Day 4 - "Absolutely GUTTED..."

Before I can begin the blog and the start of day 4, I have to say what happened at the end of it. We have had very bad news - Dave seriously hurt his Achilles tendons, went to A&E & was told he will cause lots more damage if he continues with the ride...Thus Dave has had to pull out and that explains the title of today’s blog - Absolutely GUTTED. The good news is that Dave has really helped us to get a third of the way through this challenge covering 322 miles of our ride and very often leading from the front...we are still the Smiley Milers and we will continue on as one team to raise an enormous amount of money for Cancer Research. On with the blog...

Today started a lot earlier than yesterday - 8:30 as we realised it’s much better to do this and we also had to make sure we made the ferry in Claonaig! The campsite was good in every way in terms of the quality of the pitches, the views were amazing, the owners very nice, the only issue we had here was that the toilet and shower facilities were very poor which is also why we managed to leave fairly early as Damian is the only one who risked the morning shower (mainly due to his obsession with showers...even crap ones!) We set off without a cuppa or breakfast just to get on the road we eventually stopped for breakfast after 20 miles at a village called Kilmelford at a hotel called Cuilfail( http://www.cuilfail.co.uk/ ). The hotel had actually stopped serving and the chef (Andy) and waitress (Betty) were having their breakfast, instead of turning us away they gave us the best breakfast we have had so far and they also gave us 3 twix's each to help us on our way. They were brilliant and we would recommend anybody to stop here! We continue on with weather on our side all day today riding a very good steady pace for a further 25 miles eventually stopping for a quick cuppa at Tarbert. This had to be quick as we were riding out of skins to get on the 15:05 ferry otherwise we would have to wait over an hour for the next one. We turned of the main road onto a single track lane basically to the ferry port ...this where Dave decided to eat a fly (calls himself a vegetarian!) and spend a good few precious minutes vomiting. The ferry port sign said 4.5 miles and we had no more than 15 mins...what we didn’t know was it was pretty much 3.5 miles of climbs which were very hard going given the pace we had been going at already and then a quick descent to the port. We made it and guess what...the boat was late and didn’t arrive for another 10 mins...but at least we were there! Whilst waiting for the ferry an old lady gave us a £5 donation, we have had wonderful support and generosity from our Scottish friends all the way along...it has been excellent. Once on the ferry we spent the time trying to find Dave medical attention for his Achilles problem, we eventual spoke to the hospital...you already know the rest. Once on the Isle of Arran we had a pretty long and steep climb, however Arran is just beautiful and with the sun out this climb was not too much of a problem. We had a gentle descent into a place called Corrie where Damian's sister, family and friends were on holiday. We arrived to a huge warm welcome, lots of tea and biscuits and the local press. This was just fantastic and we stayed for over an hour when eventually we had to concede it would be good to finish the remaining 6 miles and get to the B&B. Our B&B was very nice and recommended the owners were friendly and it is literally 500 yards from the ferry port ( www.dunveganhouse.co.uk) . So a good days riding but a very, very bad day as we have lost Dave from the cycling part of the team. Here on in it is going to be extremely hard our physical and mental strength has already been tested a few times…Please continue to give us comments it really does help us on our way. We covered 81 miles, 5:43 hrs riding time at an average of 14.3 mph today. Thanks for reading – The Smiley Milers.

Waiting for the ferry at Claonaig

The beautiful Isle of Arran

Arriving at the B&B in Brodick