so badly burned recently by their 0900 contest scams that they weren't pushing that at all anymore.

The top story, ok, there were brief blurbs about some soldiers getting killed in Iraq and the same footage over and over of an old lady and her flooded house, but it was all Spice Girls. It must have been at least 15 minutes total devoted to the announcement not that they have decided to get back together but that there might be an announcement today that they might get back together. And then apparently there is some new person in government or Parliament or something like that too in the news, but back to the Spice Girls. Oh, and some tennis player at Wimbledon has red shorts on.

And then on top of that, they didn't actually show the segment I was supposed to have taped.

Homeward bound

Wake up, vaguely pack things and then breakfast. Same one as yesterday, I guess that's the system, make the same thing every day, less thought and work. None of it was really cooked, so I guess that would make things a lot easier. I would have been happier with a full English, but I guess this one will have to do. The other couple in the dining room figured I must have been the one with the bike in the garage. I noted theirs since one of them was also a Condor. He came as sort of part of a group and I think she just came along too. We talked about our frames and she grabbed the key to the room and fled. I saw them later as I was leaving, they were packing up their car, tying the bikes on the back. Poor sad bikes, they probably spent most of the trip in the garage and then back on the back of the car again for the trip home.

Last bit of packing before I leave. I'm determined to discover a system that makes sense, what goes where in the bags and which on what side. So, then later if I'm looking for something, I know where to find it. A silly dream though, I doubt I'll ever find it. Might as well pretend I'm going to also discover the perfect lightweight rain jacket too. Ahh, dreams.

I don't know what I'm going to do today yet. Well, I know I have a train at 8:30 in Pewsey, about 20 miles away or so. But what to do between now and then. I guess I'll follow the Wiltshire Cycleway and see where I end up.

So quickly through Salisbury, past Old Sarum, winding roads along the Avon, much hazier than the other days but eventually got quite warm later in the day. Was making good time, found the way back through Amesbury that had defeated me on Saturday. A bit annoying, I was pretty close to the right place and ended up backtracking and going in a circle. Oh well, wiser now.

There was supposed to be an 18th Century dovecot but I must have gone right past it. A bug had gone into my eye and I had to pull off the road before Netheravon and cry a bit and see if I could get it out. That's probably about where I missed it. By the time I got to Netheravon, I didn't really want to go back and look. The church there was nice, but it was locked up. There were instructions on where to go find a key, but I didn't want to ride around knocking on doors.

And then back to the nice stretch from Saturday, although it was slightly uphill this time, and there were only about 5 paratroopers floating down this time. It was getting positively hot and it was time to switch to shorts for the rest of the day. Past the tank crossing zones, never did see a tank, and into Everleigh, ready for lunch. It is that bit of indecision, lock the bike, take the bags, where do you put the bike, all those questions. I put it behind the fence in the beer garden, lock it to itself and leave the bags and head in. Odd, this pub is a Rhodesian themed one. I have the standard lime and soda (although hardly any lime in this one), beer is too tiring if you have a long way to go, and order a Rhodesian sausage sandwich. Not really sure what was in it but it was fairly good.

After lunch, there wasn't a whole lot that was overly exciting for a while. The Wilton Windmill seemed like an interesting point on the map to shoot for and it was actually rather nice. It sat on top of a hill covered in blooming rapeseed, so right in the middle of a sea of yellow. The road went by fairly close to it but it didn't seem all that worthwhile going for a closer look. It seemed like it was prettier from a distance.

It was a bit after this that I started to lose my ambition. 30 something miles so far, I could head straight for Pewsey but that would put me there hours early. Might as well follow the loop around, see if I can swing by Marlborough, it is supposed to be interesting. But by the time I was around Froxfield, I was wondering if I really wanted to. But there wasn't really a good way to bail out without going on some horrible big roads, so I guess keep going then.

Eventually to Marlborough then. At first it was rather unexciting. A medium sized town with lots of busy traffic. Oh well, I can check it off the list, been there. Trying to get out of town by the most reasonable route, I happen by Marlborough College and it has a nice looking church. Walking around it, there is a white horse on the hills behind, kind of tired of the white horses now. But then, just past the college, really wanted to get off the busy road and just took a chance on what looked like a footpath, cross the river and ended up St George's Church Preshute. Such a pretty find, black and white checkered, slate and all that. Probably the prettiest church on the whole weekend. And it had the best graveyard too, the most interesting stones. The ones that were really fabulous were the sandstone ones which looked like they have started to melt and dissolve, which I guess they kind of have done.

Some back roads and trying to get the short distance left to Pewsey as nicely as possible, I make it there with about two hours before my train. There were quite a few pubs in town, I wandered around seeing which one seemed the best. I just never know though. But I picked one and it was fine. For dessert, I really wanted something with custard, they kept coming back from the kitchen telling me they didn't have this sort of sponge or the apple crumble was off. On the third time they finally came up with a chocolate one, which was way too choclolately but at least I had custard. They came and chased off the fat old dog who kept coming and lying under the table, no doubt hoping I would be generous with the food.

So, train home then. Keep in mind that I have already gone way out of the way to get my bike there, stupid engineering works and bus replacement messes. So, sitting down to wait, the sign says "regret, no handicap toilets", umm ok, "regret no cycle spaces", umm, no, that's not going to happen, I have a cycle reservation, I even have the ticket for that printed out and everything, and on top of that, I have first class ticket (due to the completely incomprehensible system of pricing of rail travel, that was far cheaper than any other ticket I could get. I did do a quick price comparison of how much the electronic ticket kiosk would have charged me if I had bought a ticket then, a lot more, so I felt ok about it then.)

But yeah, another cyclist showed up and we discussed our impending yelling fit to get our bikes on the train. Then the time changes on the train, delayed, that time passes, it moves to 15 minutes later. Finally the train pulls up and the guard is poking his head out the window and yells no bikes at us. We calmly but firmly discuss having cycle reservations, it being the very last train to London for the night, and basically just keep moving toward the train with every intent of going home now and on that train. Finally he relents and says to just put them in the passageways. (Must remember to write a note to First Great Western questioning their whole useless system of cycle reservations.) Then having to sit there, watching my bike bounce around in the passageway as people tried to get past did mar the whole first class experience a bit, but at least I was headed home.

So, off at Paddington, a long trek home across London. And then yet another bike has popped up in the bike storage closet in my building, so I have to spend 5 minutes moving things around trying to get mine in there too. So, finally off to bed, dump my bags out on the floor to get what I need and I'll deal with the rest of it tomorrow. 63 miles today, 157 total for the whole weekend.

No one knows who they were, or what they were doing...

So today I'm planning on taking it easy. I'll go see Old Sarum and maybe goof around town a bit, a little hiking but I don't want to go huge distances, still tired from yesterday. But today, Old Sarum is an intriguing circle thing on the map. Later history that I learned, used to house a royal castle in like 1100 and 1200 and the original Salisbury cathedral which was abandoned when the one in town was built. Hmm, used to be a rotten borough too, sending to Parliament even after nobody lived there.

