Soggy Scotland: September 28th - October 3rd, 2023
The morning after Storm Agnes, we had a lovely breakfast in the guesthouse. I stayed in their nice bathrobe as long as I could, but eventually we had to bike to the ferry in Ardrossan. We got our tickets and Ben did that thing he does where it is REALLY close to time to board (to my anxious brain it is very close, in reality there is just enough time, and in Ben's brain he has like all the time in the world) and he disappears to go to the bathroom. He barely showed up in time for us to board before the cars. PHEW.
The ferry has a LOT of signs about not being mean to staff. We had seen a truck the day before with a sign angrily criticizing the ferry company. We chatted with some folks, I guess the ferry had been really unreliable recently and hasn't been updated in forever and people had been upset as it is the only way on or off the island so when it gets canceled it is very disruptive. *fingers crossed we don't get stuck on an island again
As we get off the ferry in Brodick there is an older biker who had gotten on later and we chat with him for a bit. He was going for a weekend cycle of the island and back which sounded like a lovely weekend trip. We can't do that though as we were still hoping to climb. He was going for a different place to spend the night than we were so he heads off and we make our slow wobbling way to our campsite for the next 4 nights. This was a paid for campsite just outside of town with some flat ground, a spigot, some toilets, and a gorgeous view.
We had some extra time that day so we tootled around a little bit. Ben wanted to bike really far south, but I wasn't feeling it so I delayed Ben by stopping in town for golfing! We are in Scotland after all. So we picked out colorful balls, and some nice putters and putted our way around the course! Ben was beating me, until one hole with a tricky bridge, and then I took the lead (nevermind the next hole where I lost count of the tries it took to get past a hill feature). We have been together all this time and I think this was our first game of put-put.
After the game, we tootled around a store for a minute and then Ben convinced me to get on the bike to see what we could see to the south. So we tootled around and up a hill to a great view. I was still not that stoked so I voted to turn around and just relax. Ben wanted to keep going and I was just...tired...There was a sign for a stone circle so we went to go check that out...and then the trail to them said closed for logging. *sigh the cost of low season traveling* Oh well I wanted to turn around anyway.
We turn around and as it is mostly downhill this direction Ben convinces me to go explore north of our campsite as well and to see a castle. *sigh, Ben I'm tired but fiiiiine* We bike north along the coast and pass some seals flopping around in the ocean and galumphing around on land. I felt a kinship with them.
We made it to the castle but the lady at the gate said it was closing and not worth paying for if you only have 30 minutes. But she said we could bike in and "Help ourselves" Which Ben interpreted to mean stay on the road and I interpreted to mean we could hop off our bikes and wander into the gardens! So with Ben trailing me looking guilty we helped ourselves to the path through the walled garden which had some beautiful plants. We are still blown away at how expensive entry is to castles. I don't know how I feel about paying wealthy people so they can show off their wealth...it just seems weird. It was getting late so we hopped on our bikes and wandered down the road through the rest of the castle grounds and we found an Araucaria Tree! One that was all grown up and one that was just a baby. Did not expect to find that in Scotland! Ben and I have loved these trees ever since we backpacked among them in Chile.
Finally, Ben listened to my plea of tiredness and we headed back to camp. The rain had started and there was no one else there so we decided to cook dinner in the bathrooms to avoid getting soaked.
The next morning we loaded up our bikes with climbing gear and headed to Lochranza. We had two goals for the day: go to the Arran distillery (which we were told has really good cream ale) and go climbing. So we head off in high spirits. The forecast looks hit and miss, but in the worst case scenario we just get the booze. The biking is all nice road biking but there is an inevitable hill in the way. That hill ended up being WAY harder than anticipated. Of course, we had a brutal head wind and I pushed the bike quite a bit. Thankfully, we didn't see any other bikers until we were on the way down the other side, so we looked cool by then, though I was very jealous of their tail wind.
We made it down to Lochranza in a light drizzle and stumbled into the Arran Distillery. The lady at the front door was stressed as we didn't have a reservation for a tour or a tasting and they had just had a surprise coach bus stop in. "No worries lady, we just want your bathroom and to buy a bottle of your booze." She was still very stressed that the service wouldn't be up to standard. We were just happy to be out of the rain for a minute. We got the cream ale and a shooter of whiskey. Ate our snacks at their outside tables and tried to figure out where the rocks were that we wanted to climb.
We determined it must be this cliff we could see high up on a mountain. Which is NOT where we wanted it to be as what we could see of the approach was going to be a doozy. WAY more than we had bargained for. Did I mention we were tired? But ok. So we set off down the trail on our bikes hoping to take them in a little ways. We quickly have to get off the bikes and start repacking to finish the approach on our feet. While repacking, the sky just opened up and started pouring rain on us. We stood in the rain laughing at the absurdity and continued to debate: "should we go? the approach is long enough, maybe it will stop raining and dry off by the time we get up there" and it just kept raining on us. Finally, we call it and repack for biking and turn the bikes back down the trail.
We decided to head a little further down the road to see what we could see. It stopped raining and turned into a lovely sunny day. We stopped at a castle and a roadside cafe. All in all a lovely trip, while we tormented ourselves with "it got sunny, we should have climbed!!"
It was time to head home so we started on our way back up the hill. We could see the cliff we would have climbed and Ben looked at it like a sad puppy. But it was BARELY dry if even dry. So I convinced him to keep moving towards camp. The winds had shifted and I swear to Scotland it was a headwind in this direction too, but I made it without pushing. We take a detour to a cute little campsite and oceanside park. But eventually continue on back to our campsite. There were some other campers now and luckily it wasn't raining so we didn't cook in the bathrooms that night. That evening we got to have some very nice alcohol for dessert!
