Sunday seen a spot of fishing. The destination Millport. A small wee island accessible from largs. The train from Glasgow central takes about an hour to get to Largs then it’s a 2 minute walk to the ferry which runs every 30 mins or so and only takes 10 minutes to get there. Now if the day befores weather was anything to go by it was waterproofs but I was quietly confident it wasn’t to be. Shorts and T-shirt was the order of the day. Once on the ferry these were our views…

Out the back:

And where we were going:

Shorts and T-shirt instantly paid off. The ferry drops you off at a wee harbour but you have to get a bus into Millport the main town which is about 4 miles round the coast…we just cycled it. Now fishing was the order of the day. We hadn’t had much luck sea fishing…infact I’d go as far as to say none . So halfway to millport we stopped to try some fishing. No Luck but didn’t actually lose any gear. It was here when a couple of old guys started fishing a bit up from us who clearly knew what they were doing (assuming, just cause they were old) one guy using different gear from us and catching fish while the other guy using the same as us was catching nothing. Once we spied what it was we headed the rest of the way into millport to find the fishing shop and grab some lunch.

Having found what we were looking for in the fishing shop (after eventually owning up to the shop owner I have no idea what I’m doing but know what I needed to catch fish) we headed back to the same spot. Lee unleashed some beers he’d stashed…hoorah. The fish we were after: Mackerel. The bait we were using: Feathers (well fake plastic ones) We both setup with the new bait. With instant success. The way feathers work is that there are actually up to 5 feathers with hooks on so when a shoal swims through you actually end up catching 5 at a time. I only had 3 on but was more than happy. End of the day I caught 11 and Lee caught a stupidly impressive 17. Great day out, got completely sunburnt. Ended the day with Fish and chips in Largs…Jackpot. Now We’ve mastered the sea I think it might be time for a trip back to Rothesay.

Imagine the scene…It’s raining and the phone rings…It’s a friend who says lets go for a walk…I’ll bring my dog. Done deal. The location Mugdock park just outside Milngavie. The place is actually massive but we chose to walk round the reservoirs. 2 massive reservoirs that have been filled artificially by two 26 mile underground tunnels from Lock Katrine. Who knew my blog could be so educational. Also When the reservoirs are full they hold enough water to supply Glasgow for twelve days. Anyway all this is irrelevant, I got to walk a dog. This is Stovie…great name for a dog.

Cross between a springer spaniel and something else I think…It’s also irrelevant…I love dogs. Great fun. Especially ones that jump in drinking water and puddles. I also ended up soaked and covered in muddy paw prints trying to match stovies enthusiasm. Great day out, even though it rained…will have to go and look at the rest of mugdock park.

I have been putting this one off for a long time. For no other reason than There is so much to cram into it. A small books worth rather than a post. Macca covered it nicely so I’ll try and work in tandem to fill some gaps.

synopsis: 8 men in a caravan, bikes, meat, beer, banter and oban on our doorstep.

Now some of these men were french…5 of them to be precise. This plays a big part in the story. My english is pretty bad but my french would make del boy blush. We headed off from Glasgow bright and early to get the train to Oban. I was the only one taking my bike the rest were hiring theres at Oban. Train ride up is brilliant, took about 3 hours to get to Oban but the scenery is a great introduction to Scotland for some of the french that had never been before.

Arrival In Oban, found the bike shop where Christerry arrived…travelling from dundee with a car and bike attached to back his car indeed was a blessing in disguise. The Guy at the bike shop was very helpful and filled our ordinance survey up with good bike routes but more importantly pubs and good places to eat. Instantly a cycling holiday was made…didn’t even catch his name…let’s call him jeff.

Was here we chucked all our big heavy bags in Christerrys motor then headed off in the wrong direction to find the campsite. Found it eventually.A great wee cycle run that hugged the coast…nice easy road to cycle on. It would be this road we’d be cycling everyday to the pub and shops. Although Christerrys car did come in very handy.

Upon Arrival to the Campsite we found our caravan and were instantly turned to giggling children picking rooms and checking all the cupboards, maybe it was just me. There was the fear that as it only slept 8 it would be a bit of a squeeze…oh no it wasn’t it was huge. I had the foresight to send Christerry up ahead as driver and score us a good room. Not sure if he did, I didn’t fit on the bed…dunno if anyone else did. It was a pretty tall holiday in fairness. Me and christerry buddied up as the hobbits. Can I just now applaud Christerrys bed time banter…brilliant. There was so Much hilarious banter constantly but to laugh yourself to sleep everynight…hilarious…that was until macca introduced “whisper time” boooooo.

