Three key things you need to do to survive on a family cycle tour

It’s gone a bit quiet on here lately - though not on Twitter (do you follow us on Twitter yet?) since Rhoda’s surprise rise to fame, which has abated now but continues to keep us busy with spinoff projects and requests to use the film! We’ve got all sorts of things lined up over the next couple of months but it’s robbed us of time to write so much about them. Indeed, the rest of the footage from our Borders training camp has yet to be edited, and has only just been viewed for the first time!

Anyway, in a brief lull at forest school today, I was talking with a couple of the other parents about the read-across between what we do as a cycle-touring family, and other family activities which may not necessarily include bikes! It got me thinking about the three things you need for a succesful bike tour - two of which apply in many respects to any family adventure in the outdoors. 

Round-the-World record holder Mark Beaumont taught us in his films that the three key ingredients are...

1. You need to eat and drink
2. You need to sleep
3. You need to do the miles

Eat, sleep, cycle, repeat. So much more in that than a T-shirt slogan, especially with children. Let's have a look at those three elements, what they mean for us, and how the knowledge and kit we've accrued can be applied to things other than cycle touring! We're going to explore each of the three in a separate post in the coming days, in more detail.

Eat

I've lost count of the number of times I've been for a petrol station lunch whilst on my bike (food of champions, often consumed in the cyclist's dining room, the humble bus shelter!) and upon dumping a pile of overpriced packets often amounting to a 'what not to eat' of cycling nutrition on the counter, I've been asked "any fuel?" - "yes," I say, pointing to the crisps, jelly babies, and Thomas Ivor's usual scotch egg - "this is it!".

Eating is a major part of riding your bike for long distances, day after day. It's something that we have to get right for the adults, and the children, sometimes with different strategies - or, more often than not, we sort the children out and supplement that as the grownups find necessary. You wouldn't set out for an expedition in the car without fuelling it first (ok, we've all tried...) but the human body, particularly in child form, needs careful and adequate fuelling in order to perform.

In order to do that we need to choose and source the fuel, but we also need to store it, carry it, prepare and perhaps cook it, we need something to eat it off, and to dispose of the remains afterwards.

So, two things to sort out - what you're eating, and what you're eating it with/off/cooked by. Is this so much different for us on a non-cycling day out? Not really - except sometimes for portion control! We'll have a look at what we fuel with on the road, and in a separate post, how we carry it, cook it, eat it and dispose of it.

Sleep

A day trip isn't a bike tour any more than a trip that doesn't involve visiting an island isn't a holiday. That latter bit may just apply to our family, in fairness. You get my point, though? A tour is only a tour if you actually go somewhere, and then on to somewhere else another day - unless you're Peter Kay.

Sleeping whilst travelling light as a family has some issues specific to cycle touring, when it comes to packing, but whether in a bivvy bag, a tent, a bothy or a hotel, staying out overnight as a family poses challenges most commonly peculiar to the children, rather than the bikes. You might have a baby who’s still up in the night. Toddlers who refuse to accept it’s night time at all. Perhaps your children are a little older and it’s time for them to sleep in their own room - or move out and leave you to it - after all, Mummy and Daddy are on holiday, too!

Getting the sleep you need, for the whole tribe, is critical to the success of your adventure. It can be a major source of expense and stress in inverse proportion, or at worst, both together! Some people thrive on getting up in the morning and having no idea where they’ll sleep that night; others cannot function without everything being booked weeks in advance. We’ll have a look at different planning and sleeping options - particularly our criteria for family tents you don’t need a car to carry. Sleeping bags and mats. How, where, when and with whom to sleep, with or without a tent. When to bail out and use a Premier Inn, and a bit about the kindness of strangers.

Do the miles

If you’ve eaten and slept well, it’s time to get on with the adventure you wanted to have in the first place! That food, and sleeping kit, is going to want putting somewhere while you do it. We’ve adapted our packing for cycling, hillwalking, canoeing, and even the occasional trip, heaven forfend, with the car! The common theme is finding and using kit you can trust, packing it efficiently and adapting the outfit as your family (and the adventure) changes.

There we go, then. A little series that will be of particular relevance as we get nearer to our big summer challenge for this year - and inspiration for you, our readers, too, we trust! There’s your planning mantra to get started. Apply it to all your ideas to test them…How will we nail down each part?

Eat. Sleep. Ride...  Repeat.

The graveyard shift - where is it OK to wild camp?

“I know, but is it socially acceptable to sleep in a graveyard’s car park?"

Having the confidence to set out with the children in tow and no booked overnight accommodation is one of the things I find most challenging about cycle touring as a family.  I find it really hard to switch off my thoroughly modern motherly perceptions that unless cosseted in the warm and dry, something dreadful might happen to my children.  This is despite the fact that a) I know that in all the trips we have made the most dreadful thing to have happened was an extensive collection of midge bites - irritating but not fatal and b) I know that the girls themselves actually spend their time indoors dreaming of being outdoors, and specifically, being in a tent.  The girls have a teepee in their bedroom  and often elect to sleep on the floor in it in preference to their beds, reenacting grand adventures with the “sleeping bags” they insisted I must make for them to play with.

