LeJoG Day 19 - How great is our God!

[The LORD] makes the clouds his chariot

    and rides on the wings of the wind.

(Psalm 104:3)

This morning's forecast still showed a storm over the far north-east of Scotland, where we were due to cycle today.  We set off, hoping to get as far as possible before the storm hit.  We'd been advised to take the road up the valley of the River Helmsdale, and down the valley of the River Halladale to the north coast on the other side.  It was a good piece of advice.  It was a lovely road to cycle, a mainly gentle upward slope to the top, and then gently downhill.

We were blown up the valley, before the storm!  The wind made it very easy cycling, and the rain never caught up with us!  After two hours, we'd reached the top, and by lunchtime, we'd reached the coast road to the north.  That was 40 miles!  So thank you to everyone who was praying for the weather to be kind to us - and praise the Lord for answered prayer!  

Once we turned onto the coast road towards Thurso, it was immediately clear how blessed we'd been.  We were now trying to cycle against the wind - and it's very exposed up there!  We soon decided that we'd quit while we were ahead.  Steve met us in the car for lunch, and we gave ourselves the afternoon 'off'. 

Not long before lunch, we passed a sign which told us we were 37 miles from John O'Groats.  So tomorrow we have less than 40 miles to cycle!  We're going to continue to Duncansby Head, which is a couple of miles further than John O'Groats, and even further north and east!

There's not far to go now!

The A897 out of Helmsdale
- Joel didn't believe me when I said it was an 'A' road!

Right at the top of the pass we found
this sign and 'cairn'

Looking back down the Helmsdale valley

We were paralleling the Far North Line to Thurso and Wick -
this is Forsinard Station, which we came to shortly after
starting our downward journey

It's very remote up there!

LeJoG Day 18 - Keep right on to the end of the road

Keep right on to the end of the road, 

Keep right on to the end, 

Tho' the way be long, let your heart be strong, 

Keep right on round the bend. 

Tho' you're tired and weary still journey on . . . 

This Scottish song describes my feelings about our journey quite well at the moment!  (Although, of course, it refers to our journey through life, and was written by Sir Harry Lauder after his son was killed in action during WW1).

When we got to Loch Ness on Saturday, it felt as if we'd as good as reached the end of the road - there were only four days of cycling left, with shorter distances than we'd been doing.  After two and a half weeks of cycling, we're much fitter.  So I thought these last few days would be easier.  More fool me!  While we are much fitter, but we're also 'tired and weary'.  It's a struggle to keep going.  But I'm glad we're cycling, and not walking!  We met a couple today who are walking Lands End to John O'Groats, with their dog!  They started towards the end of April, and are hoping to reach John O'Groats during the first week of August.

Our ride today started with a very pleasant 10 miles or so above the Cromarty Firth, to Tain.  We visited this town two years ago, 'ancestor hunting' - Steve has ancestors buried in the cemetery there.  We didn't revisit their grave today, though!

From Tain onwards, we were on the A9, across the Dornoch bridge and then north-east along the coast to Helmsdale.  Maybe 30+ miles of grinding along a major road has added to my sense of struggling to continue at present!  The road wasn't too busy, so not as scary as the road along the Great Glen on Saturday, but it's not the kind of road where you can relax and enjoy the ride.  Fortunately, the rain held off until we arrived at Helmsdale, where we're staying in a B&B.  A hot bath and a good meal have done their job, and a good night's sleep will hopefully leave us ready to tackle the road up the Strath of Kildonan and on to the north coast, and to Thurso tomorrow.  It still looks as if we're likely to be getting both wet and wind-buffeted, but Thursday looks better, so even if we do a relatively short distance tomorrow, we're still on course to get to John O'Groats on Thursday! 

Not many photos today - just these two views of the
Dornoch Firth, taken from the bridge across it

LeJoG Day 17 - A sunny day in Scotland

The weather forecast for this week was good for today and tomorrow (where we are, at least!), but lousy for Wednesday.  So we decided we'd better try to make the best of the two good days to come.