Day one seen macca and Christerry head off to get supplies in the motor…my word did they do well. Not only did they get a bbq (which had to be built, but they just swiped the already built display one…genius) they somehow rummaged through the reduced section and found a chunk of roast beef reduced from £10 to 10p…genius. Lots of beer and beef later we all knew it was going to be a magic holiday.

Next day cycling into town where we locked up the bikes outside the train station then went on a distillery tour. Brilliant fun…got some samples and bought a bottle for our EU caravan. Was from here on the way home we thought we would use our map and head for the big hill. Got a bit lost in all honesty but got there in the end. At the sumit we all swigged some whisky. I’m not a fan of whisky…on the tour, i did stuggle with the sample…at the summit however. Bit knackered sweating can’t really stand…it was just the job.

Nest Instalment of cycling randomness was kerrera a small island oppisite our campsite. A wee ferry goes back and forth for £6 return. Just a wee flatbed that could take a car at a push. Bikes on then off for adventure. The Island itself had 2 main cycle routes. Red and Green, we took red up to Gylen Castle. What a place that was…amazing. Ditched the bikes and walked round the cliffs. Loved it…was just like a mini stonehaven (yes everything will always be compaired to stonehaven). The cycle run ended with a massive downhill that got us straight back to the ferry. A great day out. The island also had a seal colony…but we never ventured to the green side.

Wednesday was the big cycle. Started off with main roads up to Connel Bridge to get some top scran from the glue pot. A nice wee local. Hanging outside above the door was a gluepot…can’t remember the relevance of it although once inside we found out it was unlucky not to touch it on the way in…good to find out…ONCE YOU’RE IN!

No bad luck fortunately but we did go up to Dunstaffnage Castle…which was pretty crap…they charged to get in…instant dislike…i didn’t even take a picture of it…that’s how much of a disappointment it was.From here we crossed the rail tracks and ventured into the hills back to Oban. Great fun. Loads of ups and downs and different track to cycle on. Another great downhill into Oban which ended with me cycling through a tree. Hilarious. Back to Caravan for more meat and beer ofcourse.

Thursday the group split…We stole one frenchmen but all the other french insisted on cycling nearly double what what we did the day before…nutters. We caved and cycled to the pub to sit and read newspapers and drink cider. Back to Campsite for some pier fishing and a little dip in the see….damn it be cold and salty round those parts…this i realise is pretty obvious to most but it was a beautiful day.

The others arrived only to sit for a while have a few beers then get back on the horse and head back into town for another night out…hardcore. Was here we stubled upon Barbera…our distillery tour guide…she got talking to us and told us a few good places to go…onwards we went only to discover…everywhere had shut up shop….doh. No worries she says…my folks are away lets go back to mine. Ok we say…don’t need a taxi our means of transport is locked up outside the trainstation. Bingo..10 people, 8 bikes and 1 light cycling in the dark about 3 miles up the coast. Hilarious. Eventually arrive to end up dancing (to wizards, i wish it could be christmas everyday) in a relatively random girls kitchen whilst drinking all her mum and dads wine. Brilliant fun, amazing banter. Eventually me and benoir headed home…about 4am I think so about 7 miles to cycle home…100ft into the journey…roughly at the bottom of the hill benoir slams his brakes on and goes over his handle bars…then laughs on impact…magic. 7 miles later in the rain as the suns coming up we get home….a good bit soberer than we were before we left.

If you’ve made it this far well done…sorry this is so massive. Some essays i wrote at school weren’t as big as this. We’re nearly there. Next day was a bit of a lazy one. Christerry drove us into town where we found an amazing wee cafe that did nothing but roast meats. Chicken, beef and lamb in big filthy sandwiches or with all the trimmings. Just the job. Pottered about in town going from coffee to coffee. Eventually headed back to the others who had just flopped all day but needed food. Not ones for getting back on the bikes we decided to get a couple of taxis. Oban is a small place…very small. Word had got out that a load of french invaders had taken to cycling at xam completely pissed…the police knew but thought it was funny cause they were french and also everyone knew we’d been to barbaras house. Hilarious it was outside the pub we received a phonecall (the bar staff brought us their phone and told us a jenny wanted to speak to us) another nightout was arranged then off to another pub for dancing and drinking. This pub contained the contents of the pink bus in our campsite…turns out it’s a gay bus full of swedish people on tour…they liked to dance…we got on very well…not that well. A taxi home at xam again where we told the taxi driver we’d been cycling it pissed in the dark proceeded to switch his lights off and drive us there…not so clever…didn’t die though…all good.

