In 2019, I cycled National Cycle Network (NCN) 78, also known as the Caledonia Way which runs from Campbeltown on the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland to Inverness, via Oban, Fort William and through the Great Glen. On hindsight, I had rushed the earlier stages of this route and Kintyre deserved more detailed exploration. I had always meant to go back. I decided now was the time.

Kintyre promises the cyclist quiet roads as the peninsula has low population density, but also a lot of climbing as the area is very hilly. It would be a challenge. I remembered how hilly it was the last time I was there. I am not as fit now for a variety of reasons. Would I be still be able to ride the Kintyre hills? I would find out. I took my 1990s Townsend mountain bike which I have modified into touring specification over the years. This was an easy choice to make as none of my other bikes have such low gearing (48/38/28 triple chainset and 12-32 eight speed cassette). With this gearing, it should be possible to climb most hills, even when carrying luggage.

I booked the Kintyre Express service from Ballycastle in Co. Antrim to Campbeltown on Kintyre. I’ve used their services several times in the past, once to Campbeltown when I rode NCN 78 and twice to Islay in more recent times. I find their service is good and reliable. It’s not particularly cheap, but it is the most convenient way to get to these areas of Scotland from Ireland and their boat can only carry a small number of passengers.

The Campbeltown service leaves Ballycastle at 4:30 PM. This gave me ample time to ride from my Co. Donegal home to Ballycastle. This is an interesting route itself. I took the train from Derry to Castlerock (mostly because it avoids a busy dual carriageway or somewhat awkward inland route) and then continued by bike. I took the coast road via Coleraine, Portstewart, Portrush, Bushmills and Ballycastle as I had time. I hadn’t done this ride in quite some time so it was nice to revisit it. The Causeway coast is a place of natural beauty. It has also got more heavily trafficked over the years. Even the signposted Sustrans route on quiet roads between Portrush and Bushmills seems to have a lot of high-speed traffic and surprisingly aggressive drivers. It was never like that years ago when I first started to experiment with cycle touring.

I was in Ballycastle an hour early despite my leisurely ride. This is the best way really. I always hate being rushed. It’s best to leave sufficient time and enjoy the journey. This is the whole essence of cycle touring in my opinion. It’s not about covering huge daily mileage targets or high average speeds; it’s about taking time to enjoy your surroundings. People are in too much haste these days to enjoy the simple things.

The seas around Ballycastle and Rathlin Island are known for being rough at times but on this relatively calm day, the crossing was comfortable and pleasant. This is a high-speed ferry service really and we reached Campbeltown a little earlier than the expected six o’ clock. On a clear day, this boat journey can offer great views of a variety of islands like Arran and Ailsa Craig but today was quite cloudy. You can see the Mull of Kintyre lighthouse as you round the tip of the peninsula and make our way towards Campbeltown Loch.

Campbeltown Loch was calm and tranquil today. You can see Davaar Island as you approach the harbour. My bike was hosed down to remove the salt spray from the sea during the crossing as it lives outside on deck. I had removed my panniers and they had been placed in the boat’s hold for the voyage. I made my way for the short journey from the harbour to the Campbeltown Backpackers Hostel where I would be staying two nights before moving on. I stopped briefly to look at the old Celtic Cross which is in the centre of a sort of roundabout on the seafront, and one of Campbeltown’s most famous monuments. It’s thought to date to around 1380, although this is not its original location. At the hostel, I put my bike away in their secure cellar and had a wash and change of clothes before going in search of something to eat. I had covered a little over sixty miles today, virtually all of it on Irish soil so far. Not a bad day to start of a tour.

Campbeltown was originally known as Kinlochkilkerran (from the Scots Gaelic Ceann Loch Chille Chiarain – head of the loch by the kirk of Ciarán) but became known as Campbeltown after Archibald Campbell, Lord of Argyll, who was granted the site in the late seventeenth century. This area has a long history of settlement and as a port. Kintyre has a mild climate and was famous for its dairy produce but that has greatly reduced in recent years.

There is another product which Campbeltown is known for the world over. “Campbeltown Loch, I wish ye were whisky” are the words of an old Scottish folk song. Campbeltown is one of the distinct malt whisky regions in Scotland. The area once had around thirty distilleries, but now only three. I decided I should visit one of them. I booked the early tour of the Springbank distillery so would be going there for 9:45. Conveniently, it is located quite near the Backpackers Hostel where I was staying.

The tour was enjoyable and informative and I got to keep the glass the taster was served in as well as a choice of miniature bottles to take home. Springbank is one of the few Scottish distilleries that still prepare their own malt barley, a mostly manual operation even in the 21^st century. The distillery buildings and most of the machinery used date back decades and no computer controlled devices are found here. I found it somewhat ironic to learn that the distillery has often sourced their barley and their peat from Ireland! I had never tried a Campbeltown whisky before and I have to say I liked it. The whisky industry is worth a lot of money to the Scottish economy.

