Bike Touring, Fahrradreise Schottland 2020 mit E-bike und Hund (#7): West Highland Highway
Good morning. It is now 6:30. I probably look really exhausted. At least I feel like that. Because it stormed all night, it was really bad and somehow the tent flew halfway away. Because we were inside, it didn't fly away of course.
But the tent was always on top of us. It always bent like that, so that we were always like this on the tent. It was not so pleasant. Zuri, ne.
But now it seems a little better. Now it is quiet outside Still very tired. As you can see.
I just got out of the tent, and the tent has already collapsed, because the peg flew out here because it was so windy. But look at this beautiful morning. wow. Loch Lomond is the largest lake on the entire island of Great Britain. It stretches over a length of 39 kilometres.
and is up to 8 kilometres wide and 190 metres deep. It's really windy today It's amazing how quickly everything has closed in again. Along the western shore of the lake there is a 28 kilometre long cycle path. Truly car-free cycle paths are rare in Scotland and so it remained one of the few real cycle paths on the trip.
Everything (The clouds) is already closed again We are doing one of the most beautiful routes in Scotland, It's supposed to be full of campervans too. This is the parallel road to the West Highland Highway which you can also walk. And I have walked it before and it was truly beautiful. I hope it stays dry, because there are quite a lot of mountains we have to go up and down. And I don't want to do it in the rain.
That looks pretty small. I hope we will fit. That was to be expected. That everyone always locks up these things. Oh, all right, Zuri, you have to get out. I don't want the bike to tip over.
OK. I'm really a bit scared about today because there are some hills, that are supposed to come today. Partly with a 19 % gradient. There is so much traffic here. I hope that the road is a bit wide and that people can pass me, because the 19% I definitely have to push. We are already going up the 1st hill of 4. I just let Zuri out a bit but she is super tiered.
This is quite difficult for her to run and it also seems like she is limping a bit and yesterday a cyclist ran over her foot. He just said "Oh" and went on his way. I found that a bit...well. I hope that I can make it up the mountain even with Zuri in the trailer.
Maybe she has to go out again if it gets too steep. Komoot now suggests this side route. I hope that I can get out of there on the other side. Down there you can see the West Highland Highway. The hiking trail yep, thanks Komoot. Now we have to go all the way back.
Here on the road, when you now see that from the car you can't see anything at all and when you walk the West Highland Way, you actually see how gigantic the nature behind it is. It is worthwhile to walk it 67 00:05:30,881 --> 00:05:32,323 The weather in Scotland is crazy. It has really started to pour and yet somehow the sun is shining. And now I don't know whether I should put on my rain trousers. Because it always gets really sweaty in them.
You bet it stops right now. Do you see that? We have sun here and it's pouring. How crazy is that? I have now decided to put on the rain jacket but leave the rain trousers because my trousers are already completely wet and they might also dry again from the sun. Well, that was crazy. That was now 2 minutes of super showers. The rain has us again.
We will now wait for a few minutes and hope that the rain will be over by then. Otherwise I will have to put on rain trousers. But my trousers are already soaking wet. Oh, crunchy day. We've been standing here for 5 minutes and I think the worst is over, and we can go on and maybe my trousers will dry again, because they have just dried. Dogs are not allowed here either.
It is quite different in Scotland in comparison to England You have to be really lucky in Scotland that dogs are allowed. I can sit here in the entrance now. And it is raining.
and I ordered a sandwich now because I haven't had breakfast yet. At least it's dry here and Zuri has found a place. And yes, it's not as warm as being inside, but it's better than being outside. Yes, it is raining again or still or I have no idea. In any case, I have now made Zuris trailer completely rainproof. I have now put on rain trousers, because that doesn't make sense any more.
Zuri really prefers it open, but this is just really wet for her now. But she can't really run. She is limping. Could really be that guy, who cycled on her foot yesterday that it hurts her now. Really stupid. I hope it will go away soon.
and she will be better tomorrow. See how beautiful it becomes as soon as you have left the road. That's 2 km of cycle path now and is just super nice compared to the road. I mean what you see with the car.