Think I saw a few thrushes in the garden in the morning. Not great with bird identifications, that's my best guess so far. But setting off, much lighter load today, just a single bag with a few things I need for the day. Didn't have any mechanical problems or flat tires or anything on the whole trip, that was good, although I do seem to have an annoying click in one of my pedals now. Tracing backwards from the way I came yesterday and then saw, oh look, a path going along the river, I'll follow that for a while. I believe it was part of a Sustran route, 45 or 24 or something. They are all rather frustrating because the exact routes don't seem to be published anymore and sometimes they are well marked on the roads but at times they just completely disappear and you are lost for a bit.

Up the river, through a park, off into a residential neighborhood, then see a sign for a bridal way heading towards the hill. Time for a hike then. Easy across a pasture and then it starts to climb into the woods. A few times the trees break and I get a nice view of the Avon valley in the distance. I generally try to imagine what it was like for whoever back when. Going through deeply wooded sections of upstate New York and how people moved through that hundreds of years ago. Or what climbing up this hill, through the woods, would have been like in the Iron Age and then later when there was a castle and cathedral at the top.

I come to the outer ring of earthenworks and have to continue around until there is a land bridge to the inner ring and proceed up to the plateau at the top with a number of people milling around the ruined foundations of the cathedral and old bishop's palace. A backpacker asks me which way Amesbury is and where the river goes. I point it out, that way, and check the map to double check that I'm actually right. Love the map holder, by the way. I still feel bad about mutilating the OS maps, folding them in strange ways to fit them in there, but it is fabulous having where I am just right there in front of me all the time. Ok, I'm slightly obsessive about maps.

There are a bunch of plaques with blah blah information about what's left, I read them all. The ruins are interesting but not all that much. It is a bit hard to get a sense of it all from just some vague outlines of what is left. But upward to the castle. I get to use my English Heritage card, get to go in for free, across the bridge. The metal scaffolding around it doesn't make it seem very rustic and all, but must be constrained by lots of safety regulations.

There isn't much left of this castle either but loads of plaques try to give you a flavor of it all, big tower used to be here, royal privy over there, see the pits they used to make people climb down and scoop out, used to be a bridge over there, now you are in the basement of the tower, etc. It is Easter and they have organized Easter egg hunts and things like that (fair amount of people there today). Actually the hunt was huge plastic eggs with letters on them, you find them and write the letters down on a piece of paper. For kids only, what's up with that.

Back on the bike and riding down the steep road on the front of the hill. Not exactly sure where I'm going next, but I saw an interesting looking byway heading north, I figure I'll try that. It is a bit rocky and bumpy but I guess I've already gone through worse, so it is fine. Again, it is a relief to be off the busy roads too. After a mile or so, I figure I'm already headed that way and it isn't all that far, I might as well go to Stonehenge today, which I had sort of thought I would do tomorrow on the way back to catch my train out.

I switch to the quiet road that follows the river and it is nice that way for a while. Crossing the river at Woodford, there is an inviting grassy beer garden by the river with a pub. Lunch takes forever to arrive but it isn't like I had a whole lot of choice, a busy Easter Sunday, not a lot of open places to go.

At the crossroads into Amesbury, I have a choice, do I go left to Stonehenge or right into town, well, there is a green patch on the map with fort and abbey written on it. The fort, as far as I can tell, was on private land with no access but the church was pretty nice, a fantastic oak door, and an eager volunteer handing me a laminated board with all the highlights of the interior spelled out. The abbey, I'm not sure, maybe it is gone, there was a large retirement home there in a parkland, the building looked somewhat recent, with in the last hundred years or so. Was this the abbey that Guinevere retired to after King Arthur died? I assume that's long gone though.

But ok, back to the left then, time to see some big rocks. I was a bit worried about getting there, the map showed the only way to get there is on a major motorway. Luckily there was a path that followed the majority of the way, ending right as I got to Stonehenge. Now, I jokingly had thought before I got there, I've seen Carhenge (a exact replica in cars in a Nebraska cornfield) (Pictures I took of it in 2001) and won't Stonehenge be a bit disappointing after that?

Funny enough, in some ways it was. The whole area is fenced off, there were a few people milling around outside the fence taking pictures through the wires, didn't want to pay the admission price to go in. They have the actual monument roped off and you can walk around it but can't actually get that close. Being able to touch the cars in Nebraska and feel the scale of it, I think that made all the difference. I think it is hard to appreciate the whole feat of the stones and all that from a distance. It would have helped to been able to touch the rocks and feel their weight.

Absolutely rubbish bike racks there too, stupid ones that you can basically lock your wheel up. I already felt a bit freaked out by only having brought one lock with me, not even the heavy one at that, then these crappy racks was the worst. So yeah, free admission with the English Heritage card, underpass under the road and into the fenced off area. They had those little audio guide things but that seemed more annoying so I didn't bother.

So, you walk around, taking pictures, thinking wow, that's pretty impressive, and then what. There was a flock of sheep in the pasture behind and I have to imagine they are the most photographed sheep in the world. Sat in the back part of the circle for a while, looking at the map, plotting where next then. So enough of Stonehenge then, finished the rest of the circle around and headed out. A couple of cyclist were sitting by the racks, but more on them later. My bike was still there, that's good.

Back on the byways then, I take another grassy/rocky path over Wilsford Down, a few mounds and barrows on the way. Back to the main roads, a nice fast ride down to Stoford and down into Wilton. So again in town, a slightly lost, the roads themselves don't bother to tell you, I'm the red road on your map, that's the yellow one over there, and you shouldn't go on that one there since that's the green one. And no green dots anywhere for a Sustrans road. I go by Wilton House, and peek in the gate, seems pretty but it is probably closed by now and I don't care all that much. Then there is a church tucked away on the corner of a busy intersection, St. Peter, Fugglestone, parts of it dating back to the 13th Century.

On my way out the other side, there are a few cyclists across the street yelling and waving at me. They have lost the rest of their group and the Sustrans route, do I know where it is. Checking the map, probably there but I'm not sure. The rest of their group shows up (some of them from Stonehenge earlier) and I'm briefly adopted by them on the few miles back to Salisbury. The route back is actually fairly nice and mostly quiet and they are pretty fast.

In Salisbury, I break off and head down towards the cathedral. I didn't think it would still be open but it was. Part of it was closed so I couldn't see one of the four surviving original copies (hmm, original copy) of the Magna Carta, oh well. The cathedral is impressive inside, a bit odd for a cathedral since it was built in a single 40 year or so period, so unlike most cathedrals built over centuries, it is built in a single style. There is a cool old 700 year old clock too.

On the map, the area to the south of the cathedral looks intriguing, bits of blue stripes of water with the Old Mill at the end of it. The area is water meadows, marshy with channels cut through them to drain and move the water around. It is also the area that Constable painted a few pictures of the cathedral from.

