We're just back from a glorious few days away (staying in a wee lodge in Aberfeldy) that'll hopefully go some way towards my Cycle Africa preparations.
The idea was to get in some proper off-road training, but we took the road bikes along too - so it was a full house on top of the car when we left on Sunday...
First stop, on the road up, we tackled 13 miles or so of the Griffin Forest trails:
The next day we headed to the village of Dull (paired with the town of Boring in Oregon...) for a Highland Safari 'Drop at the Top'. We were given this treat as a 50th birthday present by our good friends Elaine and Eric - and what a treat it was!
As you can see, we were given a lovely Scottish welcome by the staff, then were driven up through the forest in a land rover and, well, dropped at the top! There's a selection of trails to choose from, but the guides gave us great advice, based on our experience and how crazy we appeared to be. Needless to say, we were dropped at the top of a fairly challenging route (based not on our experience, but on how crazy we appeared to be...)
I found the first part of the trail on the way down genuinely terrifying! But, once I got my confidence up a bit I really did have a blast. It wasn't all downhill and there were a fair few challenging climbs thrown into the mix. I found the terrain at times really, really tough...
But every turn of the pedal through the mud, up the hills and down the scary slopes was well worth it for the views, the thrills and the fantastic fun!
We started the following day with a short (but valiant!) attempt to see how far we could cycle up the Birks of Aberfeldy (named after a poem of the same name by Robert Burns). It's a beautiful, but steep and bumpy, route up the hill to the Falls of Moness.
It seemed like a good idea at the time but, as I'm sure you all know...the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley...
After drawing breath over a bacon buttie and a cup of tea, we set off later in the morning to tackle part of the Rob Roy trail from Aberfeldy to Kenmore. I think the website said something like, 'the route is fine for walking all the way and some parts can easily be cycled...'. Tsk, why let a bit of advice from a website put us off - and anyway, I needed all the tough training I could get, didn't I..?
We were, yet again, rewarded with stunning views from the top. The mud was soon forgotten as we looked down to Loch Tay and Kenmore (and the thought of lunch...) below.
We stretched out lunch in the lovely Kenmore Hotel (where they fortunately make muddy cyclists feel very welcome...) to put off for as long as possible the long steep climb up the hill out of Kenmore. Now, Alex (in his wisdom) decided to record some of this part of the cycle. I was totally miffed when I watched it - I'm going at about minus 2mph and the video just doesn't do the hill justice! Honest! It was really, really steep! Honest...!
The descent back over the muddy trails was scary in parts, but really great fun. And I did feel a great sense of accomplishment by the time we made it back to Aberfeldy.
Having said that, I was glad to get on my road bike for our last day of cycling - a gentle cycle round beautiful Loch Rannoch was the perfect way to finish off our wee holiday.
I'm feeling a bit more confident about the cycling in Tanzania now. The rough roads, climate and other challenges are going to be very different from those we face cycling at home - but surely if I can plough my way through the Scottish mud, fend off the midges, and manage up and down a few of our rugged routes then I'm in with at least a fighting chance of staying on my saddle from one end of the 250 mile African route to the other...only five weeks tomorrow till I find out!
No comments:
Post a Comment