I think Tom finds this element of touring easier than I do.  I am naturally more cautious, naturally more risk averse (although conversely, of the two of us, I am usually the more optimistic in outlook!).

After stuffing our panniers full of groceries for the evening meal and breakfast, we looked back up the spine road knowing it was time to make a decision about the broad area where we would camp.  Our previous trip told us that the spine road wasn’t going offer us the best of what South Uist has to offer.

We got out the OS Map.  The scenery on South Uist, despite being so close, is markedly different to Benbecula and North Uist, and to Eriskay.  Off to the east of the Spine Road there is a moorland outlook on to the sweeping hills.  The map showed a bothy but we kept that one quiet from the girls (who are also big fans of Alastair Humphries’ ‘Mountain Bikes and Bothy Nights’ short film), as the terrain to get to it was definitely not designed for 2 x 200kg cycle touring rigs with road-favouring tyres, and we wouldn’t have made the walk in during daylight anyway.  Mrs Risk-Averse wasn’t up for a late night repeat of the Cadderlie “the OS map co-ordinates and our GPS plot say it should be here but it’s pitch black and I can’t see my hand in front of my face never mind a building” trip (read about it here).

Off to the West though is the Machair Way, which is waymarked by various blue signs along the road.  Machair is a particular type of grassland habitat which hosts a rich range of wildflowers, plants and invertebrates (plus the obligatory midges).  We resolved to head off towards the west coast down one of the many roads leading off to our left.  In addition to finding a sleeping spot, we also wanted to see a bit more of the coast as we rode along.  We discounted the sections of beach marked as military practice zones.  Mrs Risk-Averse definitely was NOT up for dodging bullets à la our friends the Simonsens on their kayak odyssey (find their story here).  We picked a general area that looked promising on the map and set off.

One of the things that always reminds me of the real remoteness of the Hebrides is the difficulty that island life clearly poses for the disposal of large scale unwanted items.  It is not uncommon for the front of houses to host a range of rotting cars that can no longer be driven.  The cost and trouble of getting them to a scrapyard on the mainland once they are no longer roadworthy is clearly not worth the hassle.  Similarly, there are lots of examples of families who have decided that the family home is no longer fit for purpose and have simply built a newer one on the land alongside the old one.  No demolition, they are just left until the harsh weather turns them into bare shells - long-abandoned buildings with no windows and roof stand next to smart, well cared for family homes.  It seems wasteful of housing that could be repurposed, until you think through a) population size isn’t exactly an issue out here in the way it is in our mainland cities and b) the practicalities of dealing with demolishing a house on a tiny island.

We barely see a soul as we pedal along.  I would say it is quiet, but it’s not because it is getting windy.  Echoes of 2014, when the only shelter we could find was in the garden of a lady who took pity on us when we asked for recommendations for a camp spot that would get us out of a proper Western Isles hoolie, grow stronger.

Eventually, we reach the area we had looked at on the map.  The beach is long, sandy and completely deserted.  It is beautiful, and the Atlantic, crashing on the sand is a turquoise-blue against a heavy grey sky.  I wish that I could switch off the worry about finding a camp spot to enjoy it properly, but it is clear that whilst we have indeed found somewhere beautiful and where we would have space to put up our tent, it is entirely exposed.

We had turned off the road when it finished abruptly at a neat and well tended graveyard.  Tom walked around the perimeter wall to see if there was anywhere we could go to the other side of it that might be less directly in the face of the fierce wind, and the foamy sea.  He came back, eyeing up the ground next to the wall.

Mrs Risk-Averse is alarmed, and the inner monologue is running away with me.  We can’t.  It’s a graveyard.  There’s someone’s car parked right there - we might cause offence. You’d be right in the way if someone came to pay their respects.

“We have to make a choice - we pitch here" (he indicates the spot by the wall), "over there,” (he indicates the site we had passed by that wasn’t very flat but was marginally set in a depression in the dunes so had some protection from the wind), “or we give up and move on.  Here looks like the best option to me.”

I look at him doubtfully.  “If we get the tent up, we could eat”.

“I know we're not going inside the wall, but is it socially acceptable to sleep in a graveyard’s car park?" I burst out, unable to contain it any longer.  Tom can see that I am not going to find a stay here restful.  It’s not any fear of ghosts (I ain’t afraid of no ghosts...) or any such nonsense, but it doesn’t feel like wild camping by a clearly well loved graveyard would be right.

We get the map back out.  This is just like 2014.  We have about an hour before it will start to get dark and no more idea this time than last how to find any shelter from the gathering storm when the wind is this strong and the land is this flat.

Tom points out the Gatliff Hostel up the road.  It is about another 5 miles further on.  Last time, we didn’t head there because we understood that they didn’t accept young children.  This time, we knew that they did.  It wouldn’t be free, but we could probably find some shelter putting the tent up outside the hostel.  But to do that, we would have to coax the girls back onto he bikes for another half an hour.

