Day 9: Ayr to North Loch Lomond

A sunny start

This morning was a weird one - it was sunny. Maybe we wanted to make the most of the good weather, maybe dry equipment is easier to pack, but somehow the sunshine translated into the quickest packing/breakfast/tent-take-down sessions we have yet had, and we were on the road by 9:15 - a new record

We first headed into Ayr, the nearby seaside town, and found the main road north. It took us through many similar resorts, with pretty B&Bs, closed-up shops and more hand car washes than I could count. Passing Prestwick airport, still in sunshine, we stopped for second breakfast. Cyclists are very much like hobbits; unkempt beards, smelly feet and a multitude of meals (breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper) being just some of the comparisons. We then found ourselves on a quiet ring road around Irvine, a large Scottish town apparently with nobody in it. Heading on north avoiding the main road we eventually emerged on the only road around the Strathclyde coast. In the hazy sunshine we could even see the mountainous Isle of Arran across the beginnings of the Firth of Clyde, a large finger of water that reaches 40 miles inland to Glasgow.

The Firth of Clyde narrows on our left

As we headed up what was a beautiful coast road, the Firth narrowed and steeped on either side. After a morning of pushing hard into a stiff northern breeze, we hit 80km.on the cycle computer and came to Gourock. Lying on the northern tip of Ayrshire, Gourock is a steep-sided town on the banks of the Clyde and the gateway to the highlands. It also holds some Osborn family importance, with my great-grandmother living in a little house high up on the hill. My dad, from whom both Catherine and I caught the bug of hiking and mountaineering, spent many a summer up in that house. Maybe, in some round-about way, that little town is the origin of this entire trip.

From Gourock we caught a tiny passenger ferry across the Firth of Clyde. Although the boat had been soaked by a sharp shower on the previous crossing, by the time we reached Kilgreggan it was sunny once more. On the boat, a worried local came up to us and enquired our route. "Yous should'ney go that way" he said. "The road to Arrochar is dangerous". Instead he pointed us to a ridiculously mountainous road, atleast 20km out of our way before leaving. We considered his warning and decided the reward of a direct route would be worth the risk.

Before reaching this 'Death Road', we had a beautiful ride along one of the many sea-lochs stretching from the Firth of Clyde. Across the bay was a shadowy docklands at the foot of a wooded hill that was apparently an MOD submarine base. After a huge 15% hill we finally met 'Death Road'. And what a road it was. Sure it was narrow, had sharp turns and a roller-coaster of blind summits, but the views were stunning. To our left through dense deciduos forest was a sharp drop to a sea loch, a fjord cut by rivers of ice 20 thousand years ago and flooded by the sea. Rather than being a deep blue, it was a dark green, reflecting the steep wooded slope only 800m away on the other side. Parked at the entry of the fjord, almost covering the entire inlet, was a huge megatanker transferring oil from some distant oil field to MOD depots. A lone kayaker, who was also making his way up the loch, was dwarfed billions-to-one by this titanic ship.

Sunbeams over Loch Long having ridden "Death Road" to its conclusion

And for mile after mile this road went, skipping up and down small hills like a cycling rollercoaster. And the views continued. By this point, breaks in the cloud were few and far between, but as we entered the village at the terminus of the fjord a beam of sunlight could be seen moving steadily across the centre of the loch. It truly was an amazing sight.

Next we crossed from this sea loch at the mercy of tides and mariners into a true loch - Loch Lomond. Once again the road wound around the West bank as we headed north. This route was busier, however, and the road surface was littered with potholes. Despite all this, the views made it an experience to savour.

However, after the longest and most beautiful day of our trip so far, something was always going to shatter our illusions of success. The thing to do the shattering on this particular day was the pannier rack that holds the stuff above my rear wheel. After one pothole too many and a load cracking noise, i looked back and saw the rack cleaved in two and sticking out at unnatural angles like a badly broken limb. After crawling away from the blind corner on which i was inadvertantly parked we found a lay-by to inspect the damage. Usually two spokes link the base of the rack to my bike frame, each welded to a central support. Almost an inch of welding had given way, and the rear spoke was scratching at my frame nearly 6 inches from where it should be. Although i had no welding torch to hand, i did have a good long piece of rope. This, for now, is all that supports a quarter of the 20kg carried by my panniers. But, by avoiding the biggest pot holes, my bodge job somehow made it the 10km down the road to our campsite.

