Anerley Bicycle Club tour of the Isle of Mull and Skye

As a lot of you will know myself and John D set of on Saturday 29th May 2015 for a tour of the Isle of Mull and Skye.

We drove up to Oban and caught the last ferry to Craignure, Isle of Mull. We were booked into Craignure bunkhouse for four nights,this is a very cheap way of seeing the islands only £20 a night,we were sharing a room with two other people the first night, but had the room to ourselves the rest of the stay It even had a toilet and walk in shower, also had WiFi and a big screen TV. There were lots of walkers in the bunkhouse but John and I were the only cyclists.

The first ride started off windy but dry but into a headwind on freshly laid gravel. As we had started late we stopped after 10 miles at the Salen hotel. It said food all day outside but turned out to be food after 12 so had a coffee and waited 15 minutes to order a panini. By now it had started raining so on went the rain coat and we left the hotel and rode towards the eastern shoreline of Loch Na Keal.

We watched a shepherd round up his sheep on the shoreline. We were riding into a headwind but the views of the Loch were great. After a while the road starts to rise with a rock wall on the left and a stone wall on the right, all on a single track road with passing places. Halfway up the climb we were both on bottom gears. I had a slow puncture so I stopped to fix it, while John enjoyed the views eating a bag of nuts. By the time we reached the top of the climb of Glen Seilisdeir which the book puts a height of 600 feet we where really enjoying the ride through the Glen with mountains both sides and waterfalls. We where now riding downhill through a pineforest towards Loch Scidain by now the sun was out so we stopped to watch a goosander,which is a type of duck.

We started to ride again towards Pennyghael by now the weather was turning bad again with rain coming down,we reached the main road towards Craignure which was 19 miles away mostly up hill but we had the wind behind us. john was setting a good pace in front as we got hit by a hailstorm from behind. I had a few bike problems on this last part as my chain came off and then my computer fell off going over a cattle grid. we did a very good time for the ride which was 48 miles in 4 hours 15 minutes ave speed 11.1 mph beating the guide time by over an hour.