Decision made that we would head to Howmore, we pushed the bikes back to the road and set off.  A little further up the road we spot a sign post to an off road path signed as part of the Machair Wa.  We check the map.  It looks like the path goes straight to Howmore, and if it’s passable on the bikes it would save us more than two miles.

Tom leaves Rhoda with Ruth and me eating the occasional jelly baby at the end of the path and sets off on a recce, bumping and bouncing over the track.  From where I’m standing, it doesn’t look like it will be a lot of fun to ride with the trailer bikes on the back.  He rides on over the crest of a hill and out of sight.  We wait.  I would say patiently, but it wasn’t all that patient and I have dispensed half a day’s jelly baby rations before he comes back into view.

We probably could do it, but it might involve a lot of pushing the bikes.  It would be shorter in distance, but it might be faster to stick to the road.  I hate this part - having to make a snap decision.  It feels like I invariably call it wrong.  We decide to stick to the road since we can’t really afford to damage the bikes, and we are not in truth set up for an off road adventure.  The physical toll of lugging all of our stuff to Cadderlie is still fresh in our minds.

Rhoda climbs back on her trailer bike with Tom and they set off.  Ruth and I faff while she does her toe clips and I put away the jelly babies, thereby almost immediately managing to get separated after a farmer waves Tom and Rhoda through before blocking the road with his 4x4 and starting to conduct an entire herd of cows across the road for milking, including one extremely reluctant heifer and her calf.  Tom hadn’t realised that I was stuck and went sailing off out of view.

The calf gambolled one way.  The heifer obstinately stood stock still in the middle of the road.  Another farmer appeared to cajole and then prod the heifer through the gate, where she stood mooing at the calf, which had clearly got other ideas and led everyone a merry dance for about 15 minutes, whilst I watched, bemused.  Ruth was scared of the scale of the heifer and thought it sounded quite cross.  I told her it was cross with its naughty calf for running in the road.  The things you invent when you’re a parent.  “This cow is cross that its calf isn’t using the Green Cross Code”.  Whatever, Mummy.  You’ve got some ground to catch up.

Three miles on, back at the junction with the Spine Road, Tom has realised that he hasn’t seen us for a while and has pulled up for us to catch up, incredulous that it had taken so long.  Ruth gleefully tells him all about the cows and we make the final push up to the road to Howmore.

We soon find the picturesque little cluster of buildings.  Tom and the girls wait outside while I go to see who is there and what space is available.  I stick my head inside the door.  There are three people sat around the table who give me a cheery hello.  A notice in the porch proclaims the prices to stay in the hostel.  We have spotted some tents up outside, and are contemplating doing the same to save some money until I realise that they want to charge £10 per head for camping.  A sign, and a notice in the visitors' book, capitalised, makes it clear that this includes everyone IRRESPECTIVE OF AGE.  So, babies and pre-school children too.  No exceptions.

That’s a pretty sum - £40 to pitch your own tent for ONE night.  Never mind Howmore, it should be called HowMuch?!

I go back to Tom with the news.  He is equally astonished.  For an extra £6 we can all stay inside in a bunk.  We have a brief conference and check how much cash we are carrying.  Just enough, (but not enough to use the hostel linen - that would be another £8, and paying to stay for the night is going to completely clean us out of cash).  Our stay here, in shared dorms, is going to cost us more than the last night we spent in a Premier Inn.  Given the general lack of options and the increasing strength of the wind (by now the forecast is suggesting overnight gales), we are all out of choices.

I realise as I stop my Strava recording that despite having made good mileage, for some reason, nothing has recorded since about half a mile in to Eriskay, so I have no record of today’s efforts.  This is a ridiculously minor thing, but it irritates me.  I am by no means a proper Strava warrior - I don’t have any “QOMs”, I don’t chase segments, and my only “follower” is Tom.  But I liked seeing our route tracked on the map, and now there would be a great big gap in the trace.

The other residents greet us genially as we arrive inside, having left our bikes under cover in the bike shed.  One of the gentlemen already there kindly goes and moves his stuff out of one of the rooms so that we can get everyone in one dorm room, and have it to ourselves.  There are 6 bunks; I reason that if we’re being charged almost full price for Rhoda (3) and Ruth (4), despite them being tiny, they are having a bunk each!  This is the saving grace - the girls are madly excited about sleeping in bunk beds, even if, in an ironic twist, the hostel is right next to a ruined church and its graveyard!

Poor Rhoda’s face is still covered in midge bites, and they are out in force in the shelter of the buildings.  Moving between the dorm building and the communal area is a dash, getting out and shutting the door as quickly as possible to avoid letting them in.  The bathroom window has been left open all day and the midges are swarming around the ceiling.  I get bitten as I shower and wash away the day’s greasy coating of sunscreen and insect repellant.  Those that bite me end the day drowned, but it is little consolation.