Our rest day yesterday was much needed, but once again, made it harder to get going again this morning!  Even so, we set off in good time to go back up to Loch Tarff.  It's hard to grasp that our adventure will all be over on Thursday!

We still had the rest of Saturday evening's hill to climb, a few miles of hard slog.  Once we reached the top though, General Wade's Military Road stretched in front of us, and we had some long downhill stretches, eventually reaching the side of Loch Ness a few miles further on. The road continued into Inverness, where we had lunch by the River Ness.  It was a beautiful day, as you'll see if you look at the photos below!

After lunch, we continued over the Kessock Bridge, which gave us great views over the Moray Firth to the east, and Beauly Firth to the west.  We made good progress, and after an ice cream stop in Dingwall we climbed up to parallel the main road above the Cromarty Firth, and had even more fantastic views.  

We didn't manage to get very far ahead of ourselves, but as we're staying tonight at the Youth Hostel in Inverness, the further we went, the longer the drive both this evening and tomorrow morning!  We're all very tired, and energy levels aren't as good as they were last week.  Prayers that the weather won't be quite so bad as expected on Wednesday would be greatly appreciated.

Urquart Castle across Loch Ness

A view along the length of Loch Ness

 

Lunchtime view - pedestrian bridge over the
River Ness in Inverness

Lunchtime view (2) - looking the other way along the river

A view of Cromarty Firth

Another view of Cromarty Firth -
what looks like an insignificant bridge is actually
the A9 crossing - the major road in NE Scotland

LeJoG Day 16 - The unpredictability of cycle routes

Until Friday night, we've been very lucky in the Youth Hostels we've stayed in, which have been very quiet overnight.  On Friday our luck ran out, as a coach turned up at Glen Nevis hostel at 11.45 pm, just as Steve and I were trying to go to sleep.  It stopped outside our window with its engine running for 15 minutes or so, and of course its impossible for a coach load of people to come in very quietly!  Not conducive to a good night's sleep!

Coming back to the cycling - on Friday I was very thankful for the cycle tracks we travelled - yesterday (Saturday), I was very unimpressed!  

From South Ballaculish, where we finished on Friday and started again yesterday, there's a good cycle track alongside the road as far as the Corran ferry - although at one point it suddenly disappeared, there was a confusing selection of patched road and dropped curbs in the wrong place for cyclists, which resulted in Joel taking a bit of a tumble - fortunately no real damage was done.

The National Cycle Network sends people across the Corran ferry to the north side of Loch Linnhe, and then back on the ferry at the other end to Fort William.  We'd already decided to stay on the main road - it's shorter, and avoids the potential delays waiting for a ferry.  We also picked up that the route over there goes along a single track road, which is used by lots of logging lorries, so it's not much safer than the main road anyway.  It was lucky for us it was a Saturday - traffic wasn't too bad.  But the main road has no provision for cycles, and little opportunity for people to overtake, so I was very relieved when we made it to Fort William without incident!  At one point, we'd pulled into a layby and were joined by another cyclist.  He was doing Lands End to John O'Groats in nine days - yesterday being the penultimate day.  That means cycling about 100 miles a day - the most we've managed, on a very good day, is 65!  But speed isn't everything - the best bits of our ride, for me at least, have been the times when we've been on quiet roads, or off-road on good tracks, and there's time to enjoy the scenery, hear the birds sing, and give thanks to our Creator God for so much beauty. 

Once we were through Fort William, we joined the towpath beside the Caledonian Canal, which was a lovely ride.  The Caledonian Canal was built as a shipping canal, so it's very wide.  It joins the lochs along the Great Glen, so ships can travel from Inverness at the north-east end to Oban and so out to sea at the south-west end (and vice versa, of course!)  It's one of Thomas Telford's amazing feats of engineering.  The locks (with a 'k' not an 'h'!) are enormous - we saw about half a dozen boats of various sizes start on their way together up 'Neptune's Staircase' (a series of eight locks) from Fort William.  According to Wikipedia, it's the longest staircase lock in Britain, and it takes about 90 minutes for a boat to go through the whole system.

