Bike and Barge

The biking on this 7 day/ 6 night holiday offers a variety of enjoyable options. Each day our experienced guide will show you the finest trails and rides around and beyond the Great Glen. These will range firom a mixture of trail, forest track, towpath and quiet, scenic roads that we don’t have time to offer on our shorter 4 day ‘Cycle the Great Glen’ cruise.  Some of the areas we will venture into include the start of the longest no-through road in the UK; the famous Leanachan forest trails around Nevis Range, home to the Fort William UCI World Cup; the old Great Glen Cycle way which takes you high above Loch Ness offering some fantastic views and a real sense of a space to breathe. 

Fingal has been running successful cruises since 1996. She is 39 metres long and has the capacity to carry 12 passengers and up to 6 crew members.

Fingal of Caledonia has 7 steep steps down from the deck into the boat at both ends. These have good handrails and we are very used to helping people up and down but the boat is in no way wheelchair accessible. Occasionally when we are at anchor, access to and from the shore is by our smaller RIB support boat. Access to this boat is by a short ladder up to Fingal’s deck. Down below in Fingal there is a single step at each end of the cabin passage and single steps again up into the en-suite and into the shower.

With just twelve guests aboard we make a week-long journey along the Great Glen, traversing the North of Scotland from coast to coast between Fort William and Inverness.

The unhurried pace allows plenty of time to relax and enjoy the area as the barge spends just half of each day cruising. You have the option to stay on board and enjoy the fun of the waterway and the locks or you can make the journey under your own steam by walking, cycling, canoeing or sailing along the Great Glen by the Caledonian Canal.

Once we are safely tied up or at anchor there are woodland and riverside walks, castles and places of interest to visit, mountains galore, towpaths, and off road tracks for cycling. For the more active there are a variety of water sport options. Quiet canal reaches, rivers, shallow bays or more challenging stretches of open water give us a variety of options each day. The activity options depend on where we are, what you would like to do, your chosen cruise and of course the weather conditions.

In the evening we all get back together over a fantastic freshly made meal, share stories of our adventures and make plans for the following day.

At mealtimes all guests and crew sit together around a large table and typically meals are as follows

Breakfast 8am

Lunch 1pm

Dinner 7pm