They had been bickering ever since Crinan. Or was it banter? But Mike the Bike wasn’t happy. He had been resting up against the railings alongside the canal when he was literally lifted and put on the old converted fishing boat. Now he missed his owner a nice young thing with a fragrant pert bottom who used to bounce up and down on his leather saddle along the towpath.
It might have been summer but still when Semolina had hit the waves of the southern Minch sea spray had splashed over him where he lay tied down on the open wooden deck. Although he couldn’t move, he knew rust was forming on his handlebars and pedal cranks.
By the time they passed the Corran narrows and were heading up past Fort William to wards the southern end of the Caledonian Canal at Neptune’s Staircase he was getting both angry and argumentative, frustrated by his abduction (as he saw it).
Semolina was old and just chuntered on, her decrepit old diesel pounding away below decks, black acrid fumes bellowing out behind her. The owner didn’t seem to care either, unbothered that she might collapse at any moment and cast them adrift. The wheelhouse was rotten, the most up to date aid, an old Decca Navigator, that blinked with senile confusion. But some how they got to the top of Loch Linnhe.
It was there that Mike the Bike made a bid for freedom, jumping ashore whilst the owner had a boozy slumber in the damp and fetid rubbish strewn cabin below. Since his young blonde crewmate had jumped ship to a flashy tallship, and the cat had gone missing he seemed to have lost his soul completely and let things slip. And he had condemned Semolina to ruin. The hull was leaking, split timbers, full and stinking bilges, flaking paintwork, rotten ropes, perished seals. She was already a (just) floating wreck
None of that had been lost on Mike the Bike whilst he was tied down, and he was thankful to get off before she sank. Ashore he was so relieved to turn a wheel and feel the fresh air in his face as he raced along the towpath, totally blind to the strolling people who stood aside as a riderless bicycle went by.
The bet was on! He had bet Semolina £ 5 . he could get to Loch Ness before her! On their marks, and they were off, Mike the Bike hearing a change of note in Semolina’s engine as she hitched up a few more revs per minute. He got going up the ‘staircase’, lock by lock and then onto the flat. Mikie was already well ahead as he opened up on the Great Glen Way. By Moy Bridge he knew his bet was already won, and having expended himself thought he might take a rest.
It was an unwise thing to do. While he slumbered a wild camper spotted him there and leapt aboard taking him further along the canal to the vehicle recovery yard at Gairlochy where it seemed his round the world five times VW camper was having some critical attention for a broken five cylinder engine. When abandoned in the yard he had been wheeled in behind some derelict cars and jammed in and wedged by some wing mirrors….in a bed of nettles. A fierce guard dog in the compound meant he did not dare move until late in the day when it seemed the animal was taken elsewhere for some exercise.
It was almost dark when Mike the bike managed to free himself and get back on the Great Glen Way as it gently climbed through the pine forest above Loch Lochy. As it grew darker he found it spooky amongst the tall dark trees, and he couldn’t wait to get closer to the houses he knew were past Kilfinnan at Laggan. But he was driven, determined to beat old Semolina. As he rode he wondered how the old girl was getting on. She must be at least 50 years old, although from certain angles she looked younger. He had to admit he had some affection for her although he reckoned today would be tough for her, and he wished her luck, negotiating the difficult meeting with Laggan Locks, Loch Oich and a long stretch of canal before Kytra, and then more canal to putter along before the series of locks at Fort Augustus, and then finally into Loch Ness. Meantime he had no hurdles to cross, bar just plodding up the brilliant pathway towards Inbhir-Nis (or Inverness as I’ve always known it).
He dashed through Fort Augustus, horrified by the appearance of the prison camp like Loch Ness Highland Resort, and what other developers had done to the abbey but that’s supposedly what humans call progress. Nah, for him peace was finding a little quiet corner in the sunshine by the side of the loch, free of summertime midges.
And presently he found such a spot, in a layby at a place so small it was imaginatively called “Inch” just north of Fort Augustus. There were some dodgy looking wild campers in their vans in the layby, but he was so exhausted by his ride he thought he would risk a rest.
He was in a deep dream, when he was woken by the sound of an old engine. And not a VW/Audi 2.5 R5 TDI either. Looking up he saw a large shape looming to wards him. With joy he saw it was old Semolina coming round the point into Cherry Bay. But what of the owner? He was sawing at the wheel, this way and that, but Semolina wasn’t reacting and straightening her course. She was running straight for the shore, to him. Mike the Bike was alarmed as she hitched up her skirts with even more revs and aimed right at the water’s edge, riding high on the shelving beach, until she juddered to a stop.
Afterwards she never mentioned how the monster of Loch Ness had raked her sides and peeled apart her hull and taken the drunken owner back to her lair in the depths of the loch but…….well, I’m sure you know the rest of the story.
Think I should get some breakfast