The Edinburgh Festival ‘Fringe’ is on at the moment, so in an attempt to escape this very busy city, somewhere between seeing Hardeep Singh Kohli’s ‘Nearly Naked Chef’ & Frank Skinner’s ‘Credit Crunch Caberet’ I left home before dawn yesterday heading west with all speed in order to catch the first ferry of the day from Wemyss Bay to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute.
I made it with minutes to spare and so began my day’s ‘proper’ riding through Argyll & Bute.
Bute is a very small island to the west of the mainland, nestled between North Ayrshire & the Kintyre peninsular.
The CalMac ferry arrived in the principal town, Rothesay a little over thirty minutes after setting off from the Wemyss Bay terminal and minutes later I was heading south along the coast road intending to explore the extremities of Bute before heading to the north and the much smaller ferry linking Rhubodach and Colintraive back on the mainland.
These are roads I’ve never travelled before and making the most of the experience I headed south east from Colintraive until I ran out of road at Coustonn on the western shore of Loch Striven.
It doesn’t seem to matter how remote one travels, there always seems to be evidence if the current global economic downturn and Loch Striven is no different where shipping giant Maersk have rafted four of their huge container ships because there is no work for them, much to the annoyance of local residents.
Retracing my steps, I continue north past Colintraive along the shores of Loch Riddon until I stop at the viewpoint at Tighnabruaich where the views across the Kyles of Bute are nothing short of breath-taking.
I’d never ridden the coast road north from Millhouse via Otter Ferry & Strachur, on the east side of Loch Fyne, to Glen Kinglas and although this is a stunning area with great biking roads an hour or so of low cloud and drizzle reduced visibility enough to make photograph’s useless.
Once back on better roads Inveraray, Crianlarich, Crieff & Glen Devon pass quickly as I head homewards reflecting on the outstanding beauty of this area of Scotland and how fortunate I am to have it all so close to home.
With over 300 miles covered today this was a truly great trip around Argyll & Bute with a healthy slice of Perthshire thrown in for good measure.
Today’s images may be found here.