A very curious horse. and rain the seventeenth. These are steep mountains here, but beautiful. On the right is the West Highland Highway, where you can see the red man.
How beautiful! You are so much faster by bike, I can do this in 1.5 days, which took me ten days to walk. It's such a beautiful scenery and it's just so rainy. That's a real pity.
Yes, it's really no fun, the beautiful landscape here all so blurred. I'm going to look for a place a place to sleep now. It's only 6 o'clock, but maybe it will be a bit drier tomorrow. Here I will sleep now. Here, I can still remember it.
At that time it was all rainy and full of puddles too. We could also put up the tent here. Let's have a look around. Let's see where we can find a place here. This looks really nice.
We have now found a place to sleep. We are sleeping here now. because this looks relatively dry here. In any case, people have slept here.
We can put the tent here and then that's enough for today. Because it is just so wet Here again briefly my rain costume. You see that I try to put this on, that I can still film. But it's not so easy. It's just all wet. I am actually glad about the Gorotex shoes now.
and about the waterproof gloves. Whereas you can already wring them out. Do you see that? Now let's put up the tent.
On the West Highland Way, here. I found out, why it's so important to have a tent, which doesn't have an inner and outer tent and where you put up the inner tent first, because it's always when it rains, which almost always seems to be the case in Scotland, that the inner tent then gets wet. And here the inner tent is together with the outer tent. That means you can pitch it without it getting wet inside. And that's really worth its weight in gold.
The practical thing about this tent is also that it is pitched with two pegs. There are also a lot of midges here right now It is still raining. That's why I'm cooking in the abscissa now. I have also hung up all my things to dry.
Zuri has also eaten. It's all a bit crowded here. and it just doesn't stop raining.
I hope it will stop at least tomorrow morning, that I can pack up. It is now 8 o'clock in the morning and I look quite scrubbed because of the rain yesterday and all the rain clothes are still wet, but the rain has stopped. I think it has been raining for 15 hours. And now we're going to look outside and see what the weather is like.
So it sounds dry. So that we can continue, because Zuri has also taken up a lot of space. On my mattress. I was only outside for a very short time now because it stopped raining. And now I came back in here, because outside it's crawling with midges.
I put up my mosquito head net. It is horror. Now only going out and coming in, I brought in so many midges. I don't know if you can see that, here on the floor and here on the net. So these are, I have no idea, hundreds... This is getting bad here but really cool...
I need to clean that up for a minute. My rain jacket was not really waterproof yesterday I don't know if the rain was too heavy. In any case it was really wet underneath. I then wrote Vaude, because the jacket is new, I told them that I'm on a cycling trip and that my jacket is not waterproof and how that can happen. Theoretically they don't know that either. but they would send me via express delivery a new rain jacket.
Now I have choosen a post office on the Isle of Skye. I should arrive there in the next few days and then hopefully I have a rain jacket that is waterproof. So it's an amazing service. First of all, I wrote last night at 21 o'clock, they already answered me at 22 o'clock and then answered again this morning, that if I can show them that I'm on a cycling trip by taking a photo, that they immediately send me a rain jacket and that's exactly what they are doing today.
I am really positively surprised. It's superb service. I didn't expect that. Not at all. So, now we go out into the midges hell! So that you get an authentic impression how I have to pack up my tent. It keeps raining.
Right now it is a phase where it is not raining so much. But the midges are really bad. I have my mosquito net over my head. I can't really see much. Zuri is also besieged by midges all the time We have now made everything relatively rainproof again. I think you see more on the camera than I can see right now.
And the only thing that still has to be packed is the tent and then we're off. I don't know if you can see this, if I hold this up to the sky, but it's just full of midges We are ready now. And we say goodbye from the Midges party. Go Zuri Another view of the mountains Let's see where the next restaurant is, where we can dry off a bit. I guess we have to cycle up this mountain now. Today there are 3 mountains that we have to go up. Let's enjoy the view for a moment before we continue up the mountain.
I hope you can see this despite the rain. It is raining really hard. I hope we will find a restaurant soon. It's just cold and wet.
We have now ordered rain equipment 2.0. I have now put on my overshoes over my Gorotex shoes, because it rained in my shoes from above. Everything is just really wet Do you see that? And these are rainproof gloves. and it's all floating in water inside. And then it was also really crazy just now.