After my whisky tour, I went to get a late breakfast in a café before collecting my bike from the hostel. I would explore the southern part of the Kintyre peninsula today. This would be all new to me. My first planned destination was the Mull of Kintyre itself. The Mull of Kintyre is the south westernmost point on Kintyre and Co. Antrim can be seen across the sea from here. The Mull of Kintyre was of course immortalised in the 1970s hit by Paul McCartney.

The road to the Mull of Kintyre is a very pleasant (but very hilly) route to cycle as it offers a relatively traffic-free haven compared to most places these days and much pleasant scenery. It is a tough ride all the same with a lot of climbing and a lot of use was made of my lowest gears. As I was returning to Campbeltown at night, I was able to leave my luggage at the hostel and travel light (relatively speaking as I tend to carry more than most on day rides).

The lighthouse was originally built in 1788 (designed by Thomas Smith) although it was substantially rebuilt in the 1820s. It was converted to electricity in 1976 and fully automated in 1996. It is now actually monitored from Edinburgh! It must have been a bleak existence for the lighthouse keepers on this remote, lonely and windswept place in days gone by.

The final few miles to the lighthouse is on a private road and closed to unauthorised motorised traffic. I did ride a little bit of it but it came to a point where the road was so steep going forward that I didn’t fancy riding down it. I would have been genuinely concerned about getting stopped, should I have needed to. I also realised there would be no chance whatsoever of riding the bike back up again. I’d have to push it. I considered leaving the bike and proceeding on foot, but it would have taken at least two or more hours to walk down and up again and I had other places I wanted to go and be back in Campbeltown in reasonable time. I am also aware that there is very little to actually see when you get there as the lighthouse is not open to the public. Somewhat reluctantly, I made the decision to not go the whole way to the lighthouse and turned around. I really wasn’t going to have time on this occasion.

The rocky coast of the Mull of Kintyre has seen many disasters over the years, such as the loss of the S.S. New York, which was enroute from Glasgow to New York in 1858. It is understood that a fault in the ship’s compass caused the navigational error that led her on to the rocks. More recently, there was the 1994 RAF Chinook disaster. I believe a memorial to those lost in that accident is located at the spot but I didn’t know where to look for it.

I retraced my route until I joined the road to Southend. The village of Southend is located by Dunaverty Bay and is again quite remote in its location. There is a beach and caravan/camp site and it’s a nice peaceful seaside resort, although I felt it was little run down as the shop and café had closed and some houses seemed derelict. By major coincidence, I met a group of Dutch hikers whom I had met at the hostel in Campbeltown the previous night. They were walking Kintyre Way and were planning on spending the night at the campsite. They had run into problems as they were hoping to eat at the café listed in their guidebook, but it had closed permanently a few months before and they were low on food.

The local hotel came to the rescue, even though they were actually closed themselves and helped out. I joined them for a drink in the afternoon sun and the hotel owners prepared and provided food for the hikers. One of those things that restores your faith in human nature.

From Southend, I proceeded to go to Machrihanish on the northern tip of the Mull of Kintyre, facing Ireland. Again, this is a pleasant little seaside village with a beach and lots of potential for coastal walks. It seems more prosperous than Southend. There is also a golf club. The thing that has fascinated me in Kintyre is the amount of palm trees to be found in all sorts of unlikely places, and here along the coast, they give an almost tropical feel to the Scottish coastline. The Kintyre climate is quite mild, and apparently, they grow well on Kintyre.

From Machrihanish, I made my way back to Campbeltown, after clocking up a pleasant fifty odd miles in the afternoon sunshine. I was being really lucky with the weather so far. The southern tip of Kintyre is a perfect location to get away from the masses and enjoy quiet roads and some spectacular scenery. E-bikes seem popular here, and I understand why as the hills are not for the fainthearted, but I had coped okay so far.

This was my second and last night in Campbeltown, as I would be moving on. I had both panniers loaded up and ready for the road quite early. I had a plan to walk across to Davaar island at low tide and I obviously needed to do that during the safe crossing period. The tide tables are available online nowadays which makes life easier. A printout of the safe crossing periods was also to be found on the noticeboard at the hostel.

I rode the few miles to where you can cross to the island. This is along a single-track road, and one of those rare things on the Kintyre peninsula – a level road with little discernible gradient. The crossing point isn’t very well marked and I went much too far and had to retrace my steps. No great hardship as this road offers lovely sea and island views as you might imagine.

I had the idea that I might ride across but decided against it and proceeded on foot. The surface looked to soft shingle and I would probably end up getting stuck if I’d tried to ride. I left the bike at the car park. Unauthorised vehicles aren’t allowed to cross to the island but the people who run the glamping pods do take their guests across in a four-wheel drive. I guess they know the best route to take. This is not just a narrow causeway but very wide when the tide is at it’s lowest. I believe around forty families once lived on the island.