When we got to the south end of Loch Lochy, we were onto minor roads for a few miles, but then found ourselves on a very bumpy forest track for the next few!  After a few minutes, we'd had enough of it, and unfortunately the next section of canal towpath, between Loch Lochy and Loch Oich, didn't look very good either!  So it was back to the main road for the next few miles.  Fortunately, that was followed by another good section of canal towpath to Fort Augustus.  It's a shame that you can't tell from the Sustrans map what kind of surface an off-road cycle track is going to have . . . 

From Fort Augustus, we had a big climb up the road to the south side of Loch Ness.  It was a killer, at the end of the day, and after six days of cycling!  We didn't quite make it as far as we'd intended, but we'd done most of the climbing by the time we decided to call it a day.  Once we'd loaded the bikes onto the car, we drove the rest of our route to Inverness (we'll cycle it tomorrow!), and stopped at the viewpoint to take some photos.

Last night and tonight, we're staying by Loch Ness.  Today is a rest day (much needed) - a chance to wash smelly cycling clothes, do some maintenance on the bikes, and take stock.  We were watching the weather forecast this morning, and looking at the map of Britain, and where we now are, it seems phenomenal how far we've come!  

Cycling up the towpath beside Neptune's Staircase

A collection of boats in one of the Neptune's Staircase locks

Ben Nevis in the background
- we travelled the railway in the foreground two years ago

Part of the Caledonian Canal near Fort William

General Wade's Military Road -
part of our route for tomorrow (Monday)

LeJoG Day 15 - Thank you, Sustrans and Dr Beeching!

This morning we told the boys that over the next two days we needed to cover 108 miles.  They didn't even bat an eyelid!  Our perspectives on the kind of distance we can cover in a day are changing!

We tried to get going as early as possible this morning - there was a 24 mile drive back to where we finished last night, which takes a while on winding Scottish roads.

Those first 24 miles, back to Oban, were quite hilly.  Joel started struggling because his leg was hurting, it was raining on and off, and it began to look unlikely that we'd complete the distance before lunch.  But some edible encouragement, along with ibuprofen, and prayer, worked wonders, and we were back at the Youth Hostel by lunchtime, enjoying a portion of chips along with our sandwiches.

From Oban, we went north, up the coast road, over the bridge across the mouth of Loch Etive, up to the south side of Loch Creran, over another bridge to the Strath of Appin, and round to the south side of Loch Linnhe.  For a lot of the route we were on a very good cycle track, partly along a disused railway (thanks to Dr Beeching!), and partly alongside the main road.  It was part of the Caledonia Way, and was very well signposted, with a good surface.  With beautiful views and very little navigation required (there's not much choice of roads around here!), it was a very enjoyable afternoon, until we began to get tired towards the end, at least!

Decorative barrier on the National Cycle Route 78

Oban in the early morning sun

Eilean Balnagowan

These cheeky chappies watched us
as we took a break

Joel spotted this sign on the cycle route

LeJoG Day 14 - Sun, Sea, Wind and Rain!

We woke up this morning to blue skies and sunshine.  When Steve and I went to collect our clothes from the drying room first thing, we saw a deer with her fawn, just inside the Youth Hostel grounds.  We were able to watch them for a minute or two before they moved away - Mum jumped over the fence, leaving baby to find its way round through a gap a bit further up!

