Cycling UK Forum

We are planning a round tour from Ullapool via Outer Hebs and Oban and then back north. We will be on a tandem with our one year old giving directions from her trailer.
Got all the accomodation sorted for the Hebs but has anyone any experience of..
1) Staying in a family room at Tobermory SYHA. Noisy - OK - Enough secure bike storage? etc
2) Any other pointers for nice (cheap!!) B and B's in Tobermory?
3) Lochailort area B and B's

Cheers,
Steve

this might be of help to you .. http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/u ... index.html

matienzo wrote:We are planning a round tour from Ullapool via Outer Hebs and Oban and then back north. We will be on a tandem with our one year old giving directions from her trailer.
Got all the accomodation sorted for the Hebs but has anyone any experience of..
1) Staying in a family room at Tobermory SYHA. Noisy - OK - Enough secure bike storage? etc
2) Any other pointers for nice (cheap!!) B and B's in Tobermory?
3) Lochailort area B and B's

Cheers,
Steve

I didn,t stay in Tobermory but be ready for the very steep road in and out of the town.
It was a get off and push job for me!
Nice fish n chips at the harbour.

The only B&B in the Lochailort area is Craiglea, about one mile east on the road to Ft William. Tel 01687 470 404. Otherwise there's the Lochailort Inn and eight miles south on the Acharacle road, the Glenuig Inn. Both of the latter should be Google-able. Enjoy your tour.

Tony

tobermory youth hostel wa s very nice in 2010. I would not think a lot of late noise would be likely. As usual with hostels the showers could be more numerous, but unless someone hogs them you should be able to get in . If you see one vacant jump in it imediately.
Bikes were kept out back in a small shelter. safe and adequate , but not very spacious, and you have to wheel the bikes through the inside corridors to get to it.
It is the sort of village where you could almost certainly just prop the bikes somewhere along the quayside unlocked ( although , coming from a very different place I would never forget the lock.)

I have stayed in places on the west coast where my locking the bike was considered amusingly eccentric.

Fish and chip van very good. Bakery does great and nice filled buns and cakes. one chocolate eclair would suit a family of four.


I do not know any cheap bandb near lochailort. We camped at Arisaig which is considerably further. There is the hotel at lochailort, worth phoning for a quote . around the bridge and old training base there are some fields which could be wet or there are the hillsides to the right as you go east along the loch for wild camping . I am not aware of a shop there and the old bar shut.

PS I forgot to mentin Acharacle post ofice for very good lunch and cake.

We got married around there (Kinlochmoidart) There's a few B+B's on the Ardnamurchan peninsula I seem to remember. Which is kind of on the way between Mull and Fort William, if you see what I mean.

Tobermory main st at night is generally quiet enough but watch out for events such as west highland yachting week in early august which will create a lot of noise. You have fortunately missed the music (and booze) festival in April.The car rally in october is also bad for noise.Theft is generally not a problem but opportunist thieves are anywhere and when they arrive in places like Tobermory they think they have arrived in paradise.This applies sadly everywhere now where locking your door was unknown.There are no "cheap" b and b's that I know of but for about £27.00 each try " Lonan" (try google)which is local and a noted accordian player if you are into music. Off topic but Tobermory is a town and not a village as stated. This causes much offence to old locals who remember when there was a provost and a town council. They may have been rubbish but they were ours and not some remote unknown and uncaring official.

PS Watch out for the peds who wander everywhere and step out without looking behind. They are on holiday and nornal rules do not apply.

Glenuig Inn (mentioned a few posts above) has a bunkhouse which I stayed in a few years ago. It was very cheap and basic then, but having just looked it up on the web, it seems to have gone upmarket, and is now £25 per bed including breakfast. It is the only accommodation along that long stretch of road south from Lochailort to Acharacle.

The scenery all around that area is superb. The peninsula on the opposite side of the loch (Loch Ailort) from the road is almost devoid of greenery, being just bare rock, exceptionally bleak but stunning. Morvern, which you'll cycle through south from there to get to Tobermory, is incredibly empty but wonderful, ideal hilly cycling country with brilliant views everywhere if you are lucky with the weather.

Although most people going to Tobermory from the north cross over to Mull on the ferry from Lochaline, there is another ferry that runs from Drimnin, eight miles to the west and at the end of a long dead end road from Lochaline. I'm assuming it is still running, it certainly used to go twice a week, at about 4.30pm from there, though the day I went there (on a Monday) it didn't arrive until nearly an hour later - a bit disconcerting when you are the only person there and know there is no accommodation anywhere else nearby! It is a lifeline for the few people who live in that part of Morvern, as the nearest shops and just about anything else are in Tobermory.

Tobermory itself if a beautiful little town, very attractive around the harbour, which the hostel is on. When I stayed in the hostel a lorry drove past very slowly at 7 in the morning, just a couple of feet from the window, towing a trailer with a 30 foot long dead whale on it. It had died at sea and been reported as a marine hazard. Watching the window slowly fill up with the sight of a whale carcass must have been one of the most extraordinary sights I have seen on a cycle tour.