Syncing iCal to iPhone and iCloud

I was using Gmail calendar, synced to iPhone and iCloud. However, due to complications with editing events, I thought it a good opportunity to use iCal instead...

I deleted my Gmail calendar after exporting events to iCal on my Mac. I also changed preferences in iPhone to not having Gmail run my calendar. However, I can not work out how to sync iCal to iCloud (via iPhone).

In iTunes, my contacts, calendar and photos are not individually checked as a note says that they are automatically being updated to iCloud.

I have managed to get the iCal events onto my iPhone but any edits/changes I make to the calendar only appear on an otherwise empty iCloud calendar and obviously DO NOT affect the iCal on my Mac.

Secondly, the remiders on my iPhone are still syncing to iCloud so does this mean they are linked to my Gmail account, like Notes?

Apologies if this is badly written or a rather obvious technicality but any quick and easy help would be much appreciated.

I have tried to search for other related posts but fail to know what to do next.

Thanks.