Five days in the saddle: to Calanais and beyond
How long would you travel for to get a one hour interview? Does five days seem too much?
I thought so, but after my round trip Glasgow-Skye-Harris-Lewis-Ullapool-Inverness-Glasgow I felt it was about the exact right amount of time.
My aim with my podcast about neolithic sites in Scotland, Stone Me, was to travel by bike as much as possible, but I do have a job and a family so taking, for example, more than a week to actually cycle to Orkney and back, while a delightful idea, was not possible. So I took trains and boats and cycled the last leg of each journey, sometimes getting off trains earlier to give myself more riding time in places I hadn’t been before.
That’s all fine until you get to planning the trip to the Stones of Calanais in Lewis, possibly the most beautiful ancient standing stones in Scotland, and one of the highlights of neolithic Scotland. This really is the far north western tip of Lewis. There’s not-permanently-inhabited St Kilda out there, and Iceland if you take a sharp right turn, but after that it’s Canada.
I got to planning and found first to my horror then to my delight that it would take me five days to get there and back. I baulked at first then realised: trips like this was the whole reason I was doing the podcast.
Day one
It began with one of the most beautiful train journeys on earth, Glasgow to Mallaig. As soon as you’re out of Glasgow the Clyde opens up to your left, expanding into a broad, calm estuary and water is suddenly everywhere. These are exactly the waterways that neolithic people used as highways to travel the hundreds of miles we think they navigated to trade, participate in ceremonies and probably engage in diplomacy, politicking and fighting. Through Helensburgh and you’re soon soaring above Loch Long on a precarious ridge towards Arrochar, The Cobbler mountain looming ahead of you, a sheer drop sweeping down into the water below on your left.
By the time you are gliding down the west side of Loch Lomond you’re feeling inured to the grand scenery, the mountains reflected in the calm waters of the deep icy loch, the train picking its way between cottages, ruins, roadside inns and clumps of forest.
My packed bike at a lovely spot 3 miles shy of Inverness - next stop was the pub.
Then you’re up through the desolate moorlands where there are no roads, no settlements, just a railway line, heather and empty air. Oh Corrour station, and the remote outpost immortalised in Trainspotting’s ‘it’s shite being Scottish’ scene.
It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done it or how cool you think you are, if watching Harry Potter films was any part of your youth then crossing the Glenfinnan Viaduct, the bridge used in the journeys to magic academy Hogwarts in the films, is a special experience, even if the cringey bagpipes-in-the-lift treatment over the tannoy is a bit cringe.
Nothing will prepare the first time traveller, though, for the sight as you hit the coast. Sky-skimming craggy peaks are everywhere. The peaks of Rum look dramatic until you spot Skye, which looks great until you set your eyes on the hulking, lowering, almost sinister bulk of the hills around Torridon. It’s dazzling.
Mallaig is the end of the line, it’s just a short ferry journey of about 40 minutes to Armadale on Skye. I had about 40 miles to ride to Skye’s biggest town Portree to my hostel bed. On the main road it was beautiful but didn’t take in many of the sights which draw people from all over the world to the island.
Day two
This was where travel logistics came in – I had planned to cycle up to Uig on the very north west tip of Skye the next morning and catch the 9am ferry to Harris in the Outer Hebrides. But that ferry was only every second day, so I took all the packs off my bike and rode a 55 mile loop around the north west of the island. It was wet and mizzly and colder than predicted but it was lovely to see more of the island.
Day three
The road up the north east corner of Skye from Portree to Duntulm and then switching back to Uig is a piece of single track heaven. The view of The Old Man of Hoy, a stack of rock like a chimney reaching skywards from the flank of a mountain, is stunning, and looks better the further away you are. Actually when you’re right there it’s hard to pick out the stack. As you ride away it appears again.
I was lucky to get the boat from Uig – after a long period of interrupted service for pier maintenance it had been off in the days before I arrived because the engine had caught fire. I knew nothing of all this and sauntered on without a care in the world.
When you’re on a bike packed with clothes and recording equipment and can only realistically do about 50-60 miles in a day the kind of detour that happens when a ferry is cancelled in the islands is trip-ruining. Had I been sent on a 90-100 mile detour, which cars would have managed just fine, it would have scuppered the whole Calanais recording trip.
This was to be a big day – 33 hilly miles to Uig, then a windy further 38 to Lewis’s big town, Stornoway.
I wheezed my way up the big climb out of Tarbert on Harris and soon left its craggy horizon behind for the low flatlands of Lewis. Lewis and Harris are on a single landmass but are talked of as separate islands. It’s no wonder – Harris belongs firmly in the craggy, granitey, spiky west highlands, whereas the flat, bleak, barren peatlands of Lewis are more like the very far north of Scotland where the big hills peter out. There is a point in the road where a road sign announces the change and it is as if someone had just glued two separate islands together, that’s how sudden the change is.
Day four
It’s recording day! I’m not meeting the expert for Calanais Ian McHardy till the afternoon so explore Stornoway in the morning and cross the island in heavy wind to conduct an amazing interview, where Ian describes discovering how a rock acts as a sundial, casting a shadow around which the entire Stones of Calanais site may have been arranged.
It’s a quick blast back to my hostel before dark and early bed for the 7am ferry.
Day five
It turns out Scotland’s ferry operator Caledonia MacBrayne expect cyclists to arrive something more than 20 minutes ahead of departure on the biggest boat in their fleet, the modern, monstrously large ship that will take me to Ullapool on the mainland.
It’s a smooth, luxurious two and a half hours and I roll out of Ullapool for about 15 miles of relentless uphill on a traffic-heavy main road, my least favourite stretch of the whole trip. Even when I reach 10 miles of descent a headwind means it’s hard going.
Isotonic drink recovery at Clachnaharry Inn
I got off the main road and picked my way through the little villages of the Cromarty Firth and stopped for a beer in a dark and welcoming pub three miles from my destination, Inverness. I can’t recommend Clachnaharry Inn enough if you’re tired and thirsty.
The train ride home would take your breath away if you hadn’t been on the West Highland line four days ago. Through the Cairngorms and rich, lush Perthshire it winds, bringing me home to Glasgow late at night after what felt like quite the ordeal.
It was an incredible experience. I relished such a stretch of time on my own, with just enough worry about logistics and plans to keep me on my toes.
Would I want to ride for five days for every interview I did? I don’t think so, but this was a special route and it was no hardship in the end.
The Stones of Calanais programme in my Stone Me series will go live on 28 June.