Thursday, October 8, 2015

30 September - 1 October: Kintyre

I The ferry from Port Ellen to Kennecraig was the largest we'd been on in quite some time, and it's designed to carry a large number of cars. See the ramp in the picture below? Cars drive up the ramp and then ...



They raise the ramp! And now the deck underneath the cars can also be loaded with more vehicles.  When the cars unload, the front of the ramp is lowered and the cars drive right off. It's pretty neat to see it in action!

When we left Port Ellen it was overcast, and much of the journey was in the fog. But as we were coming up the west side of Kintyre, through West Loch Tarbert it was gloriously sunny and the water was glass-smooth. Once again, it looked like we were going to be blessed with fabulous weather. 


To the right in this picture is Kintyre. Once we disembarked we filled water bottles, and one of the ferry workers said "Bit too hot for cycling, isn't it?" We laughed because we thought she was kidding! It was probably in the low 60s, and we certainly didn't think it was hot! In fact, we were finally warm!


Riding down the west side of Kintyre, on the A83, we had a great day of long sea-side vistas and perfectly clear skies. What a treat!! Really, since we arrived on Jura, we'd had good weather. We felt lucky, considering how much crummy weather we had endured in the past couple of months. We could barely believe our good fortune!
We picked a spot on the rocky beach for lunch, and took our time soaking in the sun. 


And by the time we arrived in Muasdale we were actually hot! It was such an anomaly that we treated ourselves to ice cream from the wee village shop! The proprietor made the same "bit hot for cycling?" comment, but we still thought it was perfect for cycling!


We're going to call this the most over-grossly built bridge in Scotland. The tunnel is about four feet wide! This one struck us as funny, considering so many of the other bridges are graceful arched spans and this one looks more like a bunker. 


The whole day ... Perfect sea-side views. 


This is the Campbelltown airport, in the southern part of Kintyre. We stopped here to fill our bottles at the terminal building. The building you see above is the terminal building, and we were fortunate that we stopped when we did because they were just about to close it. The afternoon flight was just about to board, all four passengers, and after that they lock up the place! 


Riding down the B842, with a tantalizing hint at our destination for the day. 


The south of Kintyre is full of beautiful rolling hills and is very agricultural. Lots of dairy farms dot the landscape, and the green sweeping vistas are reminiscent of some parts of Montana around Bozeman. It is quite a lot greener, and a touch more humid than Montana though! 

Our destination for the day is Southend, a small seaside holiday community. Southend, we discovered, is significant in other ways: Saint Columba, the priest who established the remarkable abbey on Iona, passed through this part of Scotland and left his mark here, as well. 


The stone in the picture above has an imprint of a foot, and it's supposed to be Saint Columba's footprint. There is a cave adjacent to this stone, and Saint Columba took refuge in the cave during a storm. The chapel at the near end of Southend is on the Saint Columba pilgrimage path, and is visited every year by hundreds of religious pilgrims.


Here's a view off the south end of Kintyre, looking at Sheep Island and Sanda Island.  


Southend is quite an old community, and used to be quite a lot more populated. The ruins in the foreground are an old school. It must have been quite a magnificent school, with huge windows, archways, and a large courtyard. The large white building in the background was once a hotel, four stories high, and during the Second World War it was converted into a hospital. Since then, it has declined in grandeur quite a bit; one of the locals told us that it's been purchased and the new owner would like to restore it to a hotel again. Southend is a very popular tourist location during the summer, and it would probably do cracking business during the high season. 



As the day ended and we found our home for the night the mist started rolling in. At times it was so dense we could barely see the other end of the tent! The water condensed out of the air and soaked everything thoroughly, and the tent was wet inside and out. 


Here's Melinda strumming chords as we warmed up our vocal chords. The Mull of Kintyre is just visible through the mist...


And as the sun set we had a beautiful view of the Mull in the mist while singing  the 'Mull of Kintyre' (Paul McCartney's song in 3/4 time). We came all the way to Southend so we could look over at the Mull, and sing this lovely song. Having the mist roll in as we sang was a pretty magical. A very cool experience.

"Far have I traveled and much have I seen 
Dark distant of mountains with valleys of green 
Past painted deserts the sunset's on fire 
As he carries me home to the Mull of Kintyre 
Mull of Kintyre, oh mist rolling in from the sea 
My desire is always to be here 
Oh Mull of Kintyre"

 The bit about the mist, it's all true!