We spend the evening in the communal kitchen area, preparing a pasta feast from our supplies. Had we planned to have spent all this money to come here, we would have bought a more exciting meal at the Co-op, to take advantage of an oven and big pans!  Our presence (never mind that of the girls) significantly lowers the average age.  Ruth and Rhoda sit at the table on their best behaviour.  They watch a couple of episodes of 'Bob the Builder' while we are cooking.  The other guests include two cyclists, a chap on a motorbike, and a man and his (adult) son in a van.  The caretaker calls in and collects our payment - no, we haven't got it wrong.  We hand over all our cash and try to look happy.

Once fed and watered, we head for an early night, reflecting that Youth Hostels these days appear to be the preserve of the previous generation, who are no longer all that young.  With pricing like this, and wild camping for free (rather easier to find a spot as a solo traveller with a tiny tent or bivvy bag), it is perhaps no wonder we rarely see anyone who would class as “youth” in such a hostel these days when we stay.

The girls are tired, and very quickly fall fast asleep.  For the first time on our trip, I lie in my bunk and get out my Kindle, which has been carried but not been used so far.  It is tonight that we remember that my Kindle still contains the guide book we purchased for our last Hebridean trip.  We open it up again and dip into it - one more day’s riding and we will reach the turn off for Lochmaddy - the point we reached during our previous trip.  If we make it past that turning, we are into new territory for us between there and Lewis. The prospect of beating our previous attempt and seeing some new parts of the Hebrides gives our mood a boost, and as I turn off my kindle and snuggle into my sleeping bag for the night, I am looking forward to getting off South Uist and seeing a bit more of North Uist.

During the night, the remaining two bunks are occupied by two women who come in late and leave early.  By the time the girls wake in the morning, the chaps we chatted with yesterday evening have also left, so it is just us as we have our breakfast, pack up our sleeping bags and hang everything back onto our bikes.

We are still a bit sore over the cost of one night’s shared dorm hostel accommodation, and leave some feedback for Gatliff in the book.  Given that their mission is to encourage young people to get out and enjoy the great outdoors, their pricing structure (charging full rate for pre-schoolers to camp and a significant sum to stay in the hostels) is a pretty big barrier.  We also now urgently need to find somewhere to get some more cash, since between us we now have about £1.57 to our name!

Vatersay - Barra(bados)

I woke because I heard the zip on the tent open. I sat bolt upright, who’s that? Tom’s space next to me was empty, and I could see his silhouette through the inner tent. I relaxed back into the warmth of my sleeping bag, content that it wasn’t either an escape bid by one of the girls or a stranger come to tell us we had pitched in the wrong place.

I had woken twice in the night, because it was chucking it down. In the morning light, all of our stuff had remained perfectly dry, and for now, it seemed dry outside.

Terra Nova (1) - (0) Hebridean weather

Tom was by now rustling in the panniers in the vestibule. Hearing the sleeping mat squeaking against the groundsheet, and knowing that I was therefore awake, he stuck his head back in through the inner to wish me good morning. The girls were still sound asleep.

“What are you up to?”, I say, hoping that the rustling is a precursor to breakfast. “I’m going to do some filming and take some photographs,” says Tom. Ok, I admit at this point, I’m a bit disappointed about the breakfast, but so far, this is par for the course.

“And I’m going for swim”.

Wait a minute. Rewind. What?

“You’re going for a swim? Are you crazy?” He grins at me (what kind of an answer is that?) and disappears.

As I step out of the tent a few minutes later, I have to admit that the beach is beautiful and the blue water does look inviting. Then I recollect again that we are in the Outer Hebrides, and that inviting-looking blue water is the North Atlantic, and probably freezing cold.

Down on the beach, Tom is stripping off. He gestures to me, and holds out the camera. I grab it and point it at him, still wondering whether he is actually going to do this. “Lars Simonsen, this is all your fault!”, he yells, and canters off into the breaking waves (inspired by our Danish friend’s early morning swimming antics on our recent trip to Denmark). He has to run in quite a way before the water gets deep enough for any swimming. Surely he’s going to turn around? No, no, he’s actually in the North Atlantic. I hope the girls stay asleep. I don’t want to have the argument with Ruth which will naturally ensue if she thinks she has missed out on a swim. At the actual beach.

The swim is (predictably) quite a short affair, but Tom professes himself ‘refreshed’. He looks chilled through, and grabs a few extra layers before continuing his filming expedition, this time armed with Ruth’s waterproof camera.

I go back to the tent, where I can hear the first signs of the girls stirring. Ruth is first awake, and she has remembered exactly where we are and the promise made last night that we would have a trip to the beach in the morning. I get her clothes out, strategically handing her the ones she wore yesterday to get sandy, and layering on top her waterproof trousers to try to keep her warm. I leave her shoes and socks in the tent - no point getting those full of sand. Rhoda is next, and then we are off to the shore, ready to play and explore.

There is no-one else around, at all. We have the most beautiful beach, right outside our tent door, and it is all ours.

