Hopping around the Western Isles
Chris Scott fires up the XSR Scrambler and heads north through Wales, Ireland, England and Scotland
IT’S 4AM AS the Stena ferry glides smoothly into Rosslare harbour, County Wexford. It’s also just a couple of days short of the summer solstice and behind me, the dawn is already dimming the stars ahead of what promises to be a fantastic day’s riding.
I’d just spent the weekend near the Brecons at the Horizons Unlimited Travellers Meeting (see separate box) and looking at the map, there seemed a much more interesting route back home to the north-west Highlands. Instead of skirting the UK’S northern conurbations, why not nip over to Ireland, shoot up to Belfast and then hop over to Galloway before hooking up with Calmac’s ferry network and skimming like a pebble via the Outer Hebrides and back to Ullapool. All up, that was over 900 miles, including more than a third of the total at sea.
I had a comfortable six hours to reach Belfast Docks; plenty of time for navigational cock-ups, refills and motorway-dodging diversions. But though I wasn’t expecting rings of jovial leprechauns skipping through the shamrock, this side of Ireland looked little different from southern England, albeit in its lush mid-summer bloom. Even the N80/N81 detour round the back of the Wicklows suggested that Eire’s better vistas lay elsewhere.
After battling the GPS’S infernal logic around rush-hour Dublin, narcolepsy struck around 8am. With only a couple of hours’ sleep on the ferry, I didn’t waste time fighting it. At the first turn off the N2
I found a gap in a hedgerow and passed out by a cornfield for as long as it took.
Blink and you’ll miss the border with Northern Ireland, but grimly familiar place names recalled the 1970s when “Today in Northern Ireland…” was the regular start to the Nine o’clock News.
Now part of a thriving regional capital, in Belfast Docks I rolled straight into a Vespa ride-out; today the comical puffins of the motorcycle world vastly outnumbered the usual Harleys and adventure bikes.
After snoozing my way back across the Irish Sea, being first off the ferry I had the A77 Ayrshire coast road to myself. Ten miles offshore lay the incongruous 1100-foot volcanic cone of Ailsa Craig while behind me, a determined Vespard was doing a good job keeping up until I split onto a scenic coastal route at Turnberry Bay, one of Trump’s ailing Scottish golf resorts. By now I was getting into my torquey Yamaha twin, newly fitted with firmer fork springs and a rorty pipe, which helped make my XSR great again.
Ever heard of Wemyss Bay on the Firth of Clyde? Me neither, but here the more intricate stage in my ferry-hopping jaunt kicked off. Waiting to cross to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute, I admired the fine Edwardian railway station, a listed masterpiece from the days when steamers collected Clydeside’s workers for a day spent ‘doon de watter’.
Mist rolling in
Eight miles from Rothesay on Bute, the road ended at a jetty where a five-minute crossing returned me to the mainland and Argyll’s convoluted ‘Secret Coast’. I edged around the Kyles of Bute to Portavadie jetty and had the barge to myself on the 30-minute crossing to Tarbert on the Kintyre peninsula. Lashing squalls interrupted bursts of bright sunshine, lighting up the frothing bow wave and fern-clad glens beyond. This definitely wasn’t southern England.
‘Are ye gonna do an Evel Knievel?’ asked the ferryman as the hydraulic ramp lowered onto Tarbert jetty.
‘I would, but I’d need to change into my jumpsuit first,’ I joked back.
Though I’d only ridden 330 miles, I’d been on the move for over 16 hours. Time to grab a snack from Tarbert’s Co-op then bed down in a cheap, creaky-stair hotel.
Green-laning as we know it in England and Wales is unknown in Scotland. Walkers, mountain bikers and kayakers can roam and camp freely, but there are virtually no public vehicular rights of way on the estates. As someone who also enjoys paddling and pedalling, I accept this but also know that, with permission, some tracks can be ridden.
While researching the route I’d contacted an estate about a shortcut over to Loch Sween. ‘Sure,’ they said, ‘as long as your bike can fit through the side gate and handle the steep, rough track.’ As it was,
my semi-scrambled XSR easily negotiated the short hill track, which in turn led to the A816 for Oban, one of the best roads on the trip if you can get a few bends to yourself.
Later that evening, the Clansman Roro out of Oban nudged into Scarinish harbour on Tiree. Reputedly one of Britain’s sunniest places, Tiree’s definitely one of the flattest and windiest, giving clouds little chance to hang about. Right now though, it was raining, but I went for an explore anyway: up to the radar station and over to Hynish at the southern end, before chancing across my lodgings for the night.
The home straight
Few bikers come all this way to ride just 40-odd miles of deserted single-track but next morning, a crisp north-westerly had wiped the skies clean, leaving air sharp enough to shave a highland cow. Pristine aquamarine bays, cute thatched cottages, flower-speckled machair meadows and my XSR’S yellow tank – all blazed with colour as if someone had spiked my porridge with liquid HDR.
I’d timed my visit here with the weekly ferry continuing to Barra at the tail end of the Outer Hebrides. Once ashore, I crossed the causeway south to Vatersay, parked up by a beach and scrambled up Heiseabhal Mor hill. At 620 feet, I’d calculated it was Britain’s westernmost trig point accessible by road and scheduled ferry. Formed of three-billion-year-old Lewisian gneiss, eons of Atlantic gales had shorn the rounded summit dome. Looking west, it was just 2000 miles to Newfoundland; all in a day’s row for a Viking longboat.
North of Barra, I was on familiar ground. Meeting up with the Mrs, we headed north across the archipelago, via causeways and more ferries to Stornoway and on to the last ferry to Ullapool.
To the Norsemen, the Hebrides were Havbredey: the ‘Isles on the Edge of the Sea’. My short moto-odyssey had explored just some of those islands but whether you get here by bike or on the end of a cormorant’s beak, as Norse legends recall, it’s always a thrill to visit wild places, even if they’re just a couple of days ride away.