Back to the room to drop my bike off and go searching for food. I walk for a long time, end up back down by the Old Mill again, thinking I might eat there but the place looks all fancy and I wasn't really in the mood for fancy. Back into town and wandering more, getting late, worried that things might be closing, just go into one place, which also turned out to be somewhat fancy and it took forever. I made the mistake of starting to read my book again halfway through dinner and when the waitress came and tried to grab my plate, hey, I'm not done yet. So, she didn't come back for a really long time after that. So, I sat and sat and sat waiting for my bill but she seemed to be ignoring me, although she was running around like crazy most of the night. 30 minutes later, I'm so very tired, it was such a long day and now sitting here forever. I never know if you are supposed to tip people, sometimes they sneak it in the bill, sometimes they say not to, but here I just wanted to go to bed, the card/pin reader didn't ask if I wanted to leave one, I just wanted to go to sleep.

Back to the room, soon asleep.

Neither-here-nor-there town

8 am, time to run and catch a train at Paddington. I sort of know the way there. I'm ok most of the way there, I make it to Chelsea Bridge without much trouble. I've been that way a few times, I kind of remember it. Crossing the river, it is a bit foggy and hazy out. On the north side of the river, I'm a little less sure. I check the map a number of times and make my way through Hyde Park and through some winding streets until I find the station.

It takes me 40 minutes to get there, pretty good time. And a bit of relief since I don't have my tickets yet. Well, I've bought them, but never received them. It just wouldn't be a journey by rail if the tickets weren't messed up somehow. I've already had to go to great lengths to get them. Being a bank holiday weekend, it means the trains are a mess. I'm headed towards Swindon (well, Warminster) and will ride to Salisbury mostly because it wasn't possible to get a train to Salisbury that didn't have some sort of bus replacement (i.e., you want to take a bike on the bus, ha).

So, to the station in plenty of time to sort this out. I try three different ticket offices before I finally find the one who has my tickets waiting. Of course they are messed up. Cycle reservations, not in the packet, so the ticket lady writes me a hand written note saying that I did actually have cycle reservations but that computer problems prevented them from printing out correctly. Ok, I guess, whatever works. So, ticket mess and cycle reservation problems out of the way for the trip then, umm, sort of, but that is skipping way ahead.

Train comes, get my bike loaded into the guard car, find my seat, and we are off. Swindon is only an hour away. It drops me off about 50 miles north of Salisbury. Well, an hour and a half before the train to Bath, switching there to another one to Warminster would take. And I would still be like 20 miles away from Salisbury.

I assemble stuff on the platform in Swindon as the train pulls off. Hopefully I did the right thing here since there goes my train. My ticket confuses the guard on the way out of the station, but I tell her I got off early and she lets it slide.

It is always the first step that is the hardest. Well, coming out of the station, I have no idea where I am, which way is which and how to get to where I want to go. Compass, ok, I guess it is sort of that way. Big towns are a pain with OS maps, they are fantastic in the country but there is not enough detail (or street names) to navigate through towns. I want that yellow road that goes here on the map down that way to there. In reality, I end up going in a circle before I just decide to go south on whatever street until I end up somewhere kind of out of town and then I can figure out where I am on the map.

I guess that works ok, I finally then find some road that looks right, although I miss the stone circle marked on it. Oh well, I guess I'll see other ones on the trip. Umm, traffic too, it is driving me a bit crazy. Getting onto the Ridgeway is a real relief. Ok, it is a bad road, but it isn't awful traffic. It is rocky and bumpy and I'm on a road bike. My poor Condor, so mistreated.

It is slow going, can't go all that fast on the road and it takes a lot of concentration to avoid the huge rocks and holes and ruts. (I totally didn't realize at this point that it would get so much worse.) The country side is beautiful though. Rapeseed is blooming all over the place and there are large patches of yellow. Many of the fields are freshly plowed too and they are really interesting to go past. So much of the area here is on chalk, the fields kind of glisten with up turned rocks, a texture of brown dirt and white rocks. The weather is nice too, not too hot but fairly warm, and birds are flying all over.

I soon come around a ridge and see lots of cars parked. The Ridgeway crosses a small road here and people are parked to go see Barbury Castle. It is an old Iron Age, I think, earthenwork fort at the top of a hill. I debate going to see it, my bike is a bit loaded down and it looks kind of steep, but I came all this way to see things like this so it is silly not to. It isn't too bad of a hike, pushing my bike up to the top. It is two rings of ridges, with a gully in between and a large flat plateau in the middle. There are a number of people walking around lip of the ridge and I do too. The view is rather nice of the surrounding countryside, a bit hazy though.

I sit halfway around and snack on a few things and consult the map. I'm a little concerned, the road so far hasn't been all that easy and there is a ways to go before I get to normal roads. But at this point, there isn't a lot of other ones that are not a large detour out of the way. So, I keep going. There are not all that many people on this road. Considering how many were at the castle and that this is the first bank holiday weekend of the summer, but there are occasional mountain bikes going by, but not much in general. Some guy does pass me, also a mountain bike but the only one I've seen so far with any sort of baggage on it. He says I'm a bit brave for trying this on my bike. (Perhaps he was being polite by not staying stupid.) A little further on, the road gets pretty awful. The rocky road was difficult but just going over grass with lots of really deep grooves and ruts, with a bike with fairly skinny tires and somewhat heavy bags on the back, I nearly fall once when I get stuck in a groove and can't quite get my cleats out in time.

I reach the turnoff for the Wessex Ridgeway, I'm on the home stretch to Avebury now. The road gets somewhat better and is mostly downhill. Then it gets positively better and I find myself around loads of people walking across the street, following the circle of stones around the town.

Avebury is surrounded by, I guess, the largest set of standing stones, in the world, or something. Most of the village is enclosed by them, along with a henge. I can't see all that much from where I am, just a few scattered stones and lots of people milling around. A church ahead, well, looks to be a tourist information center in a former church. I stop to check it out. Then it is a bit past lunch time and I'm rather hungry and I don't see another candidate for lunch on the map anywhere in the near future.

The pub in town is extremely busy, the parking lot is full and the guy says it will take 45 minutes for food. It doesn't seem like I have all that much choice. They are out of mash, so that dashes the idea of sausage and mash, which is normally a pretty safe pub choice. So, I guess the burger then. Which takes an hour and really sucks. The pub in generally looks pretty crappy but I guess considering their location, it doesn't matter, they probably still make money.

Feeling not so great from the lousy food, I go and wander around the town a bit, seeing the stones and all. It is a bit hard to appreciate them all, the scale is just so huge. You can't see the entire formation because there are buildings and a town all around them. And it is packed too. So, I wander on then. The Stone Avenue which heads out of town for a mile or so is rather cool, a twin line of stones headed off to another site.

