day one of biking: not that hard until we got lost. no rain while we biked.

day two of biking: much harder, more hilly, gravelly bike trail.  hard rain on and off.

and now, day three of biking.  this day, tuesday, instead of looping back to Callander, we were headed out to a whole new town, the tiny hamlet of Killin.  We had to have our suitcases out in the hall for somebody to pick them up by nine.  we did that, but then had a very leisurely and lingering breakfast because it was raining and it looked like more rain was coming.

this was the view from our room in the morning when we got up.  i don’t know if you can tell, but it was raining pretty hard.

so we waited and waited and lingered and lingered over breakfast.  we finally set out when it looked like it was clearing.

exactly three minutes after we started, the rain started, too.  today we began on a nice, paved bike path out of town.  we went through these woods, so they kind of protected us somewhat from the rain.

in the biking directions it described some “falls” and later we thought we’d missed the falls, but i think these were them.  there was also some rushing water in the stream next to us; those might have been the falls, also.

it was rainy and cold but just so very pretty.  also nice to start out without the big hills.

as we biked, we passed some holiday cabins next to the path.  they looked very nice, and we did pass a couple on bikes who were clearly staying at the cabins.  we didn’t know why they’d be out in such rotten weather, but like i’ve said, this is how it is in scotland, so they’re used to it.

finally the rain let up…and the hills began.  we turned onto a small road, and i stopped to videotape after resigning myself to more bike pushing.

i’ve really tried to whittle down all the photos that kevin took, but it was all just so lovely…if you ever want to see all the photos, please let me know and we’ll invite you over to see them projected onto our big TV.  that’s the best way to see them.

off to the side there is another loch, i can’t remember which one.

kevin passed these two long-maned horses and when he reached in to get out his camera they thought he was going to feed them and they tried to eat the camera.

we rode to the really tiny town of balquidder, where rob roy macgregor is buried.  throngs of tourists at the church graveyard?  no, of course not.  there were a few people, though, and we saw a couple of bikes parked that obviously belonged to the bike company we were using.  we didn’t see the cyclists, though, so maybe they were off hiking.

here’s his grave.

do you know who rob roy was?  I found this online:

“The life of outlaw Rob Roy, who was born in 1671, has entered into Scottish legend after his famous dispute with the then Marquis of Montrose. In 1715 he led his clan to battle in support of the Jacobites.

He was later charged with treason but escaped prison and lived the rest of his life as an outlaw. Rob Roy’s legend was brought to the big screen in the 1995 Hollywood movie starring Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange. Glengyle House is said to stand on his birthplace and lies within the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.”

so, we must have ridden our bikes past this house, Glengyle House,  when were were going around loch katrine in the rain!  was there no plaque?  i don’t remember one.  they also didn’t mention it anywhere in our guide book.  i also don’t remember hearing about that movie.

ok now i spent two minutes looking up this house.  we DID pass it, in the ferry going across loch katrine.  surely the guy on the loudspeaker talked about it.  surely i videotaped it?  perhaps i was busy buying hot chocolate with brandy…

kevin took this picture of little ferns growing out the side of the church.

we met a nice couple in a VW camper van.  the guy had converted it to make it even more of an RV-kind of thing and the woman was proud of her husband for doing all that and i said that my husband was very handy, too.

kevin would love to buy another VW van.

we kept riding after stopping at the church and the sun came out and it got warmer.  we rode along a small road for a while and then back to the bike trail, which was nice and not hilly as i recall.  we didn’t stop for lunch, but ate some cold toast we’d taken from breakfast and an energy bar.

we should have eaten more.

one of the great bridges we rode over.  on this one there was a plaque dedicating it to a bicyclist who had died…i think he’d been hit by a car.

it got hilly again, of course.

we finally stopped at a picnic table and met a nice older couple out walking their dogs.  they said that the climb ahead of us was REALLY hard, but at the top it became nice and flat.  we looked down at the beautiful loch.  there’s a little town one the left there, and there was a plane in the water, and we watched it take off.  i videotaped it.  very very cool.

