27. Lochgilpead

Private Site
23^rd May - 25^th May

It's my birthday to-day. Happy birthday, Rog. I see I share my birthday with, amongst others, George Osborne(43) (oh dear), Joan Collins (81), Graeme Hick (48), Richard Hill (41), Anatoly Karpov (63), Martin McGuinness (64) and Bob Mortimer (55). Could be worse. If my Mum had hung on for another day I would have been born on the same day as Bob Dylan.

Sixty-seven and I still haven't opened the batting for England at Lord's. Must try harder.

 

Ardrishaig Bowls Club

Quite a long drive (for me) to-day, 58 miles, up Loch Lomond to Tarbet, round the top of Loch Long, through the Argyll Forest Park, past Rest and be Thankful (a place on the map but which I didn't notice on the road) and down the west bank of Loch Fyne past Inveraray to Lochgilpead. I would have liked to go to Crianlarich because I love saying it. Crianlarich, Crianlarich , Crianlarich. There, I said it without even going there. As I set out the sun was shining on Loch Lomond and on the surrounding mountains and things looked great. There was even a bit of snow left on the mountains. The drive was predictably scenic and I passed the Loch Fyne Oyster Centre. It was strange to think of oysters inland, but then, of course, Loch Fyne is a sea loch. There is a huge acreage of sitka spruce planting here on the hillsides along the way and many of the plantations are being harvested. It's a great pity they make such a mess when they fell the trees, leaving a landscape like a World War I battlefield. Inveraray was the only place of any significance and it was totally monochrome, or black and white anyway, and it looked as if it was wearing a uniform. Possibly the whole place is owned by one person, just as most houses in Midhurst have yellow window frames because they are owned by the Cowdray Estate. 

I had a minor disaster with the gears on the bike and so took it into Crinan Cycles on the main street of Lochgilpead. The guy there fixed it for me within the hour, but at the cost of a new derailleur set-up, chain and back wheel. Mmm, expensive, but it goes like a dream now. To punish it I will take it on a long run along the Crinan Canal to the west coast. Not to be left out I fixed my bike computer myself. It's surprising what a difference it makes to know how fast you are going and how far you have travelled, to-day and since the beginning of time. Adds a bit of spice to the legwork.

On Friday night some bad people came, the first I've encountered so far. I was reading in the van when a motorhome came roaring fast past me (the limit is 5mph) and reversed, fast again, to skid to a halt about three feet from me. Three men were in it. I told them they were too close and they seemed amazed. A small old one started getting uppity. They said the warden had told them to pitch close. When I told them again they were too close the old one started getting twitchy and saying “Why?” “Why”? I said “What do you mean 'Why'. You're too close”. Luckily the driver had half a brain and moved over. The old one kept looking in my window and staring. Jesus! I don't need this. This is the trouble with badly-run sites. You don't get this kind of nonsense with Club sites. Thankfully, this morning they had gone. Bad people!

My cycling helmet has been a bit sloppy since I had my hair cut very expensively, and I looked for a towelling headband to take-up the slack. To great amusement I tried a hunting, shooting, fishing sort of shop. I said that I didn't think fishermen wore such a thing and the good-natured shopkeeper said “No we make sure we don't sweat”. I like a bit of craic on a Saturday morning.   

 

Towards Crinan

The Crinan Canal was built in the late 18^th century. James Watt was, among others, involved in the project, but he was better at steam engines and there were many problems. It was dug through peat bog (the Moine Mhor, one of the largest areas of raised peat bog in Britain) and the walls collapsed, flooding the surrounding land. The help of Thomas Telford, a real engineer, was enlisted in 1811 and, after six years, the canal re-opened in 1817 and has been just fine since. Talk to the engineer, not the oily rag! The purpose of the canal was to save ships rounding the treacherous Mull of Kintyre when heading for the Outer Hebrides. Ships could sail down the Clyde, round the Sound of Bute, up into Loch Fyne to Lochgilpead then through the canal to Crinan on the western shore of Kintyre and into the Sound of Jura.

The Crinan Canal for me

I don't like the wild raging sea

Them big foamin' breakers

Wad gie ye the shakers

The Crinan Canal for me.

Small cargo vessels called 'Clyde Puffers' made many of these trips, laden with coal and general necessities for the isolated communites of the West. One of these splendid little boats is preserved and moored in the basin at Ardrishaig at the eastern end of the canal.

 

The last Clyde Puffer

 

I cycled from Lochgilpead to the northern end at Crinan, all the way along the towpath. On the way I overtook a woman cycling with a small black and tan terrier. Suddenly, a fish rose, and the dog leaped into the canal and swam after the ripples. Finding no fish he swam back to the bank with a look of total bliss on his little face. Somebody's day made!

Also on the way I passed Moine Mhor (The Big Bog), where the Dalriada lived on rocky outcrops when they migrated from Ireland 1500 years ago. The water in the canal is black, presumably from the peat surroundings, black, black as a banker's heart. (Sorry, I watched The Fast Show last night).

Also on the way I heard my first cuckoo of the year, loud and clear, calling from the wooded hill overlooking the canal.

The Cuckoo comes in April

He sings his song in May

In June he dines on roast beef

In July goes away

That's an old one, but I think I got the third line wrong.

Crinan itself is just a basin on the canal and a sea-loch on Loch Crinan, an offshoot of the Sound of Jura. There is a bar there and a coffee shop and a small lighthouse. I had a rest, looked out at the hills and mountains surrounding the water and started back for the eastern end at Ardrishaig. It was a really enjoyable trip and amounted to exactly twenty miles. My knees were humming by the end and I'm a bit stiff now. In fact, I was too tired to have the barbecue I had planned. Although my strength was sapped by losing about three pints of blood to the midges, I should be fitter then this. Another twenty miles on Sunday! The bike went beautifully.

 

The Basin at Crinan

Talking of midges; they are omni-present here (plenty of water) and very persistent but not nearly as vicious as the West of Ireland midges. Those blighters were really voracious and you could feel them boring into you. Sometimes a bite would actually make you jump, and you couldn't stay outside amongst them when they were in full attack mode. Someone I know made some anti-midge protection lotion from a recipe on the Internet. It worked really well, but when she went back to the site to make some more she found it was intended for horses!

Talking of engineers and oily rags reminds me of a previous life working on contract for an insurance company in Croydon in the 'Eighties. A team of six of us had risen to the exciting challenge of migrating data from the old underwriting computer system to the new one, hopefully due to go live at some time in the not too distant future. Starting out as The Migration Team we became The Mutants, because the quality of the data was so poor that we had to mutate it, and, indeed, make most of it up to turn it into information to populate the new system. It was a dark and lonely job, totally without glamour or kudos, and we were all Oily Rags. I remember going up to the City to a meeting with our team leader, and he stopped off at Victoria Station to print some business cards for himself with the legend “Nick Hallett – Oily Rag”. He was a bit of a character.