Day 3, Inverary to Oban : A less eventful day.....

After yesterday's re-routing following the closure of the Rest and Be Thankful pass, and our lovely long descent down into Inverary, it dawned on us that for today's route we had to go back the same way. The thought of a near-8 mile climb to start the day definitely did not fill us with joy!!

Apart from the 13% ramp no more than a few hundred yards from our hostel, it didn't turn out anywhere near as bad as it sounds. The first 7 miles or so were undulating whilst gradually going up, never more than 2-3% gradient, and only in the last half-mile it did it go above 5%.

Is there such a thing as a nice climb?......If there is a nice way to climb 650 feet, then this was it.

The climb had warmed us up, but the temperature had taken a distinct drop overnight, and it was markedly cooler this morning, and the descent back down towards the main A85 Glasgow to Oban road began to feel distinctly autumnal.

We stopped for 11's at the village store in Loch Awe (very nice bacon roll, heavy on the bacon for a change), and had just got going again when we decided to stop and have a look at St. Conan's Kirk just on the way out of Loch Awe....there weren't many other places of interest on our route that weren't provided by nature, so we thought we'd have a look at this one.....lovely little church, non-denominational, built by a local architect and landowner in the 1880's, currently being renovated.

Mostly it will be remembered by us as the place we just happened to be inside when a massive downpour happened.....we happily spent a bit more time under the new roof in the church whilst nature did its worst outside.

Once the rain had abated, we shared the main A85 for the next few miles with speeding cars, all seemingly in a hurry to be somewhere on a Sunday morning, and a few lorries who got just a little bit too close until, we reached Taynuilt, where we turned off onto the NC78 towards Oban. This turned out to be 12 miles of lovely single track road through Glen Lonan, a mixture of woods, fields and isolated farmhouses.....a very welcome change after the A85.

Once again, we found our intended route blocked.....

On arriving into Oban, we made our way through the town centre, and rode up to the viewpoint on the top of Pulpit Hill, for a fabulous panoramic view over the town and out to the islands......and the sun even came out, just for a minute!. A fine end to a good ride.

41 miles in total, with 2600 feet of hills.