more pushing the bike up the hill, and then we got to the flat part.  here’s one of the big boulders that had fallen in a landslide a few years ago.

luckily we didn’t experience any landslides.

another incredible bridge.  down below and to the right is the road that we were glad we weren’t on.  this part of the ride was so nice and flat and scenic, especially after the pouring rain then the very hilly hills.

we finally got to a place where we had to cross over the road and then four more miles into town.  at this intersection an old guy with a cane was standing next to his car.  he was, as were all the scots, very friendly.  he said he had a couple of questions for us.  he wanted to know about the condition of the path, and whether, if he were to ride on it, if his daughter could pick him up in her car somewhere at the end.  we explained it to him, and later kevin and i both said we were sure he was going to ask us for money or something – jaded americans.  he told a long story about wanting to ride a bike and see the path but he didn’t have a bike, and then his daughter for some reason had a fold-up bike in the boot of her car so he was going to use that.  clearly he had a plan.

he talked and talked and talked and was, like i said, really nice, but at some point i wondered if we’d ever get to leave.  finally he finished and we crossed the road.  i hope he makes it on his bike.

on the directions it said it was four miles to Killin.

we went through a pine forest, and it was four miles completely downhill.  quite a ride.  for a while the path was paved, but then it looked like this.  we stopped here at a picnic table and looked around and kevin said it was prettier than the places he’d biked in ireland.  wow, i thought the pictures he took in ireland were amazing.  later he also said that the biking was HARDER in scotland than ireland.  i’m glad he didn’t tell me that till later.

kevin was probably stopped waiting for me after he kept rocketing down the hill.  i used my brakes quite a bit, but i couldn’t even see him most of the time because he was flying down the hill so fast.

as i rushed past these trees, i felt like i was losing my focus – there were so many pine trees that they all looked out of focus.  it was a weird sensation.

down, down, down we went…and finally we came out of the woods onto the road to killin.  the Falls of Dorchart are the big attraction there, and here’s me next to them as we head into town.

as i’ve said, “falls” don’t mean big waterfalls, but more like rapids.  lots of people were standing around on the rocks pretty far out.  we didn’t do that.

we got to our charming little b&b and i don’t know why kevin didn’t take a picture of it.  it was very pretty, and our small room had a view of the mountains behind us.  we went next door to a tavern and i had some delicious lentil soup for dinner.  i think i should eaten more then, too.  i just didn’t feel like eating so much, even though we’d had an incredibly strenuous day.

we walked down the street and there were too many “for rent/sale” signs in the closed shop windows.  it’s such a lovely town, i hope it survives.  there were big tour buses driving through and stopping for a view of the falls, but i don’t know if any of them stayed the night.

we found a place with ice cream and i realized that i was so tired i was ready to drop.

on the way back to the b&b kevin took a picture of this sign on an electric pole – we saw these graphic signs everywhere in scotland.

here’s the street, and i think that’s our b&b on the left.  there was an identical building right next to ours, a former b&b that was for sale.

we went to sleep really early but i was so overly-tired that i had all kinds of trouble sleeping.  too much exercise, not enough food.  that never happens to me.  it also never happens that i have to resolve to EAT MORE the next day.

by the way, we went a total of 25 miles that day.  it doesn’t sound like much, but it sure was.  we had gone 33 miles on the second day, but it didn’t seem so bad because we had a long break for lunch in the middle, plus the hour-long boat ride along loch katrine.

on that third day, in the guidebook there was an optional route, which would have been about 38 miles, where we would have ridden up a valley past a couple more lochs.  when i’d read all these directions before our trip i wanted to take all the longer routes because they sounded so lovely…but when we were there furiously pedaling up the steep hills, we decided we didn’t want to add any more hills to the trip.  we had no regrets about our decision.

ok then,

grace.