Saturday We returned the bikes very lazily, And it was from here me and Christerry parted ways. The remainders took train back to Glasgow for another nightout…harcore. Whilst i went back to dundee with Christerry then went back to the home comforts of Ma and Pa and to get my washing done. There are literally hundreds of hilarious things that happened…one of which was fishing and catching a pineapple…exactly…alot of stuff equally as funny…but look at the size of this…it’s just silly now. Amazing holiday, amazing company but most important of all…amazing meat

Unavoided (topright) not in the dictionary but in the scrabble one. Someone try and use it in a sentence…nonsense…but did win me the game

Saturday seen me straight up and out the door after about 4 hours sleep to go climbing with fellow dog ross. We hat some midweek banter about going for a wee hike and decided the weather would be suitable on saturday. Grabbed a train and headed to tarbet and arrochar. The train stops at tarbet and there’s a 30 min walk to arrochar…don’t be fooled like we were. From arrochar you join the footpaths into Argyll forest, it was here we decided to climb The cobbler neither of us having done it before. A nice jaunt through the hills a fairly steady incline and at places actually quite busy…full of lots of friendly people swapping such banter as “aye aye”, “lovely day” and my personal favourite from people coming down as we went up “you’re nearly there” even though we quite clearly had another 2 hrs of uphill to struggle with.

The walk runs round the back of the cobbler and some clever fellow had built steps right to the top. This was tough going. Once we reached the summit (after about 2hrs 30 mins from when we arrived off the train) we failed to notice the clouds had crept in. Was cool, they rolled in just as we arrived. So we temporarily saw the view but it was quickly obscured and it all got a bit x-fileseee

At one point on the summit a huge wedge is cut out the top where you can look right down…it just turns your legs to jelly…even cooler though was the fact you couldn’t see the bottom it just faded off into nothing…creepy…like that bit out of lost boys when they all drop off the bridge (just keeping it real)

the descent was easy once off the summit. Nearly skipping all the way to the pub. We made a decision not to get food in arrochar but to get back to Tarbet just so we could run and catch the train. This was a mistake…the banter all the way down was gammon steaks and chicken pies., only to discover the ben lomond pub had a private function on and couldn’t serve us food. Devistated…me just cried into our pints and went home. Arriving on a sataurday night in glasgow wearing shorts in the freezing cold isn’t how I imagined my saturday night would be. All in all a great day out. A busy one…but a good one

Went fishing Sunday…headed back up to Lochwinnoch as the weather looked pretty good. This time me and lee tried the other side of the loch up past the bird sanctuary. Once again we were plagued by midgies. Long story short lee caught a fish I didn’t. So in an attempt to steal his thunder here are some beasties I found when I was in my no fish huff.

Jeremy the Slug…not very exciting but some of them were massive and I thought it would be rude not to include Jeremy (we got quite attached)

Loretta the little green bug…dunno what type it is other than small and green. hoping that someone can be bothered looking into their latin names etc.

Pedro the Frog? Toad? bit of a jump in the hierachy here…I think everyone loves frogs…

Scott the little cool Lizard…He was cool. Just hiding under a rock…didn’t move particularly fast…or wee on me which was nice.

As you can see I’ve done no form of research whatsoever but it has been a very lazy sunday so I felt it was in keeping…also I watched lost boys…Classic

What an awesome weekend I had. This weekend past seen the annual stonehaven feein market , a great exscuse to go home and see family and friends. I won’t bother explaing it all Macca has already covered it. For the sake of comedy i’ve cropped macca out of these photos insinuating he’s too tall…when infact he is in all of the photos…great gag. Good crowd back in stoney this year. Saunders gave me a lift up and macca gave me one back down…magic. We all headed down the road holding out for lunch…some big filthy burgers from the bbq stand. Then came decisions…burger…or hotdog…quickly we established we were having both.

From here a nice jaunty walk along the beach, round the harbour to the marine where saunders joined us and macca and christerry somehow didn’t know that you can untie your shoelaces with one easy pull…see results below…

Then to putting. It was decided early on that money would be used to spice this up a bit. £2 all in…zoiks i hear you cry…even funnier the fact we got on the putting green as children and only had to pay 90p each. I started off confident 7 under by the 9th hole…but choked under pressure macca won eventually and christerry went for the wrong hole eventually fiinding himself and saunders joint last.

From here we went back to somerfield (the field of dreams, just like the cafe in neighbours…everyone has worked there) for more meat and beer. Back up to my house fired up the bbq where we sat, drank and got very merry with most of my family…

Another awesome Stoney weekend which ended with Christerry being sick because he’s a secret vegetarian and can’t handle meat. Although in his defence he did have a sausage in a bun for breakfast the next morning…fair play/ denial

Well it had been on the cards for a while now, Loch Awe. It was booked last week. A full week up in a log cabin on the banks of loch awe. Me and Lee made the executive decision to get the train to taynault and cycle to dalavich (home of loch cabin). Lee had been there before and knew what the 15 mile trek to dalavich…this was the problem…no he didn’t. Miles upon miles of hills…mostly up. It took 3 hours to get there with bags and bikes.

