Early in 2004 we had planned to go cycling in the Outer Hebrides as it’s somewhere I’d always wanted to visit, but as we had such problems organising the sleeper train bookings with ScotRail, we ended up just going to Glasgow so that we could walk the West Highland Way all the way to Fort William on the west coast.

Going earlier in the year isn’t quite as bad as it perhaps sounds, the weather is actually driest around April, May, June, and the midges aren’t too bad…