We trundled back to Brodick in the car, ready to start from where we left off last night.  It wasn't quite as beautiful weather as we'd hoped, but a vast improvement on yesterday evening!  The road runs along the coast for 7 miles or so, giving us great views across the Firth of Clyde - the light created as the sun reflects on the sea round here is amazing!  After those first 7 miles, the road cuts across through the mountains - that wasn't so much fun!  It was wet and cold up there, and there was a headwind which was trying to blow us back up the downhill stretches, and prevent us doing the uphill at all.  By the time we'd got to the top, I'd decided that we'd miss our intended ferry from Lochranza.  Amazingly, I was proved wrong!  As we went down the other side, it stopped raining, the sun came back out, and we arrived at the ferry terminal as the ferry was docking!

We crossed over to the Mull of Kintyre, and firstly had to cross from one side to the other - ie up a long way, and then down again the other side.  After that it became slightly easier.  We had lunch by the harbour in Tarbert, which boasted a bistro so we could get a very welcome cup of tea.  

After lunch, the route took us up the side of Loch Fyne and then along the Crinan Canal.  Before we could get onto the towpath, we had to wait while the bridge was opened to allow several boats through - one going from the Loch into the canal, others going the other way.  The Canal was beautiful - very peaceful, with dark, peaty water giving great reflections, and with a newly surfaced path which made for easy cycling.  Afterwards we crossed a nature reserve called Mòine Mhòr, and then came the hard work at the end of the day, as we had lots more climbing to do, once more against a headwind!  By this time, the sun was shining though, so we had no more rain or cold to deal with.

We finished eventually with a fast downhill section, with glorious views across Loch Craignish in the afternoon sun (sadly, no time to take photos!)  

We then drove the route to Oban, where we're staying tonight, and which we'll have to cycle tomorrow.  It's a beautiful route, but looks like hard work on a bike!  Pray for a good night's sleep and a more favourable wind in the morning!

A view across the bay from Brodick

We just made it back to Lochranza in time for the ferry!

Looking back towards Lochranza from the ferry

Another view of Arran from the ferry

The harbour at Tarbert - our lunchtime view!

Houses reflected in the Crinan Canal

Boats moored on the Canal

LeJoG Day 13 - A fair wind!

We had to drive about 30 miles back to today's start point at a place called Kirkconnel.  Joel was struggling with tiredness; Nathan seems to have recovered from yesterday's problems, so thank you to those who prayed for him.

The A76 didn't seem quite so bad this morning, with less traffic and cooler conditions.  We covered the 8 miles left from yesterday in our first hour, and then continued up Nithsdale to the watershed on minor roads.  (I've come to the conclusion that the road was very deceptive yesterday, and while it looked as if we were going downhill, we must actually have been going uphill - which would account for it being such hard work!)

From then on, we seemed to be flying!  There was a strong breeze, fortunately blowing in our direction, and a lot of downhill stretches.  By the time we stopped for lunch, we'd clocked 34 miles!  The rain and possible storms which had been forecast for today didn't catch us, and we enjoyed sunny spells and a fair wind.  The possibility of catching the 6.00 pm ferry to Arran became the probability of catching the 4.40 pm crossing.  

This afternoon, we picked up National Cycle Route 73, which runs alongside the river through Irvine, and on mainly traffic-free paths out to Ardrossan, from where we planned to catch the ferry across to the Isle of Arran.  We arrived with time to spare, and Steve managed to get the car onto the same ferry (he was originally booked for the later one).

We'd had our share of good weather for the day, though, and as we approached Brodick on the ferry, it began to rain.  The plan to cycle the last 14 miles across the island to Lochranza was abandoned, and we loaded the bikes onto the car and ourselves into it, and drove up to the Youth Hostel.  I think the forecast for the morning is quite good, so I'm looking forward to a stunning ride in the morning, before catching the ferry from here back to the mainland to continue our journey.

Looking back down Nithsdale from near the top

Ardrossan Harbour as we left on the ferry

Another view of Ardrossan Harbour

Yours truly on the ferry

The ferry going back to Ardrossan from Brodick,
emerging from the mist!