Upon arrival (roughly at about 3) we soon realised all shops in the area were shut. Having taken no food with us we had to settle for pasta and chicken gravy (the only food the cabin had to offer). Venturing to the local pub we got some top scran (see below). let it be noted there was an extra bottle of kopparberg but lee fell over and smashed one.

next day up relatively early to hire a boat and go fishing…no luck..well I caught a pike, but not off the boat. Then to the pub for food. Dalavich has a post office and a pub. tis all. The pub did great food..I had scampi…magic. The food in the post office was limited, Even the loaves were frozen!

Saturday richie and his lady friend come over to play. Arriving at about 5 we took a bbq to the beach after richie brought with him some manly supplies (mostly meat). From here the midges took charge and chased us away. Then to eurovision. My favourite occassion. My Money was on france…awesome tune. not to be…lost a fiver. The finals were on in the local pub…who knew? from here it was back to cabin until this…

Sunday seen us jetting round loch awe doing some island hopping. Including an island with a castle and breaking a boat trying to get to a graveyard…mostly my fault :). ritchie had to go home so there was no other option but to go to the pub.

Monday my folks were heading over to say hello. So just a bit of fishing in the sunshine just infront of the cabin until they arrived. No luck but topped up my tan :). when they arrived my mum cooked up a top notch sheppards pie then back to pub…hoorah. Monday consisted of walking my folks dog. I found a snake turned out to be a slow worm.

we got a lift back to train station…ahh luxury. back to normality…well a public enemy gig

It seems my blog has gone all a bit great outdoorsy of late. So this is the official invite to come join the festivities. Things to do this year. The west highland way in september. Loch awe for some fishing this month…maybe even the next bank holiday Monday. And last but not least a wee jaunt on the caledonian canal. So who’s coming out to play?

Well we knew Monday was gonna be a scorcher…and it did not disappoint. Macca came over on sunday night to play games and we decided since he’s been constantly busy and he got a new camera but hasn’t had the chance to use it. So a random jaunt was required…the destination…Ardlui…the reason…A random jaunt :). It looked like it had a bit of everything…hills, lochs, trees, beach and a waterfall? so the adventure was on to find a waterfall.

Breakfast started with an onslaught of sausges and beans…magic. Then off to queen street to get our tickets. Upon purchase of our tickets we looked around and seen it would cost us £15 each. When we got there the ticket man only charged us £15 for both of us? We had been sold a daytripper ticket…never seen one of these before. You can travel all around with this ticket, use buses ferries all sorts. It looks like a bingo card and you just scratch off the day you want to use it…find out more here(we could have taken 4 children too if we wanted…but macca scared them off). It was decided we needed pic nic ammo. Sausage rolls, buns, ham coleslaw and pork pies…obviously. Nipped into boots to pick up some sun tan lotion (yeah serious)… Where the women who worked in boots threatened to stab us unless we took her with us (only in glasgow).

The train journey was magic…the route heads up to mallaig. Loads to see runs the length of loch Lomond. 1 hr 30 mins we arrived. A wee map at the station (which by the way if you want the to catch the train you actually have to flag it like a bus or it doesn’t stop) showed us roughly where the waterfalls were. We ventured. Ardlui itself doesn’t have much. It has a pub with a marina though…so that’s reason enough. we walked for about 10 mins to find a way of getting over the other side of the train tracks, eventually finding a bridge where the waterfall ended. 40 mins walk up the hill we stopped for a pic nic…pork pies…mmmmmm. macca went crazy taking pictures of anything…most of his pictures consist of me taking pictures

30 more mins up the hill we found the main waterfall. It was massive about 70ft of free fall. Was great…it was absolutely roasting so down by the base of it there was a nice cooling mist.

We trudged back down the hill towards the pub where we sat it out waiting for the train. A nice shiny magners or 2 went down very well. “More food!” shouts macca. So we stopped at ardlui hotel where the food was awesome. I had gammon steak which was huge and macca has a massive yorkshire pud filled with goulash. All in all an awesome random adventure. I recommend the ardlui hotel for a pint…they have a dog called wookie…magic. Back to the train station where it back to games throwing stones. The game to hit the bottle as many times as you can in a row. 2 stoney boys with deadly aim we knew it was gonna be a good one. I won with 6 consequetive hits to maccas measly 4. All in all a great day…roll on summer!