We like Uncle Cicerone

 Ok, so you'd have had to have read a previous blog entitled "We don't like Uncle Cicerone" to get this title. If not, you also won't know that we are following the "Cicerone route" This is a route which takes full advantage of quiet roads and tracks where possible. 

But a few days ago we went off piste. We parted company with Cicerone at Glasgow and won't see him again until Inverness. This is partly so that we could drop in on our friends in Oban and also because we want to cycle up the Caledonian Canal instead of cycling over the Cairngorms....

The trouble is that my app insists that certain routes are cycleable (See two days ago). Uncle Cicerone - 1. Stephen  - 0. We had a very small skirmish with another path today which started out as reasonably cycleable and became progressively unreasonable. After a short while, we heard a road close by and got on it brushing aside any consideration for which way the road might be going.

Yes many paths over the last two weeks have been iffy. Having said that, this morning's path which took us all the way from our friends to a ferry across a loch was immaculately surfaced, well sign posted and in stunning scenery. This was as good as paths get but there is always one problem with them: pedestrians.  Now I'm not being all pedestrianist before somebody accuses me of that. First question is 'to ding or not to ding'. We have learnt it's always a good idea to ding your bell. If people find that offensive that's their issue. BUT, there is a far more insidious problem. Yep, the mobile phone. Pretty well everyone is plugged in these days. You can ding until your dinger is positively hoarse but it has no affect. So you slow down to an annoyingly slow speed and creep past them. At which point they jump a mile into the air and give you an accusingly "Why didn't you use your dinger" look. 

 Yet again we have done stunning scenery the injustice of trying to capture images of it. See below.

I mentioned a ferry above. The idea, and indeed the route, was to take the ferry to the other side of the loch, cycle lovely quiet roads to the other end of the loch then get a tiny ferry to recross, delivering us to Fort William. We cycled on to a ferry just as it was about to leave and, as much for something to say as anything, I asked about the ferry at the other end. The ferryman told me that it only crossed the loch at 4:30. This was too late! We told him we wanted to get off. The ramp was already being raised but he obligingly lowered it again. So we have been on a ferry today, dear reader, we just haven't travelled anywhere on one.

The problem was that the alternative was cycling along the A82. Horribly busy, fast, no cycle lane of any sort and full of log wagons which we have seen many of in Scotland. (I hope Nicola Sturgeon isn't getting ideas from Bolsonaro)

We played a dangerous game of cat and mouse with these vehicles for 8 miles. When I saw something too scary in my rear view mirror, we pulled over. We arrived in Fort William feeling a little frayed.

We did make one stop for coffee along the way but coffee shops are becoming rare. We went into a huge hotel on the loch side which was empty apart from several Asian gentlemen hoovering. After a surreal time of refreshment we stopped again in Fort William in a very nice Deli after eating butties prepared back at our friend's on the banks of the loch. OK, I've just looked up the name of this loch I keep referring to to discover that it's the sea.... Well it was big  blue and wobbly. Yes blue. The sun shone today. We are both loving this trip.

pics include the beautiful guest house that we are in this evening and various bits of Scotland.