I keep heading south on some smaller roads. Traffic isn't so bad here and it is nice making good time. I come up to another roadside parking lot and wonder what it is. Well, I saw people off in the distance hiking up a hill before I got there. I sort of figure out it is Knap Hill but I can't figure out what people are going to see (until I got home and saw it has barrows at the top.) I'm amused by the sign that says "Knap Hill has never been and never will be a site for hang gliding" as I see some guy hang gliding off in the distance. Guess he didn't read the sign.

The land around here is pretty cool though. The hills have this really cool texture, like rippling ridges, sort of like a topographical map come to life, the little contour lines, lines across the hills. I wonder what makes them form like that. I keep going, head through Pewsey (which is where I will take the train out in a few days) and at the south side of town, I see the white horse carved in the hill ahead. The really steep hill I'll have to climb.

But I've decided the whole white horse thing is stupid. This whole area has a white horse trail, which I guess connects the various white horses. I have nothing against them, the man carved near Wilmington, in Sussex, I think, is pretty cool because it is pretty distinctive and is actually rather old. But at one point I see a sign highlighting the various horses in Wessex and none of them are more than 100 years old. Some of them were carved less than a few years ago. Something about that strikes me as annoying.

But steep climb, Pewsey Hill is a big climb and there wasn't even a nice vantage point to stop and enjoy the view once I got to the top. Still, I sat and rested for a little bit. I did realize something there as I went through my snacks. Baklava wrapped in foil is bad. Not because it doesn't taste good, it tasted very nice, but foil is rubbish for holding sticky liquids (or solids that are covered with sticky liquids). Should have been in a plastic bag. My stuff was sticky for the next few days.

Then probably my favorite part of the ride for the day. Past Everleigh, most of this area is owned by the military and I pass 10-15 tank crossings. Didn't see a tank though. But then like five miles or so into Haxton, straight quiet road, slightly downhill, just lovely. And a half dozen or so paratroopers come floating down into a nearby air base.

About now, I'm getting a bit tired. There is a B road that follows the Avon but I get frustrated and it winds so much, I can't quite figure out which way I should be going on it, so I give up and just take the A road, which is busy but at least it goes straight and I have a pretty good idea where I'm going. I get really frustrated in Amesbury as I try to find the B road again and end up going in circles way on the outskirts of town and the route seems to be going into some new residential area and doesn't seem to be a through street, so I give up and follow the signs into the center of town and just follow the main road again. It is even busier and is driving me crazy but I'm too tired to go out of my way to find a side road. I'm relived when I get to Salisbury and go past Old Sarum (can't see it from the road but at least I know where it is and I can come back).

The B&B is slightly easier to find that I feared it might be, it is pretty central. They let me put my bike in the garage and I have a nice cup of tea before I go wandering to find some food. I look at a lot of menus and places before I finally give up and just go into one. It isn't fantastic but I guess it was good enough. I wander down by the cathedral, in the dark, and it is pretty in lit up. Back to the room and I collapse for the night, although the pillow seemed to have some perfume or something on it and it started getting to me in the morning. But I guess like 63 miles today, 7 or so of that in London and probably like 15 or 20 on those really bad roads which were quite tiring. So, I deserve a nice sleep then.

Kill yr television

After this story, The BBC has defended its decision to film its Songs of Praise Easter special in November and recent scandals involving rigged 900 number call ins (why somebody wants to pay a pound to vote in one anyways) and quiz shows with 900 number call ins (lotteries with really really bad odds) and so much more, next thing you know, they will be telling us that television isn't real, that people are making stuff up, pretending all that stuff is happening to them.

I like bananas because they have no bones

Actually, I hate bananas for a large variety of reasons. But anyways, I finally pulled myself out of my concert going slump and went to see Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 in Islington last night and I was pretty pleased that I did. I haven't kept up so well with Robyn in the past few years, about half the songs were unfamiliar to me but I enjoyed them and a few of them have lodged themselves in my brain still, like Adventure Rocket Ship.

It was a mix of a few old songs and mostly new ones. The Venus 3 consist of Peter Buck (from R.E.M.) and two others I don't know. Ahh, so sort of R.E.M. related too and links to Ministry and Young Fresh Fellows. Thank you Wikipedia. It was funny watching Peter Buck in another context besides R.E.M. He switched back and forth between 6 string and 12 string. When it was 12 string, most of the songs had a bells of rhymney feel to them. I think I concluded that Mike Mills really is the cool one in R.E.M. though, even though I wish he would stop wearing that rock jumpsuit he has been so attached to in recent years.

The setlist that I remember went something like (a bit out of order and a lot missing):

Acid Bird
Television
If You Were A Priest
N.Y. Doll
Adventure Rocket Ship
Madonna of the Wasps
A Man's Gotta Know His Limitations, Briggs
Arms of Love
Jewels For Sophia
Ole! Tarantula

Encore:
I Often Dream Of Trains
See Emily Play
Kingdom Of Love
Encore:
Give It To The Soft Boys
Listening To The Higsons (band switched instruments)

I suppose I will always be hoping for more Soft Boys or the Egyptians period stuff. It was nice to hear some familiar ones and sing along with them. I loved the introductions to the songs. I couldn't figure out how much of it was sort of repeated night after night and how much he just kind of made up on the spot (all the references to small creatures like squirrels and gerbils, etc). Looking at set lists from other shows, it seems like there is quite a rotation of songs, so I guess it isn't all just prepackaged then. It is nice that I get so many more of the references now that I didn't before I moved to England. It adds a whole new depth to it all.

The best part of the show was the encore. He played I Often Dream of Trains solo with just a little bit of drums. Then the Magnetic Horns were back for a rather noisy version of See Emily Play (a few times during it I found myself thinking of Half Japanese). And Kingdom Of Love, it is one of my favorites, always has been. Then another encore and a fun version of Give It To The Soft Boys nearly scratched the Soft Boys' itch enough. They all switched around (Peter Buck on drums, etc) and finished with a noisy version of Listening To The Higsons.

So, I went home happy. Good to see a legend. I'll have to drag myself out a little more often here.

We're number 2

And here I was all smug some months ago about Hull being the worst place to live in the UK. Well, Channel 4 has yet another worst places to live survey out and Tower Hamlets didn't do so well, or did really well, number 2 in fact. But again, we didn't do as badly as neighboring borough Hackney which was number 1 on the list.

Hmm, and Lambeth isn't even on the list. I might hear about that one later.

Mince

Sainsburys had loads of mince pies on display today. Sigh. Christmas is
still more than two months off. Are we back here again already? Which
brings up the question, mince pies, are they a delightful seasonal treat
or are they a sticky vile disgusting food at any time of year? Not
being British, I'll probably have to pick the latter.

Day 10 - Fort William to London - Back to reality

A few wake up early to get R. to his early train back to London. I sleep through it since my train isn't until noon. It only gives me a few hours so I decide to go along with the ever smaller group up to the trailhead where they intend to hike up at least part of Ben Nevis. Five miles or so there fighting the wind all the way, even without baggage it is a bit of a slog. It is all a bit rushed too, I have to keep track of how long it will take me to get back.

