Dagmar and I had an argument this morning. "I want to put on my shades" she said. "Oh, please don't do that" I cried "It brought us bad luck last time you did that. Do you remember the ferry that was cancelled and now we are heading for another ferry. I know it is sunny but anything can happen."
We had earlier decided to go to the Isle of Arran, reputedly Scotland in miniature. We set off from Troon to Ardossan, 17 miles away for the next ferry.
NCN7 and 73 from Troon is an excellent example of cycle route design as, although it wobbled about a bit, it was carefully chosen to be mostly traffic free and through delightful wildlife areas in an otherwise urban landscape. Dagmar placated me with an early stop for a cream tea at Irvine
Here we met 2 Dutch cyclists, Peter and Wem on their own tour of south west Scotland and we convinced them to have cream teas as well. Together with the cafe owners, we talked cream teas for a while. Here are our new Dutch friends on the ferry
We have decided to spend two nights on Arran staying in Brodick, the island's main town. After lunch, we cycled from Brodick to Lochranza and back on the north east coast and noticed that it is signed NCN73. Dagmar's shades had not brought us bad luck and, on the contrary, the sun was shining.
Now it is confession time. I thought that the best cycling was over at Donegal and thought this journey would become less interesting. How wrong I was. Everything continues to be just as good. This afternoon it was just sublime as we peddled alongside the seashore and up into the hills. The sea was calm, water clear, hills bathed in sunshine and no dogs.
Tomorrow we are going to cycle around the whole coast of the island. The forecast is cloudy with wind from the south. Today we cycled 47 miles.
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