Day 1: Excited eejits

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Day 0: Terminated Trains

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Last week, the weather in the Western Isles was, according to pretty much every weather app going, pretty decent. That is to say 18 degrees and sunny.  Last Saturday night, engineers had not decided to make a dogs dinner of repairs to the railway.  Timing, as they say, is everything.  Today started innocently enough. I had, months ago, planned transport which would take me from Wiltshire to the tiny village of Tyndrum, 55km from the Port of Oban and the smallest village in the world to have 2 train stations.  Getting to Tyndrum was, in theory, reasonably straightforward. Get the train to London, ride across London to Euston, then take the Caledonian Sleeper train north.  Those overnight engineers had other ideas though. The late finish had caused havoc with the train service from Bristol to London, with the train which I had booked and 3 others being cancelled.  I plumped for an earlier train which was apparently running, and set off. The 10km or so to Chip...
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Day 4: Lochs & Lumps

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Skye is an assault on the senses. That is to say that on nipping in to pub opposite the campsite last night I saw more people that I’d seen in total in the past 2 days. To be fair it was a busy pub. But you get my point.  Whilst there, I took the opportunity to plan the next 24 hours. What to do with this day which had been given back to me thanks to the high winds of Mull Sound which seemed like a lifetime ago.  My first thought was to take a loop around Skye on a route which just so happened to pass the door of the Talisker distillery. Then I realised that it was impossible to do a tasting tour without at least 2 weeks notice.  My next plan was a loop of Loch Alsh and Loch Dutch. A cunning plan indeed since it would provide an opportunity to dump my tent & luggage at a campsite 30km away and continue the rest of the loop without carrying it all, and it would put me 30km nearer the ferry to Mallaig the following morning, meaning longer in bed. Lovely. That sorted, I ...
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Day 3: alternative arrangements

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 Plan B.  My decision to spend the night wild camping on the shore of the Atlantic was perhaps misguided.  Stunning though it was, the wind was brutal. Kudos to my tent which held up to the task.  Checking the ferry website, I realised that the ferry I needed to catch to Skye didn’t run on Wednesdays. I’m a day ahead, if you remember.  However, another ferry was running from Lochmaddy, and that meant riding south, with the - still 40mph - wind behind me. Plus it meant an 8:30 alarm as opposed to a 6:30 alarm. I didn’t need telling twice.  The ride to Lochmaddy was fast and scenic. The ferocious tailwind meant that I found myself riding uphill faster than I’d ridden down the same hill yesterday evening. That’s more like it.  I was early for the ferry so stopped at another museum / cafe for a second breakfast, since - nice as rehydrated porridge is - it’s no sausage & egg bap. Again, I cannot tell you the subject matter of the museum but I’m sure it’...
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