Still, it was worth the sidetrip. The lower falls were nice and the one further on, that rolls down the entire mountainside was really nice. We lock up and head off on foot. I follow along for 15 minutes or so until I know I should head back. I say my goodbyes and quickly head back down, pick up my baggage on the way and head to the train station, stopping at the grocery store for lunch and dinner since I have an all day ride ahead of me. I really want to enjoy the ride from Fort William but I keep passing out and miss a lot of it. Oh well.

So, blah blah blah, trains, switching a few times, panic when the Glasgow one gets in late and how am I going to find my London train in time and get my bike on board. But luckily it is late getting in and all is well. I experience extreme culture shock coming out of Kings Cross. Whoa, city traffic again, give me a second to remember how to do this. But probably like 15 miles for the day. I'm not exactly sure, for some reason my odometer went crazy in a few stations on the train and suddenly 10 miles appeared. And around 420 miles for the entire tour. And what a tour it was. Thanks GC for organizing it. It was brilliant.

And sheep count? I don't know, something more than five and maybe slightly less than the grains of sand on a beach. But the figure might fit closer to the grains of sand estimate. Mechanical problems, I believe just one broken spoke and then last rites for a rear tire which should have been buried months ago.


(The views here represent the opinion of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Wheelers or their officers or of the English or Scottish or even Americans for that matter, especially but not exclusively in matters of weather and its merits, be that wind or rain or sunshine, relative beauty, quaint customs, cuisine, and acceptable sound levels of snoring.)

Day 9 - Ratigan to Fort William - You don't have to go home but you can't stay here

Sad, the last day with most of the group. I wandered out a bit early to walk around and take some pictures of the area. It is funny how blaise you become about all of it so quickly. It is probably like those sheep on Iona and the sunset, yeah yeah, we have seen it, do you have any food? The area is really pretty. What I find I like about Scotland is the wild uncontrolled feel, very bleak and stark too. Southern England is pretty but it has been so shaped and feels like a lot of the rough edges have been smoothed over. There is a lot of Scotland that reminds me a lot of Colorado, northern Arizona and a lot of other places like that that I love.

But a long way to go today and over not so fun roads. We futz around for a bit in the morning and then somebody has to leave. DA and CF head out first followed by G.. I set out a bit later and ride for quite a while by myself. The sign says 57 miles to Fort William and I don't think there is all that much in between here and there.

Long long slow uphill section. I stop to snap a few pictures of a few things, things that I meant to find perfect representations of, a picture that expresses stone bridge-ness, the perfect waterfall, mountain tops with fog rolling over them, solitary tree bravely standing on top of a mountain, etc. All a boy can do is try. The perfect one is out there somewhere, it just hasn't found me yet.

Anyways, eventually I run across G. snacking by the side of the road and roll on past. It gets windier and the sky starts threatening again. There is this weird illusion too where the road appears to be flat or going downhill but is actually still going up. Or maybe I'm just delusional. A bit of frustration though, when I reach what seems like should be the top, there is no nice coasting downhill for a while. The wind sees to that and it is a frustrating slog downhill with rain starting again.

Coming into Glen Cluanie, only a bit over 10 miles, GC had said to start looking for a tea stop at around 20 but I see DA and CF's bikes propped by the side of a pub and I'm relieved. 20 miles, whatever, if there is one there, we can try that one too. Let's never forget I'm on vacation here. The rest pull in a bit after that, much wetter than I got, and we proceed to run through their food supply.

Back out into the rain, back onto the busy road. The rain comes down pretty hard and traffic is miserable. But things get much nicer after the turnoff onto the A87. The wind dies down a bit, the rain mostly stops, the sun tries to come out, and the road is more peaceful. Just as I had predicted. K-land might be a silly dream but sometimes the predictions are right.

We make pretty good time, taking turns fighting the wind, going past Loch Garry (who would ever give a lake a silly name like that?) and I nearly lose hope in Invergarry that there will be a lunch stop because the pub has hidden itself on the far edge of town. We order far too much and for the most part eat it all. Soup, yes please, sandwich, of course one of those too.

We make the turn southward for the final leg. Traffic is miserable there. Apparently GC wound up (by yelling some choice phrases that I won't repeat here) some guy in a car about him yelling at him for not wearing a helmet, so the guy is good and ready by the time he goes past us and he rants at us for a while. CS flips off a 4X4 who nearly runs her off the road. And the scary fun fair ride truck, they might bring joy to lots of kids at fun fairs across the country, but having that thing grinding behind you and then trying to get past, not fun at all.

We eventually arrive intact at the commando memorial outside Spean Bridge and it makes a good place to stop for a while and regroup. Where's G.? We all know he has a train to catch in Spean Bridge and are worried that he will miss it. Eventually everybody arrives and we linger around for a while. Tour buses roll in and out, we should leave but everybody is a bit reluctant. Nobody really wants things to end. But G. has to go. We attempt a group photograph. We suffer a lack of other tourists right at the moment we are ready. So, how many Wheelers does it take to take one group photograph with a timer? This is actually a trick question, three might have been a good answer but I believe there were more than that trying and as far as I know none of them actually succeeded.

We say our goodbyes to G. and decide to head to a tea stop on the canal and take that the rest of the way to Fort William instead of fighting against traffic the rest of the way. We invade another coffee shop and have tea and cake and make plans to meet up again for dinner later before A. and CS and C. head off.

So, the group shrinks a bit more and the rest of us head down the canal, which takes a lot of concentration since you are dodging rocks and holes the whole way. Still, it is preferable to dodging cars and trucks. Eventually we hit Fort William and continue on through to Glen Nevis and halt there for the day. The settings just get prettier and prettier. Ratigan was lovely but here we are basically at the foot of Ben Nevis.

Dinner is a nice affair. It is a walk up the road and then a bit off road and over fences and through puddles and over rocks. We worry a bit about what it will be like to walk back in the dark. But for now, it is the sound of people splashing in puddles and cleats clicking on rocks. Ben Nevis Inn looks like an old stone barn or something. It has a nice view from one end out the window to the mountains. We have one menu between all of us and a few people pull out binoculars to try and read the specials board.

After dinner, we say goodbye to A. and wish CS and C. good luck on their next week going through the Outer Hebrides. I thought it was crazy at the beginning of the week but at this point I'm rather jealous of them having more tour left. CW then leads us on an exciting walk back, a special short cut leading us through numerous puddles and protruding roots and small bridges. GC's crap TFL flashlights last for only a few minutes and are mostly useless. A few people get wet shoes and one trips but there are no lasting injuries. 61.65 miles for the day.

Day 8 - Mallaig to Ratigan - Or I went how far to see a pile of rocks?

So, a day of changing plans. 9:15 ferry this morning from Mallaig. We had to have our bikes out of the terrace by nine but no great rush this morning otherwise. Should have been a short distance day but with a rather steep and challenging pass.

