Adventuring

Day 14 - The Last Day! 87 miles 1324m ascent 3200 calories Icy Highland beauty, desolation, further flat tyres, & the finish line. Today was going to be the furthest of them all; if we included a diversion around the northern most point (Dunnet Head) it would've been close to 100 miles, the planned start time was therefore 0800. Unfortunately poor Mr Crask had stayed up late to check in guests at 0130/0200 (!owning a B&B sounds hard..), so was running a little late with breakfast, & for whatever other reasons we didn't actually set off until just before 0900. Also, the epic 3 course vegan spread he served us the previous night, was included in the room rate, as well as breakfast - what a legend! There was frost on the ground,  & the air felt like ice when it touched our skin, so wrapped up in all of our layers we headed off along that single road towards the north coast (32 miles to go!). The sky was clear, the scenery stunning & ethereal, lo...

Day 13 66 miles 1050m ascent 2400 calories Top day! Multiple stops, taken very tranquilo, with outstanding scenery and weather. Scotland is beautiful! I slept fewer hours than desired last night, due to writing this blog until 0100. But then I feel like a fool moaning about sleep deprivation after 6 hours of sleep, when people like Carlos cycle 200 miles in a day on only a couple of hours sleep. Dad had decided to leave us at this point as he felt I was well taken care of, & he wasn't really doing much during the day. I was sad to see him go, but we were excited to start the penultimate day. The sky was a deep blue,  scattered with the occasional white whisp. The sun was gleaming with optimism over the city we were leaving behind. We crossed the Kessock bridge over the Moray Firth, & took the NCN 1 down along the water's edge. If it weren't for the icy temperature, I could have mistaken our location for the Med. The cycle path continued along a...

Day 12 83 miles 1470m ascent 3280 calories A Scottish 'coast to coast'. Mixed day of wet fast riding, a mechanical issue, 9 miles of undesired slow off-road, followed by an exhilarating finish! Lock Linnhe  Dad & I had breakfast, anticipating some rudeness from the hostess. Fortunately she was pleasant enough, & I had some beans on toast, plus a bowl of muesli with my own milk. Because we hadn't been allowed to take wet things into the B&B (...!) the padding around the inside of my helmet was dripping wet as I touched it, as were my cycling shoes. So infuriating & an uncomfortable way to start the day! Greg pointed out we should've just used his hostel's dry room. We set off later today, probably around 0915, & despite the horrific weather warnings, we didn't face too much windy wrath except for the first few miles of headwind, until we reached Glencoe's western edge. The views were stunning, now that we could actually ...

Day 11 69 miles 890m ascent "This weather can only be described as biblical" Double espresso, layering & good company are the only things that got me through those last 30 miles. Monsoon weather over Glencoe mountain resort Awoke feeling pretty rough - full of a cold (thanks dad! Ha), but started out with the multiple coffees I now require to get me through. Dad had collected two cartons of soya milk from the kind folk at the previous two B&Bs, so fortunately I was sorted when this B&B revealed they had forgotten I was vegan. I still had a nice enough bowl of porridge & beans on toast before meeting greg at 0900 & setting off. The rain started pretty sharpish, so we were faffing quite a bit for the first 10 miles - layers on, then off, then on again. Until it began to pour with a persistent rage. I also had some front brake issues which were a little annoying, such as squealing & the front wheel not free spinning as much as it shou...