Rain through the night but a bit of
drying wind made packing up the tent not too soggy. It was very
overcast and low mist when I set off but as my objective is the
ferry at Tobermory I had less than 10miles to ride. My concern was
the ferry because the timetable showed the summer times for Sundays
not starting till May. I wasn’t sure if there may be a reduced
service today (Sunday)
There were uphill drags to negotiate then the rain started again and
soon became quite heavy. I reached the Tobermory sign before I was
expecting it and shortly afterwards descended down the steep hill to
the main street along the waterfront.
Tobermory in the rain.
The rain had eased a bit as I
rode to the far side of the town and the ferry jetty for Kilchoan.
As I suspected there were no ferried today. I left the bike by the
fence and explored a path heading up the hill. There was a flat area
next to an old wooden gun carriage, minus gun. It would make a
suitable pitch later on. It was Sunday morning and everything was
shut. The rain increased in intensity so I rode to the Visitor
Centre at the opposite end of the town. The main entrance was open
and also a laundry inside. Thankfully there was a sink in the Landry
so I knew I could get water for later. I had no choice but to sit it
out inside and shelter from the rain. The entrance area on the
outside of the doors had a wall where I was able to park my bike out
of the rain. As I sat and read my book one of the employees arrived,
a bearded man who went into the information centre exhibition.
Camp by
the gun carriage
He
came back and asked me to move my bike out into the rain. He said it
obstructed the entrance door. It was to one side and no obstruction.
It was even between their sign and the wall so was not in anybodies
way. I pointed this out to him then he said if others see a bike
there they’d all park bikes there. Then another reason was it could
fall on a one year old child. I pointed out that moving it to the
fence outside in the rain would till be a hazard to passing children
or anywhere else on Tobermory. I was obviously dealing with a
jobsworth cyclist hater so decided to sit down again and read my
book. The rain hammered down all through the day and I was glad of
the shelter. By late afternoon I left the visitor centre and cycled
the short distance to the camp I’d previously found and set up camp
for the night.
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Whittle Wanderer