This is what it’s about.

We leave our trail of footprints on the pristine sand, being the first people there. Rhoda’s tiny little feet are dwarfed by the yeti prints Daddy leaves in his wake. We write our names in the sand. We paddle in the little breaking waves at the water’s edge. We look at the seaweed and the shells. It is idyllic.

Tom snaps away. And then Tom is fishing Rhoda out of the water. She has disobeyed the instruction to hold hands, jumped over a wave and fallen flat on her face. She’s in no danger, she isn’t hurt, but she is soaking wet. 

Time for that breakfast then, and a change of clothes for Rhoda!

The best of the weather seems to have gone too, and we are mindful that as wild campers, we don’t want to spoil the beauty for others by leaving our tent stuck in the way. The girls are not happy. They don’t want breakfast. They want to play. I bribe them with the promise of stroopwafels and milk, and they reluctantly trail along behind us back to the tent.

By the time we have washed hands and feet, eaten and changed Rhoda into dry clothes, it is clear that the good weather is well and truly behind us. The rain has started again. Blast - the tent will now be wet going back into the panniers.

I deflate sleeping mats and compress the sleeping bags back into their panniers. The kitchen gear (which Tom 'washed' in the sea) is stowed, and we now can barely move in the tent. The vestibule is full of bikes and panniers. We debate what to do next. We know that the tent’s inners can be stripped out from the fly, and we might get the groundsheet out dry. Is it going to be worth the hassle when we have to reassemble it all? Or is it better to have the comfort of knowing that the inners at least, will be dry when we have to pitch the tent again tonight? The theory is that we can just drop the whole of the tent’s interior, but we have never done it. If we accomplish it, leaving just the fly and the poles, we can have everything else packed and hung on the bikes, keeping us out of the wet (and consequently keeping everyone warm) for longer. We decide to go for it.

We launch into a sing-song of our anthem for the trip: “Oh, pack it in your panniers” (to the tune of the 'Hokey-Cokey'). Another of those surreal moments - what else would we be singing on a Hebridean beach in the pouring rain trying to shovel as much as possible away still dry?

We put the tent inners in… (dry!)
We pull the ground sheet out…. 
Contort ourselves to fold it and we shake it all about. 
Everything is dry except the pegs and fly 
That’s what it’s all about….

Oh! Pack it in your panniers… (repeat until blessed)

With only the poles, pegs and fly sheet left, there is nothing for it but to venture outside. We wheel out the bikes, task Ruth and Rhoda with helping to collect the pegs and set about dismantling the last remnant of shelter.

We are wrestling the wet tent when a cry goes up from the girls. They have just spotted Noel, Clem and Steff approaching on their bikes. They have been for a ride to the end of the road, having had lunch and had just arrived for a visit to the beach.

We agree that we will meet them shortly at the Vatersay community cafe next to the beach, where we are about to head for lunch and drinks and leave them to explore. First though, we have an appointment with the end of the road in Vatersay, so that we can say we have ridden the whole way. We are only a few hundred metres short, so it doesn’t take long. The end of the road is not particularly exciting, as ends of the roads go. The road terminates in a T-shape, surrounded by houses and a sentinel telephone box. We turn and head back (checking that Strava has definitely captured the moment - after all, if it’s not on Strava, it didn't happen!) the way we have just come and stop at the cafe.

We are struck by what a lovely facility it is for such a tiny island. There are showers, toilets, water and facilities for campers to use, with signage directing those with camper vans to a suitable place to park up. The cafe is lovely and warm, serving a tasty and reasonably priced menu. We haven’t got a huge amount of cash with us (still accustomed to paying by card wherever we go, this is a constant battle for us to remember that paying by card might not be an option out here!), but we manage to order food and drinks for all of us. Ruth is particularly insistent that she wants soup. She is not disappointed.

Steff, Clem and Noel rejoin us just as we are finishing up. We compare notes on our camp spots - we seem to have fared well, as they found their chosen beach quite windy overnight, where we have enjoyed relative quiet (apart from the heavy downpours). We explain that we are planning to stop in at the Co-op again for food before riding up the west side of the island, and then onwards past the airport to the north of the island to see the bits we missed last time. We agree to ride together, and look in the direction we are about to set off, already knowing that before very long we have to climb back over that rather large hill that we had to push up yesterday, but this time in the pouring rain.

Cycle tourists in the rain always elicit sympathetic looks in cafes when they leave. When you have three children in the group, sympathy is mixed with incredulity - “you can’t seriously be going out in that?” We remind ourselves that the rain won’t last forever (especially out here, where half an hour can transform the weather from hideous to gorgeous or vice versa), and zip the children into their waterproofs. We aren’t going to get anywhere if we don’t get going!

In spite of the precipitation, the climb doesn’t seem quite as bad in this direction. Ruth and I are last up again, having been distracted by passing the crashed plane from WWII on the hillside and views out to sea of fishing boats and little sailing boats bobbing about. The ‘Ruth pedalling while Mummy pushes’ technique is tested again and comes up trumps.

