Sweet rural fragrances with maritime flavours, and a midge-tinged finish
It is a grey summer afternoon when the Petersborough Express spills us out onto Waverley Station in Edinburgh. We have spent the last few hours listened to the excited chatter of a group of drama students and their teachers comparing programs and synchronising watches in readiness for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Their enthusiasm makes for entertaining eavesdropping. When we emerge into Scotlands attempt at sunlight, the streets are heaving with people. There are pipers on street corners, girls in stage makeup handing out flyers for their shows, men dressed as Mario and Luigi creating balloon swords for children. Canadian tourists with their sensible backpacks. Japanese with their ubiquitous cameras. French accents, American, English. We are served in cafes by Serbs and Belgians. It is not until we leave Edinburgh that we begin to hear broad Scottish brogue.
We do not stop long in Edinburgh. Instead, we head north along a route recommended to Matt by a Scottish colleague, who has said that as least to drive it is spectacular, so he imagines the cycle would be good. We ride towards Perth, Pitlochrie, and across to Oban. The road runs along the bottom of deep valleys, meaning that while we can look up dizzyingly steep slopes, the riding itself is relatively flat. Every house seems to be a B&B, or a pub. We discover that the Scots love giving directions - if we stop to ask, they will spend as much time as needed or pull out mobile phones to assist us. If we do not stop to ask, they still offer to help: 'You'd be looking for the road to Kinross? Eet'd be that road to the left ye'd be after.' Others yell at us as we cycle by. 'Are ye riding far?' They seem to be contented with the assurance that yes, we were riding far.
In Oban, we decide to slow the pace for a few days - we check out Oban distillery to make sure that the single malt is up to standard. (Matt: Yes. Yes it is.) Then we head across to the Isle of Mull and Isle of Iona, which feel quite isolated. They are rocky and mountainous, windswept and very sparsely populated. Iona is home to an abbey and nunnery built by Saint Columba in around 850AD. It is hard to imagine how hard life would have been back thern - especially with vikings regularly swooping in to take everything and despatch the residents.
The abbey at Iona is a religious pilgrims point. While there, we meet an enthusiastic, grey haired gent from California via Canada who seems in awe and excited by everything life has to offer, and which he primarily views through a very long camera lense. He speaks and looks like maybe he was once front man of a psychedelic rock band. He takes Matt out to play golf in a paddock (of which Matt promises to write more later), and regales us with stories about the various pilgrimage sites he has visited across Europe and the US. We are assured that there is plenty to do for weeks on tiny Iona, although we opt to stay only one night.
From there, we continue our route north through atmospheric Glencoe, where in 1692 38 members of Clan MacDonald were massacred and another 40 died from exposure after fleeing to the hills. It may be because we know about what happened, but it has an eerie feel. Set in a deep valley, with mist rolling in across the water, those mountains look might cold.
On next to the tiny Isle of Eigg, where we will take a holiday from our holiday with four days off cycling. Instead, we plan to do some hiking, running, reading and puffin stalking.
