SEVEN DAYS … FIVE BOATS … THREE ISLANDS … ONE MONSTER — A JOURNAL OF MY FIRST EVER BIKE TOUR.

Today the only thing left to do was to grab the bikes hop on the train to Glasgow and head for home. We switched stations in Glasgow and took a train to Stranrear, took the boat to Belfast and mum picked us up and rove us back to Bangor. A great tour for my first tour.

The following are some of the stats:

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We left Windhill, or the campsite nearby it for that matter, and headed south towards Loch Ness. We hit the first and only big climb of the day early before descending sharply down to the edge of the Loch. We stopped for a good hour or more at the Loch Ness Centre to find out a bit more about the Monster at their museum before heading down to the shores of the Loch to see if we could see the monster for ourselves. Naturally, as you’d have heard by now if we had, we didn’t see any monster and so went about riding the length of the Loch. At the bottom end of the Loch, just outside Fort William we made another stop, to get some photos at the Commando War Memorial up on a hill above the town. The weather held up good as it had every day except the day through Skye and we rolled into Fort William to end the tour treating ourselves to a B&B for the night.

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With time to kill before getting the ferry off the island we went exploring Stornoway. It was a bigger town than I thought it was going to be given how far out of the way it is with a population of about 10,000. We done a bit of shopping and I bought the new Oasis single which has gone to number one before getting the long boat back to the mainland. The boat back was longer than the boat across further down the Island, it took a few hours but we finally hit Ullapool for the ride down towards Inverness. Don’t let the word ‘down’ fool you though, we had to go up quite a bit before any kind of down. One of the climbs out of Ullapool was the biggest and maybe the longest of the Tour so far, but we hauled ourselves over the top and got quite a good scenic shot at Loch Glascarnoch for our efforts and it was all downhill into Windhill. It is at this point I must point out how accurate I am with Windhill: I can no longer remember exactly were the campsite was that night, it wasn’t in a town but on a road in and around Windhill so I picked this as the location. With no town to walk into, dinner was with our camping stove and rations!

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Weather a little better today so got to see a bit of Skye before reaching the North West corner of the island and taking a long ferry ride across to the Outer Hebrrides. The ferry ride was probably longer than the one across the Irish sea so we really were out in the middle of nowhere now. The weather picked up through and we rode the length of the Isle of Lewis up to Stornoway. On the boat over we ran into a young Eastern European who was riding the length of the UK and he joined us for the majority of the ride on the Island before swinging off to some Youth Hostel somewhere short of Stornoway.

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The only word to describe this day would be RAIN. Lots of it. Low clouds and heavy rain faced us when we got off the ferry on the Isle of Skye and after hearing how beautiful the country side was on the island for those that had been before I, unfortunately, still have to rely on others descriptions as we seen nothing of it. The rain coats were on, the heads were down and we ploughed on to get some kind of miles on and advance us further up the coast line. By the time we reached Portree for the night the rain had eased off and allowed us to put the tent up in the dry. All hopes that tomorrow will be better. We spent the evening eating in the town and catching the highlights of the Tour which was not getting into the serious business. Good old Cedric Vasseur lost his Yellow jersey.

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The first mile or so was the easiest mile of the day, straight downhill into the town to the ferry terminal to head back to the mainland. When we reached the mainland at Kilchoan we were in one of the most Westerly points in Britain. This was a pretty hilly day, if it wasn’t going up it was going down. By now I was feeling much stronger, my legs having got used to the miles, the climbs and the heavier bike. The weather wasn’t great by the time we reached Mallaig so we checked into a B&B for the night and saved ourselves the hassle of the tent.

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Tent down and underway again in more nice weather. Took the road up to Oban with a few climbs to really get the legs going. Arrived in Oban but had time to kill before getting the boat so grabbed some lunch. We then left the mainland for the first time on the tour over to the Isle of Mull were we would ride the length of it before camping for another night. After almost 59 miles on the bike, what you want to do is cruise into town and down into the campsite … You don’t want to have to go up some steep little climb just to get your nights sleep, but in Tobermory that is what you have to deal with. We arrived in the town, got directions to the campsite and hauled the over weight bikes up the hill behind the town to pitch the tent for the night.

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It was July 1997, I was just 15 years of age, the summers were always sunny (except 15 July) and according to my Dad I was clearly ready to join him by embarking on my first big-time bike Tour … Big-time in that the equipment was being carried on the panniers of our bikes and that we would be staying in tents and away for at least a week and putting in serious miles. Although the Tour happened more than twelve-years ago I am amazed by how much I can still remember and recently spent time mapping the entire Tour on Map my ride. The following is the route and a break down of each individual day on the road …

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