We arrive in Armadale in Skye and granted we were only there a few hours and only saw a bit of it, there were other places I liked better. We made pretty quick work of the first 20 miles or so there. Nothing particually jumps out as being overly memorable about the route. Tea stop near Broadford which should have been just before our adventure over the mountain pass to the next tiny ferry. But then when we went to the turnoff, a sign said the ferry was closed, apparently because of high winds.

The leader types had a quick debate and decided to carry on over the Skye Bridge and go around the lochs the other way to get to Ratigan. And GC still was obsessing about seeing the brochs and was determined to find a way to fit it in. Again, we make pretty quick work of getting to the Skye Bridge and head over it. I suppose it seems like an ok enough bridge, I'm not really sure it fits so well with the surroundings. The part of it that I really liked was the part that runs into Kyle Of Lochalsh and a sea of gorse. See, there's that word again, I'm going to remember.

Five of us (J., CS, C., A. and K) set off in a pack at an apparently pretty fast pace. With the speed and precision of an Olympic cycle team, we power our way to Eilean Donan Castle, or more like we let J. go out front and fight the wind while the rest of us try hard to not get left behind. No, please don't leave me in the middle of lonely Scotland in the wind. But we must have flown pretty fast, we ended up goofing around the castle, having lunch, walking through the castle and then thought we surely must have missed seeing them coming around and on by when we started seeing the rest of the group arrive. The setting of the castle is pretty stunning. The castle itself isn't so bad. I'm not sure it was worth 4.95, maybe more like 3.75, but oh well.

A last sprint to Ratigan with the intention of dumping our baggage and heading off to see the brochs of Glenuig. At least then GC would be quiet about them after that. The hostel setting was amazing, right on a loch. But no time to enjoy that, why exactly did I agree to this? I'm really thinking that as the grade heads into the high teens, must have been approaching 20% at some points. Crazy stuff. My chain jumps off the sprocket once, probably an attempt to commit suicide so it doesn't have to suffer anymore, but I put it back and keep going. It was quite a rush to finally get to the top and look down and see where you got there from, way down in the valley. But then I'm thinking, no, I don't want to go down the other side, it is so on top here, so not a steep climb to get over it again. But I foolishly head on down despite my reservations. These better be really awesome piles of rocks.

We go through Glenelg, which is a lovely little coastal town and head back inland for a bit to find the brochs. There are two of them and even though both of them are a bit more than 50% gone, it is still an impressive sight and feat of building. I whine about riding over passes, I suppose it probably took a bit more work to pile that many stones up that high. We wander around, pose for pictures and consume whatever food anybody brought with them. At the second broch, a small boy comes up and seems desperate to give us any sort of information about them. I suppose we were better conversation that all the sheep around. But all good things must come to an end and we couldn't put off going back over that pass again anymore.

Surprisingly, it wasn't so bad. The climb was much more gradual and we all make our way back over again. CW and DT pass us at the summit just having come over the other side. They don't end up going to the brochs but just turn around after a bit and come back. Dinner is quite a feast and R. gladly contributes the jar of pesto he has been dragging around with him for most of the trip. 63.40 miles for the day.

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.

Day 6: Iona to Tobermory - Six months in a leaky boat, or the storm

Morning in Iona was hopeful, I even started out with my sunglasses on. And they aren't even rose colored. The sky was clear, it was warm, sheep were baaing, it was going to be a good day. I just stuck to shorts from now on. I came to the conclusion that if I wore my waterproof trousers, my legs would be all wet anyways. Or if I wore the not so waterproof trousers, my legs would also be wet anyways. But if I wore shorts, my legs will still be wet anyways but they would dry. CS kindly lent me some waterproof socks, so I was ready for anything, even after getting my shoes all boggy last night. Bring it on.

I wish I had seen more of the front side of the island, you know, the touristy parts, the abbey, the nunnery and whatever else, but oh well. I snapped a few quick pictures as I wizzed by. A pretty island, Iona, it has a neat feel to it. We head back quickly, retracing our previous afternoon. Same stuff, the cute little port town of Bunessan, and the rest of it all. We reach the outskirts of Pennyghael and C. races ahead, I assume anticipating the post office/store, but Pennyghael is mean and goes on for a few miles before you get there. We somewhat dejectedly press on to the stop.

As we are sitting there, the weather takes a decided turn for the worst. Hey, where did our nice sunny day go? I might have to take my sunglasses off and put a jacket on again. Hmm, there's a theme I missed too, the changes. I should have kept track of how many times I took something off, changed jackets, tried trousers, or how about shorts now. Some days were just ridiculous, like all the costume changes at an Elton John concert.

Turning north then, I started out a bit late after the break so I was pretty far behind and it took a while to catch up. The road was very curved and a lot of ups and downs. I eventually caught up near where it turned into a very nice newly surfaced road through what looked like a forest that had been planted all at once and going up a very long steady climb. Once we hit the downhill, the road got a little more beat up and about 1/3rd the way down, everybody seemed to stop at the same spot, even if they were not together at the time, and knew it was time to cover up.

The next little bit is a blur in my memory. I remember it starting to rain, and I especially remember going around a corner and seeing the water off in the distance looking very rough. Somebody pointed and said that we were going to feel that. Then there was some long period of ouch after that. I remember being huddled down, trying to make as small a target as possible, still the rain found my face and felt like being poked with tons of needles. We stopped after a while to try and find a bit of shelter beside a large boulder and have some hot tea and lunch and whatever sweet we might have around. It reminds me of mountain climbers tying off their rope and hanging there under a ledge trying to escape a raging storm.

At this point, we hadn't gotten to the long ride/short ride decision point, but the painful rain made the decision for me. We pressed on, the rain lightened up for a bit and at the crossroads, three went west and the rest of us went on to Salen. We made it to Salen just as it was starting to get the worst. It was quite pleasurable sitting having a nice lunch as you watch buckets of rain, and the buckets too, being thrown at the ground. Cars kept going by and splashing our parked bikes which just seemed really rude of them and just totally wrong.

JA, our odd new adopted friend came in from the height of the rain, dripping over everything. We told him to name drop the Wheelers to take one of our vacant reservations at the hostel in Tobermory. Good deed done for the day, we head out into the somewhat diminished storm and press on the last eleven miles to Tobermory. To celebrate our survival, we head down to the pub and try to see if we can tell the difference between 80 Schilling, 70 Schilling, 60 Schilling and the rest of those.

We head back and check in and park the bikes in the laughable shed. Laughable because it basically had a river flowing through it. Anyways, showers and then nobody could be bothered to cook so it was off to the other pub for dinner. The rain was crazy in the afternoon, but at this point had turned manic. The river coming down the mountain, through the hydroelectric plant, was a bit awe inspiring. You have to wonder even with that rock basin, how long will it last with that sort of water power flowing through it. Then back to the room, insanely hot, and the sound of manic rain until probably 4 am. A painful and well earned 48.66 miles for the day.

Day 5: Oban to Iona - Baa baa black sheep

Probably my favorite day of the trip, long scenic mountains, black sheep, rocky wind swept islands, sunsets over the ocean, how does it get better than that?

