Day 27, 13th June 2011, Oban to Salen
We caught a ferry to the Isle of Mull this morning, because we were variously advised that the scenery was stunning and the main town of Tobermory was one of the prettiest in West Scotland.
We got off the ferry in a cold drizzle, with a bit of a head wind to ride the 35km to Tobermory. We had discussed perhaps staying in Tobermory, as it was so special.
The ride in and the scenery on Mull was alright.
We got to Tobermory and went straight to the ferry terminal to check to timing of the ferry north to the mainland, the one we had planned to catch tomorrow, and found that the next one left in an hour and a half at 2.30, so we went to a coffee shop to discuss our options.
Tobermory was alright, so we caught the ferry and left Mull.
The ride on to Salen was fairly special. The views from the road were sensational, and the weather cleared to a nearly cloudless sky, something that boosts my spirits, and has been rare so far during our stay in Scotland.
We had no idea what was at Salen, but rode up to a pub, that had a room, did dinner, charged 70 pounds, which is pretty reasonable and all is good.
We are on the way to the Isle of Skye, and this means that we had two legs to get to Skye itself that added to around 140km, too much for one day, so by doing the extra leg today, we have split this section neatly in half. 69km today.
We have not travelled on B roads in Scotland until today, and they are certainly much harder than the A roads. They have slopes up to around 12%, which is big, and the ones today were single lane, with pockets every couple of hundred metres to allow passing. One of these roads is so minor that it is not even marked on one of our maps.
Our pub tonight has free WiFi, unlike the Travelodge or Ibis pubs.
We used the pay WiFi at Ibis and found out later that Roz’ Facebook account had a hiccup, which I put down to the affect of the proxy server used by Orange, who supply Ibis. Another reason to just provide the service.
You will need to scroll the map again to see the route.
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