It probably takes about twenty minutes to walk across and I met a few others walking as well. The two main things to see on the island are the cave paintings and the lighthouse. I went in search of the cave paintings first. The cave painting of the Crucifixion was done by local artist Archibald MacKinnon in 1887. He claimed a vision had instructed him to paint it. It caused a lot of uproar at the time as people who saw it thought it was a sign from God, but when they realised MacKinnon did it, he was apparently exiled from the town. There is a memorial to the MacKinnon outside the Backpacker’s hostel.

The grass path turned into gravel, and then round beach stones and eventually larger round stones which were very difficult to walk on. I’ve had trouble walking on rough ground ever since shattering my ankle and this was starting to cause me a lot of pain. That combined with the possibility of injuring myself in a remote place when nobody knew I was there in the first place, persuaded me to abandon my search for the cave with the paining. I didn’t like having to give up on it but I was finding it too difficult and I didn’t have boots to support my ankle.

I limped back to more friendly terrain and made my way to the other side of the island to visit the lighthouse which dates from 1854. It was fully automated in the 1980s. It wouldn’t have been quite so remote as the Mull of Kintyre lighthouse as Campbeltown is within walking distance, but it would still have been a bleak place to live. I imagine it must have taken a special type of mindset to be a lighthouse keeper.

I made my way back across the causeway in good time. There was no point in risking being cut off by the tide! I rode the short distance back into Campbeltown and ate in a café. I was surprised to find a little of bit shared use path which was once part of the Campbeltown railway. I had never suspected a railway would have ran to Campbeltown as I would have thought it too sparsely populated and much too difficult in terms of terrain. It seems coal had been mined near Machrihanish and a light 2’3” gauge railway line had run to connect the mines with Campbeltown. The line was later extended for passenger traffic as the new steam ships brought tourists and the railway thrived for a period. After the Great War, increased competition from motor buses hit the railway hard, and line was taken out of service in the early 1930s.

 I then went to the supermarket to stock up on food as I would be going to somewhere where there would probably be no shops for the next few days. I got talking to another couple of hikers on the Kintyre Way outside the shop. They had felt they had brought too much luggage and were actually in the process of posting some of it home at the Post Office. I’m pleased it’s not just me who has a tendency to over-prepare for trips!

I would be making my way up the east side of the peninsula. I had passed this way in 2019 as it’s part of NCN 78. Today, I was going to only going as far as Carradale where I had booked a couple of nights in the Ashbank hotel. I had originally thought about going up the west side of the peninsula but I had struggled to find any sensibly priced accommodation on that. Ideally, I’d like to have visited the Isle of Gigha but it was just going to cost too much. I had formed another plan!

As you leave Campbeltown, you have nice sea views. Very quickly the road starts to climb. The main place of interest for me along this route is at Saddell. There is much to see there. Saddell overlooks Kilbrannan Sound and the Isle of Arran. The name is derived from the Norse for sandy dale.

There is a lot of history to be explored. I would only be scratching the surface of what you could learn about the area today. The first thing is the old Cistercian Abbey, originally found in 1160. The Abbey was founded by Somerled and completed by his son. Their descendants would become Clan MacDonald and later Lord of Isles. The Abbey is a ruin now, but interesting to walk around, as is the old graveyard which contains a hugely impressive grave of the MacDonalds. You also see some impressive carved stones, something Saddell became very well known for, although I understand some of those here belong to the Iona school of carving. I’m not educated enough to really understand the distance.

You can also ride through the grounds of Saddell Castle. This is a tower house built by the Bishop of Argyll in the early sixteenth century. The Campbells took it over in the seventeenth century and used stones from the Abbey to build the adjacent farm buildings. Further along the path to the shore, you can see the impressive new house which was built by the Campbells in the late eighteenth century. The old tower house was allowed to fall into disrepair. The tower house was restored to its former glory in the mid-1970s and featured in Paul McCartney’s Mull of Kintyre video (part of which was also filmed on Saddell Beach which is nearby). Saddell is definitely an interesting place to spend time. There is also the ruins of an old mill. I had enjoyed my afternoon there. I suspect you could spend days if you really wanted to immerse yourself in the history of the place.

I continued along the NCN 78 with a few scenic stops, including at the very nice Torrisdale Beach. I wasn’t very far from Carradale and my hotel now. I made many detours down small roads to little harbours and beaches. I was in no rush. I got to my destination around seven and after a wash and something to eat, I found myself being roped into making up the numbers in a quiz team in the hotel bar. We didn’t win, but at least we weren’t last either!

PART II of this narrative can be found here…