Sunday 11 April 2010

Arran Cowal bike ride

11th April 2010

Brodick to Lochranza | Claonaig to Tarbert | Portavadie to Hunter's Quay

After yesterday's 3-ferry route around Cowal and Bute, we decided to go one better and attempt a 4-ferry outing, starting in Ardrossan and finishing in Gourock.

So it was another cold early morning cycle down to Glasgow Central to meet Ellie, and this time we hopped on the train to Ardrossan Harbour, packed with Arran day-trippers. On the ferry I bumped into Dougal Ross who was taking his daughter Katie up Goatfell for the first time.

Once we arrived at Brodick we had to press on with the big hill north of Sannox to make the 12 noon Lochranza ferry with about 15 minutes to spare.

After the crossing back to the mainland, we had less than 45 minutes to make the 1315 ferry out of Tarbert, but despite making a reasonable effort we missed the ferry by about 3 minutes. This however meant we could have a leisurely lunch stop in Tarbert before taking the 1415 ferry across Loch Fyne to the strange purpose built marina at Portavadie.

The cycle from Portavadie to Hunter's Quay was the longest section of the day and took about 2 hours 15 minutes to cover the hilly 28 miles. We caught the 1700 ferry from Hunter's Quay to McInroy's Point then cycled along the Gourock seafront for a couple of miles to reach the railway station, and after a bit of a wait we caught a train back to Glasgow Central. The total cycling was pretty much exactly 100km, and we were lucky enough to have unbroken sunshine all day.

1 comment:

Eddie said...

Looks and sounds like a clasic route Chris.