“Joe this is the worse conversation I have ever had”
It was 5:30am and I’m screaming at Joe. In fairness he didn’t deserve to be screamed
at especially so early in the morning. I
had to be at Bristol Airport by 6:30am in order to fly to Glasgow and I have
just realized I can’t find my wallet. I turned
the house upside down and still couldn’t find it. Then it dawned on me that I may have somehow
left it in the Bocabar where we held Joe’s 18th party. I had absolutely nothing. No cash, no credit cards, no debit cards,
nothing. My plan now was to borrow £100
from Joe’s “birthday money” and sort the remaining cost of the holiday with my
brother Andrew when I arrived in Glasgow .
However, Joe was in a semi-conscious zombie state and his responses to
my question “Joe I want to borrow some money. Where have you kept it?” were
just utter nonsense leaving me very frustrated.
Hence, the screaming! In the end I gave up and just drove to Bristol
Airport in the hope I didn’t need any money and Andrew would fund me.
I managed to check in my bike and luggage in and made the flight
just in time. On arrival in Glasgow I
met up with Andrew convincing him to fund me all week and with Harry my six-year
old nephew. Before leaving civilization
I made sure that my credit and debit cards were cancelled. We then made the journey to Oban to meet up
with Claire, Andrew’s better half, who was in charge of the support vehicle, a
VW Camper van. We embarked onto the
ferry, which would take us to the start of our travels on the island of Barra.
The whole week was fantastic.
I seen parts of Britain that I hardly knew existed, marveling at the
spectacular scenery, wondering how people survive in such a remote environment,
hoping that my legs would get me up these mountains. Below is my summary of the week
The Outer
Hebrides by numbers
· We travelled across 10 islands out of the 15
inhabited islands. The total population
of the islands is only 26,500 and
the first language of many areas is Gaelic
o
Day
1: Barra, Eriskay, South Uist,
Benbecula, Grimsay, North Uist. These
islands were rocky and rugged and the roads were very quiet. Seen a lot more sheep than people
o
Day
2: Belleray, Harris. The island of Harris had some of the best
beaches I have ever seen with crystal blue water lapping onto pure white sand.
o
Day
3: Skye.
Spectacular landscape and coastline.
o
Day
4: Mull.
Stayed in the town which has risen to fame due to the children’s TV
programme: Ballymore.
· Cycled 228
miles against a planned 188
miles. The additional 40 miles represents almost an additional
day cycling. In order to cover the
additional miles and still make the ferries we had to cycle quicker and take
shorter breaks.
· 2 missed ferries: Armadale to Mallaig and Kilchoan to Tobermory. We did however manage to catch the last ferry
of the day in both cases – by the skin of our teeth.
· Over the course of the 4 days we
climbed 7895ft of which the last two
days accounted for 2887ft
and 3212ft.
· In order to maintain energy
levels I ate 10 Mars Bars and Harry ate 4.
· We spent 24.4
hours in the saddle; 10
hours on ferries including the Oban to Barra ferry journey of 5 hours to reach the start point; and 2 hours on a gorgeous beach on the island
of Harris
· The average cycling speed was
only 9.3 mph due to the amount of
hill climbing and my old age.
· I fell off my bike doing the crazy
speed of 2 mph. Harry also fell off his bike but at much greater speed to mine. Harry made a lot less fuss of it than me!
· The islands are infamous for the amounts
of midges. Andrew got bitten about 20 times and Harry 6
times. Claire and I had 0 bites thanks to good use of the repellent
spray called “Smidge”
· As you can imagine the Outer
Hebrides are very remote summed up by:
found 2 Wi-Fi hotspots; found out
the result of England v Australia cricket result 2
days after it had ended; no phone signal for 2 days;
only 1 pub on North Uist which
welcomed dogs but not children; the sheep started to look prettier after only
day 2!
· 1 really good
time. Thanks to Andrew, Claire, Harry and Meg the dog for a great week and looking after me so well It was great to spend time with you all especially Harry!
PS. My wallet was found in Georgina’s car!!!!!!!!!
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