Day 122 Oban to Kilmartin

 

Date: Monday 27^th May 2013   Distance: 30.82 Miles

 

 

Sunday 26^th May: We left home at 8.20 for Gourock, near Glasgow. We needed to leave the car parked here while we cycled, as the ferry would bring us back from Dunoon on Saturday. We were lucky to find a free council car park in view of the police station that people use for long stay for the railway station.

After a roast dinner in the nearby Bistro we caught a train to Glasgow (tandem booked as usual as 2 bikes). We nearly missed the train when the platform number was changed at the last minute. They may have said over the tannoy, but sometimes it is as difficult as a foreign language to decipher what is said with the Scottish brogue.

It was a 30 minute journey and then a short ride across town to Queen Street Station. I steeled myself up for another “you can’t take that on the train!” incident when a railway official made a bee line towards us. He was just impressed and wanted to help us however, even sending us early to the platform to avoid football fans from the Scottish Cup Final.

Trains go at 4 hourly intervals to Oban and it takes 3 and a half hours. A lady said,” it is quicker by bus!” but we can only take the bike on the train!

We arrived in Oban, weary from a long day of travelling, in drizzling rain and a prospect of a big hill to the monument where our B and B was situated. It was getting dark and bats were flitting across our path. I panicked because we were already later then we said and we got a little lost in the streets out of the town. We reached the bungalow and the lady there seemed very patient as Bob took the bike into her back garden and covered it with our tarpaulin. After a short chat we went almost straight to bed.

 

Monday 27th May:

 

We had a very nice breakfast with fruit compote homemade with rhubarb and plums. Lorna made her own jams too and while we ate there was background music from her husband’s CD of accordion music. Apparently he was quite famous and played in the Albert Hall. She showed us an invite for a reception with the Princess Royal but she said he would turn it down as she wasn’t invited too. The accordion music reminded me of my dad who had a dance band of only local fame and he played the squeeze box too.

We left the B and B in the wet and grey, planning a distillery visit in the hope of better weather later. It cost £15 between us for a tour. The friendly lady guide gave us a tiny taste of the 56% distillation via a massively long copper dropper that drew out at least half a pint. Bob’s eyes nearly popped out!!  She put the taste in engraved glasses for each of us and then special boxes for the glass afterwards. Not what you want to acquire at the very start of a long bike expedition. They did survive the trip though! At the end of the tour we were given a bigger taste of the normal more watered down single malt of which they make 1 million bottles every year. It does take 14 years for it to mature however. There are only 6 production workers and work stays within the families.

 

When we left the distillery, the bike had been locked to a grille and puddles were forming on top of our new plastic Karrimors. Delaying further we went for a coffee and I was glad of packing an umbrella. They made us take- away sandwiches which we were very glad of as our earmarked stop for lunch, a salmon visitor centre, was no-where to be found. We stopped by a school which was probably the reason for the bus shelter as the weather was still dubious. Water and cheese sandwiches seemed very frugal but there were no shops. The school was ominously quiet too.

It was pretty and getting prettier with slopes full of natural deep blue bluebells, primroses and violets. Spring hasn’t sprung properly here and some catkin and pussy willow are just emerging while June Ash is coming out too. The sun shone on us until we were 6 miles from the hotel. There were some hard hills but beautiful views. Lochs had salmon, trout and mussel farms.

 

 

 We arrived at the Kilmartin Hotel rather sodden at just gone 5. Kilmartin is a pretty village with a fine church, this friendly inn and one small shop. There is a museum- not open while we were here, standing stones in a field nearby and specially housed medieval tombstones of notables possibly, but with no real proof, of the last of the knight Templars, within the church yard.

After putting the bike in the smokers shed and hot showers we were ready for our meals and they didn’t disappoint. Bob had lashings of roast beef and Yorkshire and I had chicken wrapped round haggis in a whisky and peppercorn sauce followed by sticky toffee pud prettily clad in cape gooseberry, coulis and ice cream. Bob was happy with his real ale.

We had a view of the road through the glen towards mountains and in the late sunshine it looked really enticing- our route tomorrow. Today we had cycled 31 miles mostly in the dry and we hadn’t left Oban till 12.