Two on a Tour

By Walter A. Mursell191011 chapters

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Contents

• Prologue (opens in a new tab)

  Mursell and Christopherson agree the tour on a spring morning in Arcady, then recall an oppressive night at an old house in Exeter and the ride over Dartmoor to Torrington, where a quarrel over who should negotiate with the innkeeper ends in both of them going in.
• The Tryst (opens in a new tab)

  Christopherson meets Mursell at Waverley Station, Edinburgh; they take the Granton ferry across the Forth, ride through Burntisland and past Loch Leven, and spend the night on the slopes of the Ochils above Milnathort.
• The Glorious Twelfth (opens in a new tab)

  A puncture delays the start from Milnathort; on the road to Perth a passing cyclist asks for an anallcon, which proves to be an oil can, and the author remarks on the Scottish accent. Through Glen Farg, the Inches at Perth, Birnam, Dunkeld, Pitlochry and Blair Athole to a night in the outhouses of the inn at Struan, with the motors a nuisance on the road.
• Over the Grampians (opens in a new tab)

  The ascent from Struan on 13 August past falls and rainbows, the road over the heights to Dalwhinnie, where the local postman mends a puncture for nothing, and on through Newtonmore and Kingussie to a nail in the tyre and an inn beside a loch with stuffed birds and a bull's head.
• The Place of Mystery (opens in a new tab)

  The moonlit loch in the evening, the return to the inn after locked-out hammering, the low bedroom with the arsenal of firearms in the passage, and the next day's ride past Carr Bridge, the Findhorn and Daviot to Inverness, where they see a lantern show.
• The Highland Capital (opens in a new tab)

  A late Saturday start from Inverness in rain, shopping for their wives and a sea road to Dingwall, where a shopkeeper's pear sum is put right. Then Strathpeffer and its spa church, the Rogie Falls with a salmon leaping, and a stop at Loch Garve.
• Garve (opens in a new tab)

  A Sunday rest at the Garve inn: the gloomy Sabbath breakfast table, a climb above Loch Luichart with a view of the Bens, a log launched on the loch as the Dreadnought, and an evening walk in the dusk.
• Loch Maree (opens in a new tab)

  The breakfast anecdote of a Cockney guest who had been bowed to by Queen Victoria, then the 46-mile ride from Garve to Gairloch on a dusty, rutted road past the Fannich gorge and a stag, Achnasheen and Loch Rosque, lunch at Kinlochewe, and a last view of Ben Slioch above Loch Maree.
• Gairloch (opens in a new tab)

  The steamer runs only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so the pair stay on at Gairloch and work out their money, finding they can just get home with ninepence to spare. On the Tuesday they bathe from the beach, walk to Loch Tollie and pick heather, and then watch a drunken fight between fishermen after a regatta.
• The Last Day (opens in a new tab)

  Rising at 4.15 a.m. to catch the Gael; fog on the crossing past Portree and Broadford, the landing at Mallaig, and the West Highland train past Fort William and Rannoch to Glasgow, reaching Paisley after dark.
• Epilogue (opens in a new tab)

  Reflections on the dogs that have caused the author's cycling mishaps: a mongrel run over in a city street, a collision with a dog at the coast, and a wiry Scotch terrier that bit his ankle on the road from Loch Shiel, before the sunset ride through the woods to Arisaig past Loch Ailort.