f4f3 | There and back again...

Well, I survived the Five Ferries...

I had planned a nice travelogue, with pictures. But LJ's stubborn refusal to rotate anything (I'm sure it's a Russian trait) means that I'll put the pictures up on Flikr, and you can have the words here (I'll put up a Flikr link once I have the pictures prettified - they're here ).

The Five Ferries route is 60 miles of cycling (about 50 of them vertical, it seems) which take in 5 ferries (go figure) two islands and two peninsulas. It's probably the route that most reminds me that Scotland, at least in the West, was an island culture before it was anything else. I'd planned to do the trip in two days, with

danieldwilliam of this parish, but he had to drop out, and my friend Eric stepped in. He wanted to do it over three days, which suited me, since we could break the journey and I could sleep at the cottage. Not a small consideration.

But he was saddled with a nameless lurgi, and asked on Saturday morning, when we were in Arran, if we could scale back to two days and let him spend tonight in his own bed. I was slightly pissed off, but there wasn't a huge alternative, so I agreed that we'd do 4 ferries and 40 odd miles on the Saturday. I'd done this route before, in warmer weather, so I knew I could do it. Leaving from Tarbert to Portavadie at 1.15 instead of 11 or so, though, brought in an element of deadline pressure I could have done without (and also meant I missed Skipness. I had wanted to go there, and sit by the sea, and listen for answers from the waves, and I regret not doing that. I'll make up for it next week).

I was a little worried that I was going into this ride with no practice, too, and that I'm a couple of years older than I was last time. There are three tough hills on the ride - the first on Arran, from Corrie up to the peak overlooking Lochranza, the saddle over from Claonog to Tarbert, and worst of all, the climb from Tignnabruicht to a viewpoint overlooking the Kyles of Bute. Each of these was as hard as I remembered them, and not made easier by the sight of Eric disappearing into the distance. I had to get off and push for a while on each of them. So I felt pretty decrepit. And yet, and yet... On the final, flat nine miles, down the coast of Bute to Rothesay, I changed up to the biggest gear and blew past Eric as if he was standing still. I did that last 10 miles or so whistling, and was singing as I pulled up outside Zavaoroni's Cafe for my fish and chips.

So I need to mark the weekend as a success. I slept for about six hours last night, dog-tired as I was, and decided to come back through to Edinburgh a day early. Eric offered to put me up, but I decided I'd rather save myself the drive to work tomorrow. I've found an incomprehensibly cheap hotel near Edinburgh Zoo, I've eaten well if not wisely, and I'm off to sleep soon.

Well, after I format the weekend's photographs.