After a quick stop to restock (and obtain more cash) at the Co-op back on Barra, we are soon on our way again. The road is comfortingly familiar from our last visit. A new campsite has opened, but it is only a couple of miles away and we soon pass it, deciding that it is too early in the day to stop.

We pass the old Manse that we had looked at sadly last time, apparently still empty. Empty buildings always leave me sad - particularly those that have once been homes. This time is no different - I think again what a waste it is for such a lovely house in such a lovely place to have no family to call its own.

We had our eye on a particular rest spot in any event - the one we stopped at on our last visit where the now infamous 'extreme breast feeding' shot of me feeding Rhoda under a tarp was taken. Last time, we had settled down on a well appointed bench for a snack and a drink and the weather had suddenly turned squally, and Tom had chucked the tarp over me and Rhoda to keep us warm and dry. This time, the weather was improving, when we stopped for snacks and a recreation of the shot. Rhoda is rather larger than the last time! I’m not sure quite what Clem and Steff made of all this -we showed them the original shot so that we didn’t appear to be total nutters.

2014

2017

Reaching the turning for Traigh Mhor, we hit the most enormous swarm of midges, turning us into cycling ninjas, swatting them off our skin, spitting and snorting them away and wiping them out of our eyes. Evil, evil midges. Riding through a cloud of them with no warning is particularly mean - for the first couple of seconds I thought it was raining again until the skin on my hands started turning black as the corpses of those that had come into contact with the deet that I had applied earlier built up. Riding along the coast, we hadn’t been plagued too badly, but at the turning for the Ferry, the weather improved and the wind and rain subsided, the midges were coming out in force. We pushed on towards the airport. It was the wrong time of day to see a plane land, but the views were every bit as spectacular across the bay was we remembered. Last time, we hadn’t cycled up this part of the island. Tom and Thomas had had a tour by car from the owner of the campsite we stayed with, and I hadn’t been this far at all.

We reached the tiny airport, with its miniature facilities. The baggage reclaim is housed in what can only be described as a bus shelter. Literally, the bags are passed from the plane by hand to a bus shelter. That is the baggage handling facility. We didn’t have any suitcases, but (possibly taking being likened to luggage on the back of the bike a little too seriously) soon Ruth and Rhoda were taking turns along the baggage belt.

We toyed with whether to wild camp, or to go to a campsite. In the end, the soggy start to the day, sandy children and bodies covered in midge corpses meant that the idea of a hot shower and an indoor cooking area won out, so we headed off to Eoligarry and the signed campsite at Croft 1, with the single track road turning into two gravelled ruts as we continued along it.

Putting the tent up was a rather more involved affair with the inners detached. While Tom rehung the inners, I slung the tarp over the bikes, as more rain was forecast, but we needed the vestibule space to get our panniers back in some semblance of order after our unorthodox departure.

Poor Rhoda’s face full of midge bites left her looking like she had a dose of the measles. The lady at the campsite said even the local kids at the nursery she worked at were covered. Tom and I endured a miserable evening of itching caused by the previous night’s bites, and tried to avoid collecting any more. The forecast rain arrived as we were turning in for the night, so we hoped that might at least mean they would be kept at bay for the morning...

To be continued...

Odyssey from Oban: the beginning

We had been here before, at the CalMac Ferry Terminal in Oban, three years previously.

2014

2017

Ringing the changes as we posed by the departure board to recreate the shot we took when we stood in the same spot, Tom and I mused that: 

• we now numbered four, rather than five (Thomas Ivor being away enjoying a summer holiday with his mum); 
• we had two little girls proudly riding their own trailer bikes, rather than a four month old baby and a nineteen month old toddler; 
• the “old faithful” trailer was no more; the bikes were not the same ones, having been stolen and replaced in the interim; 
• we had gained two new pairs of panniers; 
• we weren't carrying nappies (hurrah!); 
• the only surviving cycle kit from the original trip were the panniers, bar bags and Tom’s rear brake rotor; and 
• Tom and I haven't changed a bit [*disclaimer - this bit may not be entirely true...*]

Last time, we had set off with high hopes and, thwarted by strong headwinds, had cut short our trip at Lochmaddy. This time, we had a far better idea of where we were going, places we were keen to revisit, places we had missed last time that we wanted to explore, and a whole lot of local knowledge bestowed by our generous host from the night before (including a hand drawn map of highlights and camp spots for us to visit on Barra). The forecast also promised a prevailing wind from the south for the majority of our trip. We were optimistic, and Tom in particular was determined: this time, we would cover the whole of the Hebridean Way.

The good omens were stacking up: thanks to the kindness of the new friend we had met and stayed with the previous night, we had secure parking for our car, and had managed (with only one slight hiccup) to get everyone and all the kit to the quayside, the car back to its parking space and Tom back with us in plenty of time for the ferry. The slight hiccup was failing to unload the water bottles when we unloaded everything else from the car. With some seriously inventive stowing technique, Tom cycled back to the ferry terminal from Connell carrying no less than six bidons about his person. Probably best not to ask where they were stowed....

