Continued from Biking about Bute – day 2

For our final day, we wanted to see a few of the things we had missed on the previous days. First on the list was the Ascog Fernery, which is an extraordinary sunken Victorian greenhouse with only one fern of the original collection surviving. This a specimen from New Zealand which is reputed to be over 1,000 years old. We were surprised that there was no collection box for donations, it was only once we got home, that we found that it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Next, as the weather was the clearest it had been during our stay, we decided to ride up Canada Hill which is noted for its views, cue taking more photos. Having reached the top of the hill, you have to go down again, and the fun way down from Canada Hill is the Serpentine Road.


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As its name suggests, the Serpentine Road snakes its way down the hill into Rothesay. It is steepest at the top where it passes between houses on high banks, then it opens out and the turns get closer together, this is the most fun part. I stopped at the top of the open part, as I knew Ulli would want to take photos, once she was ready I set off. Going down was enormous fun, it is not as fast as you might expect, as you have keep the brakes covered because of the hairpin bends. Having gotten to the bottom, I waited for Ulli to come down and prepared for what I expected to come next. Sure enough, once Ulli arrived, she asked if I would go back up, so that she could get more pictures from the bottom. So off I went back up the hill again, I was surprised to find that it wasn’t as hard as it looks. Coming down a second time I now knew where the best line through the bends was, so I was faster, this was a mistake. As I reached Ulli, she told me I had been too fast, and to go back up and do it again. Much to the bemusement of two walkers coming down the steps to the side, I set off up the hill yet again, feeling like one of the grand old Duke of York’s 10,000 men:
when I was up, I was up,
when I was down, I was down,
and when I was only halfway up,
I was neither up nor down.
After the third decent, I declared that I wasn’t going to do it again.

After a short debate we decided to do one last loop to cover one of the roads which we had yet to ride. We headed north through Port Bannatyne then left at Kames Castle, towards St Colmac only this time took the left fork to the south end of Ettrick Bay. Having got there we noted that there is a path which could have used on day one. We carried on to Straad and then walked out St Ninian’s Point, to the remains of St Ninian’s chapel, passing a couple of standing stones on the way. Then returned to Rothesay, via the Greenan Loch, in time for a late lunch and the ferry back to the mainland.

Photos from Bute are here.

There is a map of our route on day 3 here.

My stats for day 3 were:

  • Distance cycled – 34.2 Km
  • Time spent riding – 01:52:06
  • Max Speed – 65.1 Km/h
  • Ave Speed – 18.3 Km/h