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Day 21  Friday 14^th May 2004

The Black Isle to Lairg

The breakfast provided for me this morning was huge.  It started with a big bowl of fresh fruit ready cut up so I felt as though I had to eat it and was not able to pick and choose.  It was followed by a cooked breakfast of scrambled egg, bacon, tomato, mushroom, sausage, black pudding, white pudding served with home made Irish soda bread.  I weighed myself at the Bank House in Grantown.  If the scales were right I haven’t put on or lost any weight since the journey began.  Some mornings I am beginning to wonder whether I should decline the full breakfast – but they haven’t beaten me yet!

The landlady told me that she still had a bike in her garage from last year which belonged to a cyclist who was doing the ride from north to south.  He and his friend had got as far as the Black Isle but he had given up at this point because of a wonky knee.  His friend had carried on with the ride alone.  He e-mails her from time to time and says he will return soon, pick up his bike, and complete the ride.  My bike wouldn’t fit into the garage – it was chock-a-block with odds and ends.  My bike was housed overnight in a shed cum hangar in a field adjoining the house.  Inside were two microlites belonging to some friends.

The weather this morning was quite cloudy, but there hadn’t been any rain overnight and the clouds didn’t look as though they were going to be unkind.  I definitely needed the windproof jacket on – it was quite cold but fortunately the wind was from the south.  This was especially good news because I was soon on the busy A9 and there was no real alternative for about 5 miles.  I crossed over the Cromarty Firth, leaving the Black Isle behind, and with wind assistance clocked up an average speed of over 14 mph for the first ¾ hour.  I was soon off the main road and onto the minor roads again.  At Evanton I bought my lunch supplies but I couldn’t find any suitable bread – the rolls came in packs of 4 or more.  Then I began to slowly climb over the hills to the Dornoch Firth.  The hills were not too steep but on some sections I did resort to bottom gear – I’m getting lazy perhaps.  I have to look after the old legs which are standing up surprisingly well.

Eventually I got to the plateau on the top of Easter Ross and pass an elderly couple who are cycling south with a full load aboard.  A bit later I pass another man who is similarly loaded.  They could have all been doing the end to end – but as we were travelling in opposite directions we didn’t stop to chat.  It must still be very early in the season for doing the end to end as I’ve met so few people who look as though they are loaded up for a long trip.  Certainly no one has overtaken me in the last two and a half weeks and I have only overtaken Noel back in Devon .  The plateau completed I then began the descent to the Dornoch Firth with Bonar Bridge sitting at the far end.  There are great views on the way down.

When I reached the bottom I managed to find a café called “The Lady Ross” and I got chatting to the only other people in there at the time.  They had a car with caravan in tow and were touring round the area.  In our chat I discover yet another man who wished that he had cycled the end to end but had never got round to it.  My selection of cakes at the café was not the best – I chose a rock cake – and it certainly lived up to its name!  The choice was also silly because I had lost a gold crown from one of my molars last night when I accepted a very sticky toffee from the landlady.

When I got into Bonar Bridge – which is only a small place – the first shop I found was a bakery.  It sold lovely fresh bread and it could be bought by the roll.  My lunch pack was now complete.  My target today was Lairg at a distance of 40 miles but here I was, having completed 28 miles, and it was only 11am .  Perhaps I could travel a bit further.  I had two B&B addresses given me by the CTC, one about 10 miles further than Lairg and the other I haven’t located on the map.

I carried on up the road to Lairg past the Kyle of Sutherland and Carbingdale Castle.  This is in fact a youth hostel – which I didn’t realise when I cycled by.  I then called in at the Falls of Shin (only 5 miles to Lairg).  It was quite a popular tourist spot with what looked like a newly built restaurant and gift shop. The meals in the restaurant looked good so in the end I decided to have a proper lunch and keep my sandwiches back for the end of the day.  Feeling refreshed I then went to visit the falls – the information says that you can see Salmon leaping the falls at any time after April.  Perhaps I wasn’t patient enough, but none appeared while I was there.  With all that water gushing over the falls and the result of several cups of tea with my meal it was necessary to use the loos before continuing the journey.  If you want to see some good toilets go to the Falls of Shin.  The superloos of Inverness station were nothing compared to these!

I then rang the two B&B’s north of Lairg as it was still only early in the afternoon.   The first I rang turned out to be another 20 miles up the road – I decided that was too far.  The other at 10 miles was fully booked.  I therefore had no alternative but to cycle into Lairg to try my luck there.  It was starting to rain but I carried on, sheltering under a tree for five minutes at one point when the rain got a bit heavier.  It wasn’t long before I was at the Tourist Information Bureau in Lairg.  Apparently the road to the north of Lairg didn’t have any B&B apart from the ones I had tried so I ended up by booking in at Lairg and having a leisurely end to the day and going on a 2 hour walk round part of Loch Shin and just looking at the wildlife.

After this at the B&B I ate my sandwiches and set to to repair the camera charger which has been on the blink for several days.  I had managed to keep it going by careful waggling of the lead but now it refused to work at all.  There was nothing for it but to get the scissors out and perform a minor operation – I knew roughly where the problem lay.  The wire hadn’t broken as I had suspected.  Instead the sheathing of the inner wire had been broken which allowed the two wires to short together.  A piece of plastic bag tied around the cable at the appropriate point did the trick and the charger was back in action again.

Today I have cycled 40.7 miles at an average of 11.1mph.  This now brings my total mileage to 1030.6

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