The Dream Continues...

Did I just say that you have to be careful about Google Maps on your iPhone? Coming into Glasgow on the motorway, dear readers, I was accused by The Princess of taking a wrong turn. Pointing out that I had been going straight ahead for a very long time now and would have thought I would have remembered turning off, she pointed to the Google Maps in her hand and said something to the effect that I was very much mistaken, as we were 'floating across the map' 'not on any of the lines'. I tried to drive back onto her map, but the traffic in the right hand lane started to object, and we happened to be 70 feet off the ground. The only answer was to get off and find reality again, so I did. Here is a picture of the new reality.

Welcome to Glaschu...

Turns out Google Maps hasn't yet incorporated the new motorway into Glasgow that was opened over a year ago. This was to cause us some more navigation problems in the future as it's now the backbone of intra-Glesghu travels.

Anyway, to cut a lang storey wee, we were lucky to find our hostess still as welcoming as she had sounded when we announced our Scottish sojourn, and we settled oor weary bones in tha' Pollokshields tenement, och aye.

Here is a photo of Fatima and Anna Maria in the window of their deli/cafe/restaurant 'Saladin'. Fatima is a great cook and I can recommend the poached pears with ice cream with star anise syrup.  The coffee was also great. I can't believe how bad British coffee making skills are. This was one of only two good cups of coffee I've had here...

Thursday came, and so too the pleading eyes of The Princess. "There's Salsa on tonite in town, honey". Enuf said. Us is there.

 

We had a great night with some friendly local salseros at the beautiful Hacienda Room.

We had some great rides about town and out in the country 'round Carswell country. Here is a photo leaving Moine Farm, between Carswell Farm and West Carswell Farm. Carswell Law on the right.

Next we cycled out to Dumbarton along the Clyde. Great ride, beautiful weather. Dumbarton Castle was the capital of the Strathclyde Britons for a couple of thousand years, and then the Vikings, then the Scots, then the British again. Land of Hope and Glory!

 

and another, on the top of the 'Rock of Dumbarton' (Dumbarton Castle)

 

Here is the Castle from Dumbarton town bridge.

The ride back was a lot longer than we remembered!, but there were lots of things to see. The Glaswegians have put up a lot of fancy new buildings along the river bank to hide the blank places where their shipyards used to be before they moved to Shanghai and Taiwan 

Looks familiar, huh? 

Locals call it 'the armadillo'.

Sadly, we had to leave a very comfortable, friendly and hospitable Glasgow and head off into the highlands. You take the high road and i'll take the low road and we'll all get to Oban together. First stop was as far north as we're going on this trip. We stayed two nights in a lovely sheltered camp ground which used to be a garden, with a twelve foot stone wall all around it, at Barcaldine which we used as a base to go to the island of Lismore. Again we were blessed with some great weather. We caught the passenger ferry across from Port Appin with our bikes and set off around the island. It's only about ten or twelve miles end to end, but has a great history. It used to be the burial site for the kings of the western picts. When christianity came with the Dalriadans from Ireland, one of the Dal Araidhe saints, Moluag was given the island in preference to Columba and it became the centre of evangelism amongst the picts, tho' much of this became self attributed to Columba via his official biographer. This in the 6th Century! Nothing changes...

 

 

After a wonderful day riding around the island, we caught the ferry back to Appin and had a seafood dinner on the pub terrace with all the port activity going on around us, the gulls calling and the seals watching from the rocks...

We stayed a couple of days, then headed down to Kilmartin Glen and Knapdale. One of the oldest inhabited landscapes in Europe, certainly in Britain. Also, one of the most diverse landscapes with high mountain forest, farmland, wild glens, lochs and the largest peat bog in Western Europe. Human habitation remains from 6,000 years ago. You want atmosphere, this place has got it.

 

Here's a photo of R+1 taking his rightful place at the High King's swearing-in rock at Dunadd

 

and the Princess with the Nether Largie South Standing Stone

The next day we cycled along the Crinan Canal, opened in 1801 and has 15 locks that links Central Scotland with the Irish Sea.

 

 

Today we're headed South again, thru Argyll. Communication remains a problem. We get phone service sometimes, 3G almost never. We rely on sometimes coming on people who loan us their static wireless service. Sometimes you can't even get a phone service in a reasonably large town. I've got 'Orange' and Linda has '3' but it may be 'O2' or another company which has Pwned the town, but mostly it just that no company thinks it's worhwhile to provide the service. It's a shemozzle here.

Anyway, gotta go. "Things to see, people to do" - hopefully we'll be able to do more frequent blogs now as we head south again.

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