Day 125 Mull of Kintyre

 

Date: Thursday 30^th May 2013   Distance: 29.65 Miles

 

After a restless night trying to fit in a double with an uneven mattress ( the drawbacks of having a super-king at home) we woke to lovely sunshine and a good breakfast. This is a B and B for Campbeltown’s workers from away, but everyone was made welcome.

 

The sky clouded over before we left and Bob had his coat on all day. We left our clothes bags behind as we were to ride almost to the point of the Mull and back today. With a side wind we set off for Southend. The hills were long and there was quite a bit of bike pushing. There was hardly any traffic once we left the main road and even less houses. A collie dog came to look at us as we passed, then deciding to follow the bike eventually overtook and led the way, continually looking back at us to make sure we were still coming. We were glad when he got bored and went home as we didn’t want to be accused of dog-napping.

 

We passed a chambered cairn according to the map but there was no signpost. Tourism is very low key or non- existent most of this trip. Next came 5 miles of forest and several fallow deer leapt out in front of us, crossing our path. We met a cyclist from Glasgow who stopped for a chat. Later we came to Kiel Caves, but no signs of bats and then St Columbus’s footprint carved in the rock. He brought Christianity over from Ireland, just a few miles over the water.

 

On reaching Southend we reached the tearoom of fame for its cakes. We could smell them cooking but didn’t get to try one. After our light lunch (they cut the crusts off my sandwich but I still have my own teeth!!) I decided to buy a cake treat for the road but was told they are too popular in the tearoom so they couldn’t sell me one to take away. I should have gone and sat down again to order it, by that logic. There were lots of children’s toys and they were expecting a group of children who usually, according to them, ran around creating minor mayhem.

 

I can’t believe we forgot to look at the beach which is a good place to spot seals. The wind was very tiring and against us both directions unfortunately. The lane back, narrow for us and a car, let alone 2 cars, had many hairpins and several were very steep. There were more sea views this way and gannets diving for fish were impressive. The gorse hedging made a good windbreak. The tandem seemed to accidentally herd sheep and we were glad of the cattle-grid which stopped them in their tracks and they watched us career down the hill.

 

Back in Campbeltown by 4, we visited the museum in the council offices. Locals had donated some interesting artefacts the most impressive being an ornate jet necklace, 4,000 years old. After taking the bike back we smartened up and went for a meal at the Ardshiel- such good service yet friendly. We killed an hour walking round the pier where the lifeboat was off on an exercise taking a burnt out shell of a boat, cluttering up the harbour, to its watery grave off Southend. Hope no one needed them tonight as even the off shore lifeboat was involved.

 

We visited the Linda Macartny  memorial gardens-

 

and watched logs being loaded in teeteringly huge piles onto the harbour side ready for loading onto boats.

 

At 8pm we went to the 100 year old cinema to see Iron Man 3. Upstairs was 50p more but all the locals were there so probably the best seats. The building needed a lick of paint. We were surprised we still had to sit through at least half an hour of adverts before the film which finished at 10.30. We tiptoed to bed!