The next morning we were still heavily shrouded in mist, so we put on reflective gear, switched on our blinking tail lights, and headed to Campbeltown. 


This is a perfect picture of Kintyre: hills, cows, and fog. For part of the morning we didn't get much of a view, but riding through the mist and catching glimpses of hill sides covered in cows and sheep was eerily captivating. 


Once we made Campbeltown we rode around town until we found our target! The Springbank distillery!

With a long day ahead of us, we opted out of the tour and went instead to a whisky store to pick up a few drams of the Springbank malt to sample and celebrate with later that night.


(Our assessment of the Springbank malts: a bit sharp, not as rich as we generally prefer. But everyone's taste is different, and it's worth a try if you have a chance. In fact, we may even try them again for further analysis. As they say in Scotland, there truly is 'never a bad dram')


At the whisky shop we found this map showing where THIRTY SEVEN distilleries were once located in Campbeltown! It's a good thing for us that they've almost all closed because it would take us weeks to tour them all if they were still open! So, yeah, honestly, we're kinda sad that they're all closed... ;-(


We also found The Fiddler's Inn. If we're ever going to own a pub, this might just be the one! 


After Campbeltown we headed north on the B842, through the mist, up and down the hills along the coast. 

We had a wee chat with a crofter who was rebuilding a fence. He was a very I nteresting fellow who grew on on Kintyre and has seen all kinds of changes. He couldn't quite fathom that we were doing such a crazy thing as touring Scotland on bicycles, and he also commented that it was "a wee hot" for cycling! He told us about an Abbey up the road that was not to be missed, and wished us all the best on our adventure. 


At Saddell we stopped at the site of the ancient Abbey mentioned by the crofter. The Abbey was built in 1148, and now very little remains of the Abbey - the stones were probably recycled into other buildings after the Abbey fell out of use. The Abbey was built by an Irish Bishop, who was granted the land and the right to build he Abbey by Somerled, the King Of The Isles who freed the western islands from Norse rule. 


There is a display of medieval burial stones at the Abbey, one of the largest collections of such carved stones in Scotland. The stones are in remarkable shape, and are excellent examples of the art. Some of the stones were carved by the masons who carved the stones on Iona; it's believed that these masons traveled extensively to carve such stones, and that's why similar stones are found in different locations through the the western islands. 


A little further on, we found a real roadside treat: blackberries!


We filled up a couple of water bottles with berries, ate several hands-full for instant fuel, and tootled on with stained hands and black tongues. Foraging for berries is fun! 


This sign was typical for the road along the eastern side of Kintyre: incredibly steep and with super-right turns that had our hands aching from holding on the brake levers! The hills weren't too long, thankfully, but they were white-knucklers!


Eventually, we rode out of the mist high over the coast and got our first view of Arran. We were surprised to see that Arran was partly covered in mist, but didn't really think too much of it. (Arran is the next destination on our island tour.)



The sun, the views of Arran, the warm weather, the flocks of sheep conversing with us as we rode past ... It all added together to make a perfect afternoon of cycling on Kintyre. 

Our goal for the day was Claonig, the ferry terminal where we would catch our ride to Arran. We arrived a wee early for the ferry, and had a chance to relax for a while. 


This sign cracked us up... A steep grade and instructions to set the hand brake. And if you don't, your car's going in the drink!!

The end of another wonderful day of riding in great weather. Nothing to do now but hang out for a while and ponder. Or play a tune?


Daily summaries:

September 30: Port Ellen, Islay to Kennecraig, Kintyre via ferry. A83 along coast to Southend. Brief visit to Keill's cave and St Columba's footprints. Watched the mist rolling in from the sea and sang 'Mull of Kintyre' while looking out at the Mull. Total 45 miles.

1 October: South End, Kintyre to Lochranza, Arran along B842 and Ferry from Claonaig, Kintyre to Lochranza, Arran. Major fog. Visited Saddell Abbey. Picnic in forest in sunshine. Total 38 difficult hilly miles. 

2 comments:

  1. Wonderful photos! such history and amazingly interesting places. plus whisky...=)

    ReplyDelete