Morning dawned and the rain seemed to have mostly passed. We had a quick look around Oban as we made our way to the ferry. The distance that seemed impassible last night from the grocery store seemed to be a bit of a joke now. On the ferry, we hopefully eyed the sunlight off in the distance, not exactly in the direction we were going but if it was there, maybe there was hope.

Once we started going in Craignure, it was raining slightly but it cleared up after a while. It was a long slow climb over the mountains. Most everybody got pretty spread out after a while. There was a lonely broken stone house near the top with a wooden cross. It looked so sad and ghostly. I rode by myself for quite a while. It is a strange feeling being in the middle of the mountains, nobody in sight, hoping that you are on the right road and going the right way. Sort of lonely and sort of nice at the same time. I watched the black and white stripped poles go by and every hillside looked like my favorite Section 25 album cover, you know the one with the hillside with the different colored bamboo poles scattered up the side of it spelling out From The Hip in a way that only would make sense to Factory Records.

Finally, a bit outside Pennyghael, CS and C. show up for a tea and oat cake break in a bus shelter, until the bakery van pulls up and starts conducting business out the back. Must have been selling dodgy cakes at a discount or something. We push onto Pennyghael and invade the solitary post office/store there, eleven teas please.

Onward to the port town of Fionnphort, we stop for ice cream and I take a quick run through the cemetery. The ferry is pulling up so we run to catch it. It isn't on a fixed schedule so we take it when it is ready to go. The other half of the group is still riding through Mull so once we get to the hostel, DA gets sent back to be the welcoming party. The island is only one and a half mile by three miles and there is a single road but it doesn't really say anywhere where the hostel is located.

The ride through town is nice, past the ruined nunnery, past the abbey, past lots of sheep, and to the sheep farm hostel. The island is where Christianity snuck into Britain and it has a bit of that feel still plus a new agey crystal power thing going on too. I think we disturbed some of the people in the common room, clomping in with our bike stuff as they were talking about religion and spirituality and proceeded to kind of take over the kitchen. But we left them alone for a while. The showers were fine and if riding 40 miles wasn't enough, it was time to explore the island. Why don't we climb a 100 meter peak?

Different groups went off in their own directions. I ended up with CS and C. on the back side of the island, wandering through the black sheep near the hostel (seemingly the only ones of that type on the island) and then the rest of the white ones. CS saw the white sand beach and made a beeline towards that, shoes off and I swear she was twirling. I find sand in shoes annoying so I stuck to the higher ground.

Circling around then, we headed up the peak, Dun I as it is labeled on the map. The climb was a bit of scrambling through rock fields and a lot of trying to pick your way through the least boggy parts. I tried avoiding as much as I could but the criteria for a not soggy step seems to diminish as your foot gets wetter and nothing good happens when you take a really wet step and panic and lose where you were had picked your next dry step to be.

The view from the top was spectacular and well worth the climb to the top. You could see the entire island and a lot of the ocean and surrounding islands. DT showed up just as it started raining lightly and we were wondering how to get down, well without going through the bogs again. He said he came up a different way and knew how. (Turns out he didn't know at all, but he seemed so confident about it.)

Dinner was started, a chili, baked potato and apple crumble spectacular. There is still a bit of dispute over the potatoes, who turned on the oven, why they were nice and cooked on top and a bit raw on the bottom and how the crumble got a bit burned in just a few minutes, but no matter, it all got cooked enough eventually and there were little to no remains left afterwards. The wine might have helped too.

The sun set in the meantime and we all ran outside to see it go down and hoping for a green flash. But it was too cloudy for a flash but it was still a pretty sunset. The sheep seemed confused by the whole thing and didn't seem very impressed by the sunset. But I guess they see the same one every night. They got their revenge though, every gust of wind during the night set them off so the night was punctuated by their baaing. Very good day though, 37.62 miles and a long hike and climb up a hill (totally different muscles, you know?)

Day 4: Kilmartin to Oban - And let it rain.

I wandered over to the church to admire it just after getting up. The church was nothing special but the graveyard was rather nice. There were a fair amount of boring modern graves but there was also a nice selection of old medieval grave stones, I seem to remember from like the 14th and 15th Century. It had a nice view out over a sheep pasture backed by some hills. The weather seemed nice enough, slightly misty rain but nothing awful.

Then after breakfast, not pleasant at all. We had no fixed timeline for the day, no ferries, no particular time to leave, no time we needed to be somewhere, so it took a while to get moving. Did I mention rain yet? All hell hadn't broken loose yet but it was starting to warm up a bit. Everybody slowly started moving towards their bikes, putting stuff on, seeing if things were sealed. DA had figured out the previous day how the covers fitted on my panniers, which was good since I would have been even sorrier. As it was, fun fact, did you know if you have a tiny hole in the bottom of your pannier and you spend all day riding through puddles, whatever you put in the bottom of the bag will end up looking like soup. It is true and I have documented proof about that.

We set out and then made it all the way across the street to the Kilmartin House Museum. Historic and somewhat interesting, but mostly dry and not raining inside. DT dazzled us with his musical talents on the singing stones and we learned all about what goes in cairns and what people think the cup and ring things mean. And we dried off from our half a block of riding in the rain. And we headed out again to brave the rain. Some left and I wavered, tempted by the promise of a hot tea and a scone. Jam and cream, of course. We sat in a pleasant dining room covered in glass looking out over the sheep pasture (borderline bog) and watched the rain and the sheep clomping through the mud.

I am kind of delaying writing about the ride this day because for the most part, I don't remember it. It was straight up the A road to Oban. I know the rain must have stopped for a few minutes because I have a few pictures without pouring rain. Was this the day with the crazy descent that nearly blew me off my bike? I was already paranoid and holding on against the wind and as we came over the ridge and saw the water below, the crosswind nearly blew everybody off the mountain. I can't remember if this was the right day though. Scary stuff though, panniers act a lot like sails in the crosswinds.

I don't even really remember getting wet but just being wet for days afterwards. And the most crushing thing, I didn't cry when trains got canceled and delayed getting to Arran, I didn't cry when I finally had to leave the nice museum tea shop and ride all day in the pouring rain, but, sniff sniff, I rode 30 miles, sniff, in the pouring rain, sniff sniff, dreaming of a hot shower and you are telling me there is no hot water? It came on later but I was just too crushed and depressed to try that all over again. You know, the first cut is the deepest.

And how sad is this, 30 miles in the rain, already dripping soaking wet, we walk over to the grocery store to stock up for dinner. It was just way too much to walk back in that rain. Yeah, I'm a little bitter too at the bad people who stole our taxi, that was ours and you took it and you will have to suffer the karma for that act through lifetimes. I do think that a lot more places should install those hot air blowing door things. If I could have put my panniers under those, they might have dried out a lot sooner. The replacement cabbie was chatty and full of useless knowledge.

