An Turas Mor May 2022 скачать в хорошем качестве

An Turas Mor May 2022

Bikepacking from Glasgow to Cape Wrath An Turas Mor. Bet you’ve never heard that name before. Well, I hadn’t until a few years back, when round at a friend’s house for supper he happened to mention that he’d just completed a fantastic Scottish cycle tour. He explained that the route had taken him up to Cape Wrath, Scotland’s north westerly outpost, an exposed headland we’ve cycled to a couple of times in the past. I was intrigued, especially when he mentioned that it followed a mostly off road route from the very centre of Glasgow. Well, I’d never arrived there without most of the miles being on tarmac. From that moment I was hooked and knew that I needed to bag this bizarre sounding long-distance trail. Early summer is a good time to travel in the Highlands; the midges haven’t yet massed sufficiently to be intolerable, the weather is often good, and being so far north it barely gets dark. We made hasty preparations, fettled mountain bikes, whittled our gear down to the bare minimum and set off for Glasgow. We didn’t fancy leaving our car parked-up in central Glasgow for ten days, so we started cycling a few miles north of the city centre in the leafy suburb of Milngavie, also, as it happens the start point of the West Highland Way. The railway station there has unlimited free parking which gave me pause for thought. Surely, we’d misread the sign. No, there really was free parking. Having assembled our bikes, said a prayer for our car, we loaded our panniers and set off. The next nine days were a blur of whirring pedals, laboured breathing and gasps of joy at the stunning views. The route is mostly off road, occasionally strays onto minor roads and there are just a few miles on busy trunk roads. From the very start the route was an absolute joy, such a pleasure to be away from highways. Pedalling on the very few miles of A roads, busy with holiday traffic I wondered how we’d completed so many of our tours on tarmac, the roar of traffic our constant companion, vehicles whizzing by, often dangerously close. The route followed generally good trails. Some sections were rough, bumpy, boggy and puddled; some of the steep and loose inclines tested our resolve, but mostly, we crunched our way north on smoothish gravel enjoying the stunning terrain and a range of splendid wild camps. The midges did mount several nasty attacks and the ticks were out in force too and I should think that I’ve gouged out around forty of the little blighters using my fingernails. I’m hoping that none have infected me with Lyme disease. The weather too was mostly good. In the early days we rode into cool head winds but during the last few days we rode under blue skies, the sun burningly hot! As for rain, well we sheltered from just a few minor showers. As we made our way gradually north, I cast my eyes up to familiar Munros, typically from unfamiliar but very beautifully wooded glens, the air richly scented with birch sap and bog myrtle. Finally, we forded the Strathmore River below Ben Hope and after one last steady climb we dropped down to the shores of Loch Eriboll. Here we joined the massed motorhomes and motorbikes on the North Coast 500 tourist route for the final few miles to Durness and the ferry over the Kyle of Durness, and the rough route out to Cape Wrath. Ten miles of remote moors and isolated peaks took us to the rugged rocky headland, the gleaming white lighthouse set one hundred and ten metres above the vast Atlantic, rippled with swells rolling in from the west. To the Vikings the cape marked a turning point, as it was for us; here we pointed our bikes south and began our long journey home. What a fantastic trip; no mechanical issues or punctures, mostly good weather and back in Milngavie the car was just as we had left it ten days ago. We returned home refreshed and looking forward to our next off-road tour.