In July 2007 I cycled solo round the Western Isles of Scotland.

Starting in Glasgow, I got the train to Helensburgh, cycled to Crianlarich where I camped before getting the train to Mallaig. Then from Mallaig, I got the ferry across to Armadale and cycled up the West coast of Skye via Broadford, Dunvegan & Uig before getting the ferry over to North Uist.

I cycled down through the Uists and over to Barra & Vatersay before getting the ferry to Tiree and eventually from there back to Oban and the train back to sunny Glasgow.

Route

My original planned route was very different to the route I ended up doing. The original plan was to start a few days earlier but I ended up getting tickets for the Indian Summer Festival in Glasgow which was on the Saturday & Sunday that I had intended to start. So in the end, I delayed the start a few days to the Tuesday (giving me ample hangover recovery time) and figured I’d massage the route along the way to fit in what I could.

My original plan was to head north from Skye and over to Harris & Lewis and up to Stornoway before heading back over to the mainland at Ullapool. But after much deliberation and some serious route massaging I ended up going south through the Uists and down to Barra, Vatersay & Tiree, which I think worked out quite nicely!

In sumary

• 11 days
• 380 miles