Nice dinner that night, cooked over across the rainy street in the other kitchen and brought back as quickly as possible before it became waterlogged. Much wine was consumed and lentil stew and a large stack of postcards were written and off to bed. Apparently Oban is a lovely place, it has an odd folly at the top of the hill, a fake coliseum, and probably has other stuff, but it was hidden under a blanket of heavy rain. Oh well, maybe another time. 28.90 miles for the day.

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.

Day 2: On Arran

Starting out at Lochranza, lots of small subgroups had their own ideas about what to do for the day. I chose the sightseeing group with DA and CF and R. which promised standing stones, caves and many tea stops. A few deer had been fighting outside out back of the hostel, the weather seemed hopeful and as I remember, somebody gave me some porridge too. Oats, I ate a silo full of the things. It is amazing how many different forms oats can take.

Anyways, heading off down the west coast, we ran into G. at the small shop down the road, starting another theme for the day, and for the trip as a whole, of G. disappearing and reappearing at random times. Where he went, nobody seems to know. We ride off and I'm quickly distracted by a cute little graveyard just a bit further on. But we have a tea stop to get to, where strangely enough (or perhaps not strangely at all), we run into everybody else who had left so much earlier than we did. After tea, we make our way to Machrie and the standing stones there. We walk, we pass sheep and climb over fences and there they are. Most are tiny and mostly missing stones, but two of the circles have pretty impressive tall stones still left.

Head back to collect our bikes. Hi G., bye G.. And ride south to Blackwaterfoot and have lunch in the golf course cafe. Head back up north to trek through the woods, across a ridge where we can see the plains where we just were with the standing stones, and down the coast to see King's Cave where Robert Bruce hid out, much like the dozens of log cabins (built out of modern logs years after his death) across Illinois where Abe Lincoln (who wasn't born in a log cabin) was born. Still the walk was nice. Hi G., bye G., and then we make our way down to the ocean and try to figure out which cave is the right one. Must be the one with the steel grating in front, which fortunately was unlocked so we could experience history first hand. Much like the family in the cave next to it who was living history by camping out in that cave.

Ahh, then the fun starts, although I don't know how we came out better off than GC did in Iona with his muddy shoes. But anyways, we could have gone back over the same trail or taken the adventuresome trail through the woods, which was noted might be somewhat boggy. Ok, wiser now. It was fine going up the hill and into the woods, but at that point the trail disappeared as did a lot of the dry footing. R. had a compass which was probably good otherwise we would have ended up probably even further off the trail. Eventually we ended up back on the original trail and had to backtrack a ways, but at least it was dry.

We called it a day and headed back, up a few steep grades and through 45 minutes of rain. Dinner was prepared and the walkers tried in vain to get us to join in with their Scottish dancing. They actually looked like they knew what they were doing and didn't have somebody calling out confusing and contradictory instructions, and somehow skillfully avoided the big pole in the middle of the room. So, way beyond my abilities. 35.91 miles for me for the day.

Day 1: London to Lochranza

(I suppose I can serialize my trip to Scotland. It was fairly amusing.)

Up before the dawn, an early day, have to get to Finsbury Park to catch the train. My first big bike tour. I hope I packed the right stuff. I did some last minute oh I need this and jettison that in a vain attempt to find the perfect balance of stuff to get me through the week. Much wiser now, the next time will be perfect.

No Kings Cross because of maintenance work (note this item as a reoccurring motif through out the day. Dear England and Scotland, this is your railroad, we are closed for the bank holiday weekend, please stay home and don't bother us. Hugs and kisses, National Rail.) I would see many happy faces today as everybody found out that trains were delayed and canceled all over the place.

So, skip ahead to much later, made it to Edinburgh. On the way, I admired the fields of yellow. Pretty stuff. Not the same stuff as the yellow bushes all over Scotland. Gorse, I asked many times, forgot just as many. Will not forget now, gorse, gorse.

Rage started showing. I made my way to the car with the bike rack on the Glasgow train and made sure I was first on. A dad then crowded on with his three sons and their bikes and when the conductor told them there were too many bikes on the train, he raged and cursed and said many colorful things about the rail system. (See, a motif.) He must have worked it out later because two of the sons ended up back on and I presume the rest of them somewhere else on the train.

Glasgow, off to my 15 minute tour as I tried to find the other train station for my connecting train to Androssan. Hmm, more trouble on the horizon, there are no trains to Androssan today. Please Ms. nice ticket lady, write down exactly where I need to go and what trains and where to switch. Of course it didn't matter because the train from Kilwinning got canceled anyways. After a while, they found a coach to take me, my bike in the cargo hold, and a bus load of pissed off yet jolly passengers to somewhere. They let me off somewhere in Androssan, which was close enough, go that way behind those buildings and there is a ferry there.

Found it, got tickets, only 30 minutes to the last ferry of the day. So, considering everything, not bad. Met up with G. and J. there and rode the ferry over. The ride from Brodick was uneventful, lots of sheep, earth tone colored plants and landscape, wind, hills, and the sun set on us. The hill seemed awful at the time but in retrospect it was probably not much at all. Today as I was leaving for work, I loaded a bunch of extra stuff I probably didn't need at work into my pannier, I suppose as a sentimental thing, or maybe so that I don't lose my edge so quickly.

We were the last arrivals, so things were already winding down for the night. Dinner had already been served and the local restaurants had all closed. GC hooked me up with spare pasta that was around and I was happy. This introduced me to the never ending wonder of food on these tours. For one thing, I don't even like food all that much but there was just so much good food, and so much of it too. And also of the wonder of the packrat tendencies. Nobody had any food but pretty much anybody could pull together stuff out of pockets and panniers to feed a family of eight, which I suppose would feed two cyclists. And locusts, and in other news, a pack of 11 cyclists descended on town X and tore through the entire scone supply and only left a small trail of empty tea cups. 22.30 miles for the day. Sorry, I don't know what that is in kilometers since I don't speak kilometers. America beat off that pesky metric system in the 70s.

Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight

So, I missed the actual competition, something else was on better like yet another show about restoring your home/buying a home in Eastern Europe/auctioning off grandma's crap from the attic/plan your holiday to Eastern Europe/etc, or I was in the pub or something. Lordi was crowned kings of Europe. I must reflect though that previous champions have included ABBA, Celine Dion, and also loads of others who have never been heard from again.

I love how the news reports are calling them the "first heavy metal-type entry". Are they wavering as to whether they are heavy enough to be heavy metal or if they are too heavy.

As for myself, when I heard they won, Finland, dark metal, hmm, that's close to Norway isn't it? But no such luck. When I finally heard them, most of it sounded lifted right from KISS. For saying they are going to bring the balls back to rock, what's up with all the synth in the background? The stuff isn't even very fast. A lot of it is even sensitive, with that crappy post David Lee Roth Van Halen backing vocals stuff. Well, it probably sounds more like that period stuff than KISS. Sigh. I guess this is one band that isn't going to be torching churches. Norway seems so very far away from Finland.