Day 8
June 18th - From Fort William to Crianlarich
All my experiences of youth hostels on this trip have been good ones,
until today. It was nothing to do with the place or the people running
it but everyone staying there (except yours truly !) seemed totally
depressed. Everyone seemed to be walking around with their heads down,
maybe they were all knackered after climbing Ben Nevis or depressed
at the thought of having to climb it. Anyway, after a week of everone
being so friendly it was a bit of a surprise.
I left fairly early and got going at about 9ish. I had planned to head
for Oban but after checking the map that seemed a bit out of my way
so I went into the local tourist information to enquire about the route
through Glencoe. The chap in there said it was a steady climb but not
a steep one and quite a good road so I decided to go that way and head
for Crianlarich instead. It was still 50ish miles away but was a much
more direct route to the Glasgow area.
The weather was cloudy and it had been raining in the night but it was
now pretty good cycling weather apart from a light easterly wind which
I was heading into. A few miles out of Fort William the sun started
breaking through and as I went across a high bridge and turned off towards
Crianlarich there were some superb views of the land below. I stopped
for a bacon roll, phoned my mum in Spain and then set off up the Glencoe
road. It was a gentle climb, the headwind made it quite hard work but
my mind was taken off the cycling by the views ahead of me. At one point
three Tornado jets came hurtling up the glen towards me, if I had my
camera ready it would have been a brilliant picture but they were past
me before I even heard them coming. I waited for a couple of minutes
with camera poised hoping for a re-run but they were gone.
After a couple of miles I pulled over into a parking area for a drink
and noticed that the gps had done its party-trick of dying on me yet
again. According to this heap of junk, while I was standing there having
a drink I was actually doing 5.7 mph. All I could do was turn it off
and on again thereby losing all the data to that point. It crashes so
often I'm starting to think it was made by Microsoft.
I could hear bagpipes in the distance and as I travelled up the road,
I saw in the next parking area there was a piper busking with a huge
crowd of tourists milling around him. I decided not to stop and plodded
on hoping the road would level off soon. Eventually it did and by now
the sun was out in full force and I think this was the hottest it had
been so far (the thermometer on the bike computer read 79F at one point).
I changed into short sleeves and started what I hoped would be a nice
easy descent down the other side but the wind had picked up and I found
myself having to pedal to keep going in places.
There had been no cafes for quite a while now and my water bottle had
been empty for several miles. To make things worse I had even run out
of snickers bars. Fortunately, as I crossed the border into Stirling
there was a sign for a shop 2 miles ahead called The Green Welly shop.
Thankfully it didn't just sell green wellies and I stocked up on everything.
From there it was just a few miles to Crianlarich and when I arrived
in the very picturesque town I felt as though I could carry on a bit.
It was only 5pm so I asked in a shop whether the next town on, Ardlui
which was 9 miles away had many b&b's. The lady said not so I decided
to play it safe, call it a day and headed for the youth hostel just
up the road.
The people here seem much chirpier than those at Ben Nevis and there
is even another end-to-ender who is going from south to north and who
got a good drenching in those storms last week.
Total mileage today (thanks to the ever-reliable vdo computer) was 56
which is the same as my average so far. I've done the maths and I'm
past 1/3 distance so I will have to pick the pace up if I am to finish
in 3 weeks but it is not out of the question yet.
The Routemap
The Speed (in blue) and the Elevation (in green) from half-way up Glen
Coe.
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