The next morning we were determined to have a rest day. We woke up slowly, and headed into town. We went to a very chill coffee shop and spent the rainy morning and afternoon ordering coffee and baked goods and doing some research and writing some of this blog. It is right around this time that we start getting hopelessly behind on writing these.
We ended the rest day with dinner at the pub. Where we had some very good food, but didn't order any beer because we had met our alcohol limit. A group of golfing bros in their early to mid 20's came in and were very obnoxious but also fascinating. Who knew there were people that age that took golfing trips without their parents!? AND WORE THE OUTFITS! WILLINGLY! The bartenders handled their drunken belligerence beautifully and we got to watch some entertaining drama while we sipped our water. You can tell we haven't watched a lot of t.v. lately. We were kind of sad when it was time to go it was still pouring rain and we had to wiggle back into the rain gear, get back on the bikes and head our soggy way home. At least we didn't need to cook in the bathroom as we already had dinner.
Before we left Arran we really wanted to get on top of one of the mountains here. We had decided to not do a multi pitch climb as the weather was not cooperating for us to do that, but a scramble should be fine. So our objective was the A'Chir ridge traverse. We brought a rope and gear in order to rappel but we shouldn't have to do any real climbing on this. And we actually had a forecast with a minimal amount of rain! (but still cloudy and windy and kinda cold and maybe a little rain)
We woke up to a beautiful morning and started down the approach trail on our bikes and it was a joyous gravel ride. Fairly challenging, but mostly within our and our bike's ability levels. We got to the turn off from the main trail to start the ridge scramble and left the bikes. The trail was better than anticipated, though it did turn into a muddy mess at times. Ben was a little sad as he couldn't keep his feet dry and clean.
The day was cloudier than we wanted and we couldn't see our objective. So at a crucial point we got off route and started going up the wrong mountain. It was at that time though that we said we needed to stop moving until we could see the objective. So we stopped and had a snack and as we tried to orient ourselves using the valleys we got very confused and fairly certain we were off route. We figured it out and turned around and got back on route just as the clouds started to lift.
Pretty quickly after that the real scrambling began. We were following a fairly good description so we knew we were on the correct route. Of course there were a few "scramble" moves that I kinda wanted a rope for but it honestly wasn't too bad. We made it to the top and Ben hopped on top of the boulder to truly summit the mountain. The ascent was a blast!
Now for the way down. The weather had really cleared up by this time which was a huge improvement, as we could see our route down and it was also warming up. The scramble down started off ok. Just about at a spot where we weren't certain how to go down another scrambler came up our descent. He was solo and had no gear with him and presumably had just soloed up a section we were planning to rappel down so we were already in awe of the man. He told us he wouldn't want to down climb what he had just climbed up and said "enjoy" and went on his way. "That's why we have a rope!" But before we even get to that point we do a lot of start stops as we try to get down this tricky bit and finally we just rappel it. We were too sketched out by the seeping slab and the doom below us. So one extra rappel for us! We continue on and find the actual rappel section and get to enjoy some SKETCHY anchors to get down. Definitely in the top 5 sketchiest anchors we have used for rappelling.
From there we had to climb up a bit and then we were on the easy scramble to the saddle. We ran into another couple with no ropes heading up what we had come down and asked if they were prepared for what we rappelled down and they said they were planning to try and hike below and around it. "Ok, good luck!" By the way, to Scottish folk this isn't a mountain scramble/climb this is a hill walk as we had been told multiple times by Scottish people "There are no mountains in Scotland". Well from a Nebraskan's point of view this is a mountain, you humble stereotypes!
We made it to the saddle and instead of going down Ben convinced me to hike up to the summit of the next mountain: Cir Mhor. The scramble had gone really well and we had the time so OK. We dropped the packs and trudged up on a very good trail and checked out the top. We ate some snacks with a great view. The chill wind convinced us to head down the hill to our packs. From there we had a great trail down to the valley.
We hiked down the Glen Rosa valley until we met up with our bikes again. Hopped on the bikes and rolled back to camp. Such a good day in the mountains and a good way to end our time on Arran.
The next day we broke camp, biked to the ferry in Brodick, ferried to Ardrossan, got on a train to Glasgow, then in Glasgow we caught a train to Preston, and finally got on another train to Liverpool. Which all went better than expected. In Liverpool, we needed to bike about 10 miles from the train station to our AirBnB in the suburb of Speke. It was dark, it was raining. Both Ben and I almost got hit by cars. Thankfully, the last half was on a rail to trails bike path which was a welcome relief, but still wet and dark and we got a little off track but we finally found our AirBnB and guiltily rang the doorbell. We were soaking wet and it was late at night. The hosts were amazing, they immediately put a kettle on and helped us get our wet stuff inside and we settled in. So grateful they let us in!
The next day we spent running errands to get a few important things done before taking a side trip to Poland. We dropped our bikes off with a mechanic for a full tune and clean-up while we'd be gone, but it took a long time for us to find the shop because we had to learn what an "industrial estate" is (hint - it looks like a place where you need a hard hat not a bike helmet). We also stopped by a mall for a few items, and since the errands took longer than anticipated we were hungry. Our options were Starbucks, McDonalds, or Pizza Hut - we could have been in an Omaha suburb! So we had Pizza Hut for lunch. Globalization is wild. We will do the tourist stuff in Liverpool when we get back from Poland we swear!
Sounds like we need to find a extension tube that turns two bikes into one tandem bike so when Ben wants to see the sights when Susan is tired he can be caboose 😤
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