The campsite, thanks to its location by Loch Lomond and half way along the West Highland Way, has everything someone miles from civilisation would want - a shop, restaurant, bar, showers, etc. Another thing it has in abundance is midges. The little things seem to have saturated the air around me and, even with lavishly applied bug spray, continue to be a nuisance. It is refreshing that today, rather than constantly worrying about how to get dry and keep our gear from getting wet, our only real worries have been sunburn and midges ('First world problems', i guess). At last though, after 5 days of rain and questioning the motives behind this trip, today has reminded me why we are here: To cycle through some of the fairest parts of these isles using only our own two legs.

Helped by flat coastal roads we did our longest ever day: 146km

Tomorrow, with my rope-strapped bike, we will cross Rannoch moor, ths largest uninhabited area in the uk. It is 100km to Fort William, our base for climbing Ben Nevis and our end point. I can only hope that my bodge-job holds...

Stats:
Distance: 125km
Total Distance: 720km
Average Speed: 19.3kph

Rainy-ness: 2/10
Midges: 9/10
Scottishness: 8/10

Day 8 - Lochmaben to Ayr

It's not ideal, but on this trip we have three types of gear: cycling stuff for each days ride, camping gear for the evenings to cook, sleep and shelter, and hiking gear to take us up each of the three peaks. Every morning, without fail, we have to pack each bit of kit back into three tiny bags and fit these back onto the bike. And usually this occurs in the rain with no tent for protection (it needs packing too). Its a long and tedious process and this morning was no exception. For two and a half hours we packed up, piled everything onto the bikes and left our loch-side campsite, all under grey scottish drizzle.

Today's route with a long steady climb lasting nearly 60km!

The hills began almost immediately as we cut across on back roads from Lochmabin to the main Dumfries to Kilmarnock route which cut through the southern lowlands. Although this route started busily enough in boring agricultural surroundings, it soon turned into a beautiful (and quiet) alpine pass. To our left was a steep ravine cut by a deep, fast flowing river. On our right were steep forested slopes bounded at the top by a train line. The gentle gradient was also almost enough for us to forget that we were climbing into the mountains.



After lunch by the ravine the road levelled off into a more open valley. Wild sheep pastures slowly transformed into narrow fields and we seemed to re-enter civilisation. The shallow gradient was gone, however, replaced by steep rolling hills. The solitude of the mountains had also been replaced by a multitude of impatient car, lorry and tractor drivers. Reluctantly we followed this route for the rest of the day. 

Smooth private roads

In a car, the state of the road surface probably has absolutely no effect on the smoothness of the ride. On two-inch-wide, suspension-less road bike wheels however, a bad road surface is as noticable as the light of day and Scotland seems to have more than its fair share of dodgy road surfaces. Most look like a patchwork quilt of quick-fixes, with each layer of pothole-covering asphalt simply creating a more uneven surface. After an afternoon of continuous ups and downs, as well as a thin drizzle that stopped and started at will, we found a touristy cafe in the grounds of a castle. Remarkably the private road from the castle gate house to the cafe was one of the best road surfaces we'd seen all week. There we researched campsites and found a welcoming caravan park 10km away on the outskirts of Ayr.

A sunny evening for once!

The site was nice enough except for the rabble of kids who, despite apparent free roam of the site, emitted their high pitch shreiks only in the area around our tent (Oh no, ive turned into one of those people). Amazingly the dense white cloud that had hung over our heads all day seemed to melt away and a dim evening sun appeared. With weather warnings in force for tomorrow, however, it is when rather than if the next drenching will occur.

Tomorrow we follow the Ayrshire coast to Gourock and cross the Firth of Clyde by ferry. That means that this time tomorrow we will be in the Highlands! I can smell the whiskey already. Or is that just the rain?

Stats:
Distance: 101km
Total Distance: 595km
Average Speed: 20.0kph