Day 1 - Saturday 29th April 2000 - 44.73 Km                                                                

I got up early after a bad nights sleep, had breakfast and a shower and then locked my flat before carrying the bike and luggage down eight flights of stairs. I loaded the bike up and then set off slowly towards the train station, fortunately it's downhill all the way.

It felt strange to be riding a fully loaded bike again after the 7 months since my last trip and I was already planning better ways of distributing the weight.

I caught a local train from Liverpool to Wigan and then joined an inter city train to Glasgow, the bike and luggage went into the guards van, strapped to the wall. I spent most of this part of the trip reading the paper and feeling slightly depressed, the weather was gray and miserable, I had failed some Microsoft exams the day before and was still recovering from an upset stomach . Not an auspicious start to my holiday !

The train arrived at Glasgow Central station on time, I wasn't too sure of the way to Queen Street station so pushed the bike through the town centre whilst checking my map. I got there just in time to load the bike onto the train to Oban. This was a shock, instead of just putting the bike against the wall in the guards van I had to take all the luggage off and hang the bike by it's rear wheel from a hook in the ceiling. This is to enable the train to carry more bikes but I wasn't very happy about it. 

The weather had improved so I was able to admire the view from the train, it took my mind off strangling the hyperactive children in the next seat. 

To pass the time I got my tickets out and checked my ferry connection, train arrives at Oban 15:39, ferry leaves Oban 14:50. !  I'd looked at these things a dozen times without noticing that the ferry left an hour before I arrived rather than an hour after !

I arrived in Oban on time, put all my luggage back onto the bike and went down to the ferry terminal to check the timetables. The next ferry to Barra was not until Monday afternoon so I decided to get the ferry across to the nearby island of Mull and spend Sunday there. After I bought my ticket I sat in the waiting room and chatted to some locals,  two girls asked me if I was going to Mull for the Music Festival. What music festival ?  They explained that this holiday weekend was the annual Mull Music Festival and that the entire island and especially Tobermory the main town would be in party mode!

As well as the usual complement of locals and holidaymakers boarding the ferry there were about 20 Model T Fords going to Mull for a rally, most of them looked in better condition than the Ford I used to own.

A quick and calm crossing, I ate in the ferry's restaurant rather than cook later.  We arrived at the port of Craignure at 6PM and I decided to head for Tobermory, 34Km away and find a campsite there.

It was starting to rain lightly as I started off; the road followed the shoreline so I had the smell of the sea to one side and the smell of gorse to the other. It began to climb and the rain got heavier, by the time I reached Tobermory about 2 hours later I was soaked to the skin. 

Tobermory was in party mode all right; there were tents on every available flat spot, and some pitched at dangerous angles on the bank of a river. People were staggering down the main street, laughing and singing in the rain. Predictably the Youth Hostel was also full.  The official campsite marked on the map was about 2km out of town, Tobermory is at sea level and all the roads leading out of it are steep but the one leading to the campsite was super steep, about 33% before it levelled off.

It was still light when I reached the campsite, it was packed as well but the owner found me a quiet spot away from the partying motorcyclists. I pitched the tent and made a hot drink before crawling into my sleeping bag at 10PM