Tickets for the ferry purchased, we also had a spare hour to make the most of proximity to the seafood stall on the quayside for lunch. This is one of the best bits of holidays by the sea - seafood more plentiful and tasty than anything we can get at home. I set off with Ruth for a first foray, and Ruth meant business. She had, in her pocket, three coins totalling four pence, and she meant to buy us all dinner.

The staff at the seafood cabin were brilliant - a lobster was extracted from the chiller cabinet for Ruth to examine at close quarters and to marvel at the pincers (held fast by elastic bands). I was only frustrated that I hadn't brought my camera with me to capture it!

Ruth can now identify for herself crab, lobster, scallops, prawns and mussels, and on seeing the pictures on the menu made a few requests of her own, her eyes decidedly larger than her tummy! The staff let Ruth "pay" with her money (whilst quietly taking the real payment from Mummy) and solemnly gave her the "change" (including her original three coins).

We went back to Tom and Rhoda bearing freshly cooked scallops in garlic butter, a very generously filled prawn sandwich, a similarly generously filled smoked salmon sandwich and a portion of freshly cooked mussels. The scallops and mussels didn't last long. Tom and Rhoda went back for a second go, and came back with dressed crab, a pot of prawns, more mussels and more scallops. When you know that in the evening you'll be cooking over a camp stove, you make the most of good food when you find it!

The time to the ferry departure had ticked away easily, and we gathered the uneaten sandwiches and retrieved the bikes and luggage from the rack. In the queue for the ferry we spotted another family of cycle tourists, and the girls were delighted to see a child conveyance they recognised - a Weehoo! In day to day life, we meet very few cyclists attempting anything like what we do, especially with children, so we were delighted to say hello. Ruth and Rhoda, in the inimitable way of children, decided that they had a new best friend. Instantly.

We boarded the ferry and the girls were already disappointed that our new friends had to park their bike on the opposite side of the ferry! During the crossing, we chatted with Clem, Steff and Noel and found that they were intending on a circular route out and back from Oban.

The weather for the crossing was kind, (unlike three years ago when Ruth was spectacularly sick in the canteen shortly after polishing off a full meal), and we had our only minor mishap when Rhoda lost her footing and barrel rolled down a flight of steps, giving herself a significant bruise to her shin. The first ‘first aid moment’ of the trip was dealt with by judicious application of an ice pack and some chocolate buttons, and Rhoda was soon back to looking out the windows with Ruth and her binoculars and playing noughts and crosses in her notebook (new game of the trip, requiring some surreptitious parental manipulation to get Rhoda to achieve the occasional win, since she generally wasn't all that bothered about whether her three noughts or three crosses were actually in a row, and was pleased with herself for taking a turn and drawing a nought or a cross anywhere on the page).

We unwrapped the sandwiches from Oban for a snack, supplemented by a bottle of Irn Bru for Tom (when in Roma…), two fruit shoots and a cup of tea. We’re so rock and roll. Rhoda also asked for a hot chocolate, and was surprisingly patient about letting it cool down.

The girls made friends with a dog and its owners, travelling in the pets area by the staircase, and enjoyed much enthusiastic patting. Ruth and Rhoda seemed surprised to see a dog on a boat- the idea that pets might travel on the ferry hadn't occurred to them.

As we approached Castlebay, we took the girls up on deck so that they could enjoy the view of the eponymous castle as it came into view. Tom and I took a good look at the beaches on Vatersay as we passed, as we were planning to head there to camp for the night. The weather was dry but the cloud hung low over the hills as the ferry made its way in. We were glad that we weren't starting out on the big climb up out of Castlebay to the east this time, as it looked like the road was disappearing right into the cloud.

Instead, when the ferry disgorged, we paused to let all the cars set off on their way, before heading down to the Co-op to stock up on food and water. A motor home beeped and its driver and passenger waved as it passed us- it was the couple with the dog. Ruth and Rhoda waved back exuberantly.

On our last trip, we hadn’t been over the causeway to tiny Vatersay. This time, we were determined to start at the very bottom of the Hebrides, and that meant tackling the only climb marked on the OS Map with arrows to indicate its sharp gradient profile. We set off with the brave (stupid?) aspiration of slogging up it without pushing, with Steff and Clem along too. I was soon in my granny ring, wishing I had changed the cassette for one with more teeth, when a local lad on a road bike passed us with a cheery wave. My heart sank when he stopped about fifty metres further on to get off and push - if he couldn’t cycle up it on an unloaded road bike, how were we to fare slogging up there fully laden on touring bikes, towing the children?

As it happened, I needn't have worried. Tom made it at least as far as the cheery local chap before abandoning: we cycle tourists are clearly made of tough stuff! Ruth and I stopped for a quick photo of the ferry as the climb offered a lovely view back across the bay. Ruth was astonished at how far away and how little the big boat that we had just left looked, and proudly got her own camera out of her top tube bag to capture the moment for herself. We stowed everything away, and I braced myself to push the bike up the remaining 12% slope to catch Tom, Steff and Clem.