Unfortunately the battery in the camera ran out otherwise I would have shown you this. On this road, it's quite narrow. It was completely full of cars on the opposite lane and there was a long queue behind me. An SUV overtook me in my own lane. I really almost touched the car with my sleeve.
It was so blatant. I had to stop so that she could pass. I have never experienced that before. Such beautiful nature and you hardly see any of it. Pity There is supposed to be a mountain cafe here from the Skicenter Let's hope the dogs will be allowed in.
Then I can dry myself a bit there. That would be really good. Shit, no dogs either. Oh that's crap, here It's really crap in Scotland with the dogs.
This is the most dog-unfriendly restaurant country so far. Only Bosnia maybe worse. They say in a mile down there to the left there's a hotel. Maybe I'll have more luck there Dogs allowed. Hallelujah! It should be the first of two restaurants in all of Scotland where I was allowed to take Zuri in. I ordered a vegan burger and a cappuccino and it looks really delicious.
Not the cheapest here, but I am glad that it is finally warm. Zuri is chilling under the table too. I've been here for 1.5 hours now, it was heavily pouring down. I hope that's all for now. I even saw a bit of sun, here.
Look, blue sky. Not very long-lasting, but let's enjoy it. Maybe enough for a few minutes. There's deer around here somewhere. There! Do you see that? They are just walking around here. There with the people. Maybe I left a bit too early.
As foggy as that looks, that must be a big rain front. "Hello" The Scots are all really nice. They all wave Give the thumbs up I think they are very impressed that people voluntarily cycle in the rain. I actually left too early, it's raining again, it's pouring.
Now I'm thinking about whether I should put on Zuri's roof again. Actually she doesn't like it that way, but I don't want to get you all wet. ne, Zuri. There's blue sky! Cool! Hopefully it will stay for a while.
So that we can also see a little bit. Oh, I can't tell you how happy I am to see the sun right now. Do you see that? All the rain gear is packed away. Even my rain trousers.
I could even ride in shorts now. Crazy. I hope it stays like this. Really crazy.
We are now in Glencoe I am still so happy that the sun is shining. I can't describe this to you. That's where we're going. To these mountains. We are now cycling along the coast. Behind there is a ferry, Let's see if it's still running.
and also whether it starts to rain again, because then we will look for a place to sleep. Incredibly beautiful with the sun. Awesome! The rain is back. Maybe we can wait here under the little trees, I'm sure it's only a 5 minute shower. I have now decided to cycle in the rain, even though I don't have any rain gear on Because I actually want to reach the ferry today. It is only a small one.
I have no idea until when it goes. It's 18:45 now. I hope it goes until 19:00. and that I will make it. I think I am about 2 km away. We would have had time until 21:30. Easy and it's even free. Cool Hello Zuri Hello, hello We're heading towards the sun now. Yeah.
Hey, sheep on the beach. Cool! And on the road. How beautiful this looks. The only pity is that all the meadows are fenced off. So we have to see where we can find a place to sleep here. Incredibly beautiful! There is no traffic, because nobody uses the ferry in the evening, I have explored the area and here it is really hard to get in. And back there... I don't know if you can see it all the way back there,
where all the trees are that's actually a fishing area, but they don't fish right now. And therefore it is actually also quite well protected from traffic. I think we will sleep there We're going to go around the bend here, to see if it flattens out a bit. We have found something and it is here. It is relatively flat. It looks like that others cyclists have used it before me.
a gigantic view. And we are not with the anglers, where we might not be allowed. Wow! Oh I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep! I'm going to put up the tent now eventhough there is blue sky, but I don't know if you can see that, but there are also quite a lot of black clouds. I don't know who is going to win.
But it is really a beautiful place. Look. In the next episode it continues in an exciting way. Among other things: I'm going to have a serious word with the Scottish weather god.
The restaurants are fully booked. But a dream comes true. A very curious encounter, saves us the accommodation in the construction container and we explore Knoydart, Scotland's last wilderness. See you in the next video.
2021-08-22 18:26
