Can see where we are at Borgie(slightly inland from the North coast) and where are currently. Over 1750 km so far and will be about 1850 km at the finish, however I should not get ahead of myself.
Andy giving the Briefing for today as we prepare to leave the fishing hotel in the highlands.
A very short leg today of only 40 km, so we started late after 10 am and also had a deliberate long stop for lunch and then even still arrived early for our accommodation at the end of the day. Most places don't like to accept guests before 3 pm. Most days we aimed to leave at around 9 am and get in about 4 pm. we had been as late as 6:30 a few times and early in the tour like first day didn't get away until 10:30 am or later as we had to travel down to start and do a few preliminary tasks.
Hard to remember all the exact places where I took a photo-this scenery must have been early on as very like early Sunday as well . As we ascend the plants simply don't grow. It's an alpine environment above a certain altitude, and we are at a low latitude now the further north we venture. Still has a green look but far less lush and more high mountain feel.
Starting to climb and open space
The girls lead yet again, boys stopping taking photos
Me with front bag and wearing the least clothes of the whole tour as the wind was warm. The warmest day so far, apparently short lived as today(typing this the following day) will be cooler in Scotland. Temps are rising down south in London apparently. Weird that we had warmest day so far, and we near the top of Scotland😀
Nick, our best photographer with the huge iPhone and clever use in photography
Me and I had trouble with my seat stem slipping down into the bike tube and needed to manually stop and raise yet again, you don't notice often as it happens gradually but end up with not the best posture to bike efficiently. Not quite knees around your ears 👂. Andy was able to
get a wrench and tighen a not that sorted this last night.
Great landscape eh
Bog cotton plant, a flower and was just like cotton. The the whte flower below. Now a botanist as well 😀
The photos don't really capture what the landscape was like, It very open, bear and beautiful.
We often stopped and we just jawboned by the beauty
The road is an A road and was actually quite busy and so had lots of lulling into spaces to allow cars to pass or they stopped for us.
The last 10km especially as we hit the coast was very busy and congested and as all single lane. Strange to have a single lane A road.
Up at the top I noticed the road had much more pot holes. The last two days, until we got to the north coast we have a brilliant road surface.
Having a great road surface definitely helps you feel safer and make a far smoother ride, sepcially on busy narrow roads.
We use lots of hand signals to communicate with fellow riders or people in cars, and we make calls to each other to pass on that their are advancing or following cars, to others in the cycling tour group. "Car back" is a common call from the back riders of an approaching car from behind.
All very helpful.
I also try to engage with all we pass, to share the love. makes my felow riders laugh sometimes. Hello or good morning type comments if the acrs going slow. Give them approacing drivers from front on plenty of eye contact and where necessary caution signs with hands, if I feel they are approaching too fast. Mostly works, although like anywhere, a few drivers react the wrong way. We mostly have had really potile drivers, although today we had a "few", who just wanted to go fast, even in narrow spaces and we were in the way. On more busy tight roads, we broke into pods of three or four riders close together single file, with the pods perhaps 200m or more apart so that it wasn't a big deal overtaking a long line of riders. Have had to do these more as we moved into the Northern part of the tour as their are less road and lane and track options. Scotland is I think about 3 milion people and is possibly as big as the North island ?. i am guessing alittle but it is signifiact part of the Uk but very sparsely populated outside of the main places. Dencely populated parts of the Uk had roads and lanes everywehere and a lot of alternatives for cycling with a lot of walking and cycling trails, tmake it very safe.
Flowing Heather which was everywhere
the most surprising valley view as we neared the coast
The coast and an inlet. the first glimpse of the sea.
This photo and the next few photos are back before the rise over to start to see coast.
Today was a short day and this photo was around 20 km mark, coast was at 30km approx. and finish approx 40km.(we did go inland a little near the top of scotland). A very short quick day overall.
Andy and his big smile
Dorothy. She really got intot he grove in the highlands and lead alot of the way.
Andy again
Looking back as we descent to the coast
There it is the inlet to the north of us and closer to the coast. We had lunch in the bigger wider area on that causeway. Then came back and continued to the right up along the top of the north coast after lunch before moving slightly inland to our accommodation.
At a look at as we descended at some signage.
B=views below, From the causeway and looking towards the narrow harbour entrance,
Lots of people stopped for photos on the causeway. This was looking back south towards from where we had come
Us having lunch and me a short snooze (more research) at lunchtime. lunch and warmth and food were a recipe to nod off.
I still wake up before 4 am here but instead of getting out of bed and going cycling as I had been doing at home, I have being doing my blog ! .
I have perfected the art to relax and lay back (especially after food and in warmth) and cat nap a short sleep . Clever eh 😀. Catching flies though with mouth open.
In the evening though I start to really tire at 9 to 10 pmish and have fallen asleep more than once talking to Lee -Anne at night on the phone. It happened again last night. Sorry love
A short gather back at the start of causeway for the last 10 km for the day. Saw a swimmer towing a swim buoy who invited me to join him. Had a laugh, far too cold for Lyall. Yelled back that I wouldn't join him as I didn't have my wetsuit. Far too cold for me, I didn't even put a pinky in the water to be honest.
As the tide went out large sandbank opened up in this inlet on the far side of the inlet. We were told by Nick a story of a Spanish Gallen going missing up here when they were trying to fund a local rebellion and support the Catholics to rebel by paying them to fight with gold. In this case helped by a lot sympathy in parts of the north against the English. This whole Gallen, fulled with gold, was never found and remains a Mystery today. Politics and funding of wars in distant countries is a very old story, not a recent thing as we may think in the geo-poltical world we have today.
Dorothy. She has risen really well . She is raising Money for Charity is as is Caroline.
They are in a choir together and that how they ended up on this tour, as they discussed how they would celebrate special landmark ages changes this year. Dorothy did a quiz on the night of day 21 ,which was fun and which was an abridged version of one she did for her fund raising.
She and Caroline are being picked up by there friend, Carol who we saw today for the third time as we travelled along the North. Carol has riden motor bikes around NZ and is now retired as well. Funnily enough she is also a retired senior metropoliatian police officer, and also served with distinction in the Cosovo conflict doing police work there with the war in europe. She has been a trail angel and always sharing lollies and today biscuits with us.
Getting back on the road after lunch , after a short ascent from the causeway and now heading more on an easterly direction
Little Island at the harbour entrance as we move west and slightly inland
In the last two day we finalised where we would be in the days after Lands end.
Booked taxi to take me from Lands end to Wick to catch a train to Dingwall for the afternoon on the 26 June. There meet up with Lee -Anne who based herself there, as wanted to have good rest and freshen up. Then on the train again down to Inverness for one night of the 26 th June. On the 27th to Edinburgh where we have two nights and had booked all other accommodation for the remainder of our trip before we left NZ . Couple of days in Edinburgh, couple of days in Manchester, couple days in Oxford u=including a tour of the cotwalds from Morton on the marsh where Colin was born during the war. Then finally to end back in London for nearly a week before we depart on the 10 July fro home and loose a day and arrive on Friday 12 July .
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