It was at this point, that Ruth proved herself to be rather a smart little cookie. “Look Mummy, I’m helping!”, she announced, determinedly changing her gears and starting to pedal. And she wasn’t kidding - the bike lightened measurably as I pushed it, our pace quickened. I was rather ashamed that I hadn’t even thought to ask her to pedal as I pushed - I had just assumed that because the going was tough, she would want to rest. This was the first lightbulb moment where I realised that Ruth had her own ambitions for this trip, and she was not planning to be a mere passenger. I looked at my baby - a baby no more, and was awestruck at the strength of personality she is already exhibiting. As we neared the top, Tom saw the effort she was making and called out praise and encouragement for her. She dug in even more, visibly proud of herself.

The gradient eased as we neared the war memorial at the top of the climb, and we caught Tom and Rhoda, who had stopped to wait for us (Tom had beaten me to it, despite the “help” from Rhoda only consisting of her usual backwards pedalling). Ruth’s disappointment that Steff, Clem and Noel had gone faster than us was very vocal. She wanted to ride with our friends, and if Mummy wasn’t up to it, she was single handedly going to propel us to catch them up.

What Ruth still has to learn is that whilst we may well not have been as quick on the way up, all that extra weight does have its advantages on the way down! With minimal effort, we were soon freewheeling down the other side with gathering speed, gravity doing all that was necessary to catch up the gap, and the wind soon swung in behind us too.

We whizzed along a little further with Steff and Clem, over the causeway, before they decided to turn off to find a camp spot. We had already determined upon heading to one of the two beaches at the end of the road (depending upon which way the wind was blowing), so we carried on, swooping down quiet roads, and passing a group of ladies on road bikes at the side of the road, who looked as if they were about to set off having fixed a roadside mechanical.

When we reached the beaches , it was a really easy choice of where to pitch - one beach was sheltered, the other was facing the full force of the wind. We pushed the bikes through a gate and up a path over the dunes towards a stile. We could see a couple of people already there, and when we reached the top, we saw a large teepee already erected looking out over the sea. The people we had seen as we laboured up the dunes were unloading large quantities of cushions and duvets into the teepee, the sort of romantic looking camping gear that is hugely impractical - quick to get damp and slow to dry, heavy and cumbersome. Then there was all their kitchen paraphernalia - it looked more like moving house than camping! We looked back at the six bags on each of our bikes, and once more wondered why anyone would think they really needed so much STUFF just to spend the night in a tent.

The ladies on road bikes that we had passed a couple of miles back arrived and came to take in the views. They stopped to chat, the girls’ cuteness factor having attracted their attention. They were travelling light and bright - a group of friends from across the UK reunited for a summer cycle trip (but no camping). They also watched the performance with the teepee. As they turned to leave, Tom and I decided that we would find our camp spot further up, and we strolled along looking for a nice flat patch big enough to take the tent, ideally not visible from the road or the houses beyond.

We think we did rather well with this one:

We even managed to get the tent up and all our gear inside before the midges really descended. The new Alpkit tent pegs found purchase in the sandy ground, no problem. Money well spent. Tom did the honours with the cooking and braved the midges, whilst the girls stayed zipped in their inner tent and I inflated sleeping mats and shook out sleeping bags to loft. This was the bit of the day the girls liked the least - whilst the midges swarmed outside in the shelter of the tent, the girls were cooped up when they really just wanted to run around. It was already getting dark, because it was already early evening when the ferry arrived. We promised Ruth and Rhoda a proper beach trip in the morning, scoffed our pasta, and heard the first drops of rain start to pit pat on the fly sheet.

Tom looked at me - “Do you think we can get the bikes in here? It would be a shame to get everything soaked on the first evening of the trip.” Only one way to find out! We piled the panniers down either side of the vestibule, and brought in first the two trailer bikes (laid to try to avoid damage to the derailleurs and to avoid the drive trains coming into contact with the tent inners), then my bike, and finally Tom’s bike. Everything inside! It was certainly cosy, but we had no problem creating a route from each inner to the tent door, and with the girls already tucked up in their sleeping bags, the vestibule space would only be wasted overnight whilst we all slept. Tom and I were ready to escape the midges by battening down the hatches in our inner tent.

Tom sat up and downloaded copies of the memory cards from each of the cameras, and soon the glow from Tom’s phone and head torch were the only lights we could see. We are always struck by how dark the darkness is when you are away from the urban light pollution. Both of us tend to fall asleep quicker. Tonight, we could hear the waves lapping on the shore and could snuggle up into our sleeping bags while the rain poured down knowing that all our gear was inside the tent. Bliss. We would find out in the morning whether the tent had lived up the big promises TerraNova made about it - nothing like a dose of sideways Hebridean rain to test how waterproof your tent really is...