Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
bad at recalling road numbers so to me it's filed in my head as the Great Wee Road To
The Left Just Outside Dunoon Before You Get To The Younger's Botanical Gardens That
Takes You Towards The Kyles Of Bute, The Colintraive Ferry For Bute, Tighnabruich
And The Ferry For Tarbert. Or something like that.
At the head of Loch Striven I pass a field filled with huge dark brown wooden poles
lying on the grass in the hazy sunlight. They look like oversize telephone poles, but must
be due to carry power lines. The smell of creosote fills the Land Rover's cabin. Sometime
round about here I realise I'm going to miss the next ferry to Tarbert, where I've been
hoping to drop in on some old friends - and thus complete a clean sweep of ex-editors
this weekend - so I take a detour to Otter Ferry via a precipitous wee road curling over
the hills towards Loch Fyne.
Great Wee Roads: a digression
.
A Great Wee Road in my terminology just means a small road that isn't a main route and
which is fun to drive. Often it will be a short cut or at least an alternative route to the main
road. It will virtually never be quicker than the main-road route but it will be a pleasure
to drive, perhaps partly because it has less traffic, partly because it goes through lots of
beautiful scenery and perhaps because it has lots of flowing curves, sudden dips, challen-
ging hills and/or fast straights (though GWRs rarely have many of those). A GWR can be
extremely slow - often
way
below the legal limit - and still be enormous fun, it can even
be a single-track road, quite busy with traffic and so somewhat frustrating, and yet still be
a hoot, and some roads only really become GWRs when it's raining and you have to slow
down.
Anyway, that single-lane-with-passing-places route over to Otter Ferry - snaking up
some deciduously wooded slopes towards the broad flat tops of the low hills and their
close-ranked bristles of pines - is definitely a GWR.
By the side of Loch Fyne I head north again and back down Glendaurel, finally having
to press on once more as I've ever so slightly underestimated the time required - again
- and so end up gunning the Defender up the long curving slopes towards the viewpoint
looking out over the Kyles of Bute (this is one of the best views in Argyll, maybe one of
the great views of Scotland; a vast, opening delta of ragged, joining lochs, flung arcs of
islets and low-hilled island disappearing into the distance).
This must be the first time - certainly the first time in decent weather - I haven't
stopped to take in that great sweep of view. The Land Rover tackles the hill fast in top
gear, leaning mightily on the bends but still seat-of-the-pants secure; it feels good, but
I'm annoyed at myself for not being able to spare the view more than a glance as I whiz
by the car park at the summit.
