Saturday 10 August 2013

Leg 4, Day 8: Campbeltown to Luing



We woke at 5.20am to the sound of someone coming up the stairs in the Campbelltown lifeboat station. Exhausted and slightly delirious but partly excited at the prospect that it may be a shout for the lifeboat, we waited to see what was going on... A man came in to the crew room (where we were lying on our roll mats on the floor),  introduced himself as the Coxswain of the lifeboat, said that he was dropping of him pager as he was heading to work on the ferry and left... a slightly surreal experience at that time in the morning, and unfortunately a false alarm! We soon fell back to sleep and woke again at 7am (we had allowed ourselves a ly-in) for a breakfast of cereal and coffee at the station before packing up our kit.

We departed Campbeltown in the drizzle; exhausted from the previous day's ride but well rested and well fed.




Today was a day of two halves- the first was our journey back up the Kintyre Peninsular to the Tarbert for the ferry to Isla, and the second was our journey from Isla onwards, cycling the full length of Jura.

The west coast of the Kintyre Peninsular could not have been more different from the east coast which we had cycled the previous evening. The road was a larger and slightly busier route, but with gentle inclines and descents, good surface, a light cross tail wind and far reaching views across long sweeping sandy bays. As we headed north we passed surfers on beautiful 6ft waves, a scattering of caravans and sand dunes- more akin to Cornwall than Scotland...



We arrived in Tarbert Ferry terminal rather ahead of schedule having covered the 50km far faster than we had envisaged being possible (given our tired legs and expectations of the road being similar to the east coast which we cycled last night). For once the weather was on our side as it started pouring shortly after arrival, so we settled in at the rather basic terminal building with a cuppa...


Shortly before the ferry set off, the sun briefly came out and the MacBrayne ferry (our largest yet) was loaded.


The 2 hour crossing from the mainland out to the inner Hebrides was stunning, and we quickly settled in to a local ale and pie on the ferry (which was far better than expected!) and reminisced about how relentless the previous day's cycling had been...




We soon arrived in the tiny and very picturesque Port Askaig on Isla. As the RNLI station was a 50m cycle from the ferry and our next journey was on to Jura we sadly didn't see a huge amount of this island which is said to be extremely beautiful.


Within 5 minutes of the ferry docking we had taken a photograph outside the RNLI station and boarded our next island hopper ferry to Jura...




During our short crossing to Jura the rain descended on us, but through the grey haze we were able to watch a joint exercise between the Isla RNLI Severn lifeboat ad the Coastguard Sea King helicopter in the narrow waterway between Isla and Jura which was fantastic....

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The second part of our day of two halves was our journey across the island of Jura. There is only one road on the island (the 'A846'!!!), which runs from the south west, around the southern tip and up the eastern coast. Although not the best of roads in terms of the quality of tarmac (some parts were amounts the worst we have cycled on so far) or size (most is single track with a few passing points), we both agreed that this was amongst the most beautiful stretches of road we have cycled to date. It was also one of the most remote. With a population of around 140 people, largely clustered towards the southern end of the island, (where there are also a couple of small Whisky distilleries) we went through truly rugged and stunning wilderness...




Where the road peters out towards the north of the Island we were met by the Cadzow family who had very kindly come to collect us on their boat, for a short journey through the islands to their wonderful home on Luing....  En route we paused momentarily to see if we could spot a sea eagle nest which they knew of in the trees along the uninhibited and inaccessible northern peninsular of Jura...





En route to Luing the Cadzow's took us around a remote island and showed us the third largest Whirlpool in Scotland (thankfully just a choppy tide race at the time we passed!) and between scattered uninhibited islands which they farm by transporting cattle and sheep out on a barge to. 

After a hot shower, a wash of our kit ( the first proper one in a week!) and a cuppa coffee we felt almost human again! The Cadzow's treated us to a delicious Luing dinner of Lamb from the farm, and fresh potatoes and veg from the garden. After a few drinks in the party barn, we fell into our beds for the first good night's sleep of the trip.








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