A grand way of spending a holiday

Roma writes:

 The tour covered parts of Argyllshire, Inverness-shire and Perthshire.

Glen Coe

We didn’t work it out exactly, but we think that we cycled approximately 300 miles, which isn’t bad for beginners, is it? And we didn’t strain ourselves at all, we stopped and rested whenever we felt like it.

The trip passed through some indescribably beautiful scenery – the towering mountain peaks, the calm, peaceful lochs, the little mountain streams one sees so often in the highlands. I couldn’t believe what I saw was real at times, I thought I must be looking at pictures. At one stage when we were almost at the summit of Black Mount in Argyllshire, we counted 23 peaks, they were all around us!

The place which impressed me most for sheer beauty of scenery was Glen Coe, and I just haven’t words to describe it. Suffice it to say that we had a simply wonderful time, and the weather was glorious right to the end, and as well as having our fill of glorious countryside, the whole trip was absolutely packed with adventure – as you’ll see in the diary!

One of the delightful parts of the trip was setting out each day having not the slightest idea where we would sleep that night, for we hadn’t booked anywhere. We stayed somewhere different each night, and what a variety of places too, from the Palace Hotel in Fort William to a tiny wee cottage in Struan. We used to get off frequently, have a lovely stretch out and the inevitable cigarette, and then get the maps out and see where we were, and where we should be getting to soon. It’s ever so exciting. We had a good Scottish Youth Hostel Association touring map of Scotland, and also a little book of Mr Bayne’s with contour maps in it, which was extremely useful.

It really is a simply grand way of spending a holiday, you really do live, and you meet all sorts of people. There’s never dull moment, either, when the scenery keeps changing all the time. I loved every minute of it, and having done it once I feel I want to do it again and again. You see the country so much better than when you’re motoring and you can always get off and lie flat out on the good earth and relax, as we did, and you think to yourself, “How good to be alive.”