We sucked up the weather this year and just got on with it.
We opted to park the motors in glenelg as public transport to the west coast with a tandem and trailer is not a stress free option.
Stayed in the ratagan YHA the first night - highly recomended , nestled under the 5 sister.
took the ferry over to kylerhea
Some of you may recognise the chap (in bike gear not the ferry dude) on the left if you ever ride in the a9 corridor.
the horror climb out which killed the granny ring on the tandem in 50 yards
a rather scenic pee ....
looking over the south of skye
day 1 finished in glen brittle - after a visit to the talisker distilelry , the old inn and a puncture on the alfine 8 day one .....
day 2 - brewing my coffee and this little guy came to visit.
the campsite in the light - the big tents were a godsend later in the week !
The view out from glenbrittle - and if any of you have been there you will know about the only way out of glenbrittle...so we had a half way break and walked up to the fairy pools....
Which then meant a midday start for dunvegans lunch stop.....not our best move.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nx1Z ... MG3401.JPG
Check the flat top peaks , i love the features on skye !
Oatcakes , cheese and olives from the shop and washed down with some coffee from quite a rolly eyed coffeeshop serving slices of cake for 7 quid. didnt look too impressed at sweaty smelly cyclists bothering all the other (non existant) customers....
Climbing out of dunvegan heading for portree
Down tuther side heading for the portree bike shack :D
Same road - but i just really like the definition of the shot......nothing i take photos of gets close to photoshop - im a lazy mofo plus i like to show em as i see em .
we took a right at carbost and headed for peiness..... where we met the shinty team running up from portree to teh pitches at peiness
Portree - not tobermory . thought id taken a wrong turn somewhere !
The view from our bog....i mean campsite...there wasnt a single dry place on the site..... so we pitched up at the top and enjopyed the view of the cuillins before heading down the hill to town for food....finding out almost everywhere had stopped serving..... trudged back to the tent after finding a feed and went to bed , only to be woken by horrendous wind and rain - and the sound of the other guys tent filling with water :S
The next morning we went to portree to find a hostel to dry out and rode out to the old man of storr while the camping kit dried.
its up there somewhere but as with most of skyes attractions they are weather dependant..... we were supposed to go to staffin but with the tandem getting blown ALLLLL over the road by gusting head and side winds it was decided we would head back .... during which we were greated by ....a headwind
the next morning we headed back to broadford to camp there ....or that was the plan.
We hit broadford about 11am - the plan had been to camp here and go to elgol - Jayne and the tandem via road and i would back track to sligachan and ride the sligachan path how ever sitting in cafe sia enjoying cake and coffee the tandem decided to head back over to glen elg while the winds were in their favour. We looked for a campsite in broadford. We found 1 that i swear was a trailer park/knackers yard - static vans and transits ahoy....and the next one in breakish had only hardstanding with little bits of uncut rocky grass and toilets/showers with a view (ie no doors) - im not fussy but the wife isnt into the nudest thing :D
so we pushed on to kyle expecting a site there , met an old enlightened gentleman and asked him if he knew where there was a campsite near by..... We got his life story for about 40 minutes followed by a - yeah theres a campsite a couple miles that way..... before we knew it we were in dornie and standing in the boggy campsite :S
riding into the rain :S - wouldnt recomend the road from kyle to sheilbridge to anyone traffic soooo impatient.
Back under the shadow of the 5 sisters - opting to spend our last night back in the hostel rather than in the dampness of dornies finest campsite - with the leur of the food at the kintail arms after a longer than planned day :D
full circle at the YHA again.
Riding home from the pub.
Good first trip for my new kona Rove AL, Bikes very comfy and loving dynamo power , right time of year to do it , not that bad weather , not too busy roads - but i will say the locals are nuts.... the bus , the bank and the libary all tried to kill us by overtaking on blind corners, several cars also and 1 van ran a car off the road overtaking us in a silly place. Some of the worst driving at speed ive seen in a while, ive seen worse driving but usually at low speeds in africa or something. Speed kills though.
