Day 9 and a bit - A Day of Cycling Pleasure

Ride stats: 87.2 miles, 3,894 feet of climbing, total time 7 hrs 21 mins, riding time 6 hrs 15 mins

We were treated to a hearty breakfast by the wonderful Ros (smashing porridge) and made a later than usual departure because today's stage is a little shorter than usual.

We said our goodbyes to Ros and Robert who insisted that we also accept a donation in addition to them providing all the food.  Robert was very touched by Robin's story with NF2.

Jean and Terry actually run a b & b and were giving up a nights business to put us up but insisted our offer of money for the extra washing we had created was donated to our cause.

As we've said before we have been blessed with meeting so many kind people on this trip - thank you all again.

In contrast to yesterday's weather todays started pretty benign until we hit the north coast, but more of that later. We followed the A9 past Tain until Dornoch Bridge when we headed away from the A9 towards Bonar Bridge and past the welcome to Sutherland sign - this is Ian's (the McKay clan) ancestral territory and triggered another bout of exchanging "Aye" in high pitched attempts at a Scottish accent.

This road was pretty well deserted of traffic and a real joy to cycle along and the views were fantastic especially the view back from Bonar Bridge along the loch.

We arranged to meet the girls after 30 miles at Lairg where we refuelled and Jeff attended to a squeak on the gear cables.

Julie took this opportunity to demonstrate her stretching technique and Ian and Jeff set off in somewhat colder weather.  Shortly after Lairg the route turned off on to a single carriage road that was to last about 40 miles and was a cyclists dream - hardly any traffic, fantastic scenery and a pretty good road service.

The terrain now became more barren and devoid of wildlife and more importantly traffic.  Until the girls decided to organise a stop to take some action photos that is - as Ian and Jeff approached the road experienced something of a traffic jam with 3 motor bikes and 2 cars all crossing at the same time. Undeterred they managed to make up for this at other points along this road.

Shortly after this Jeff and Ian had their heads down on a long downhill section and missed the McKay Country sign.  Fortunately Jill was able to step in for the family photo.

The forecast for tomorrow is pretty grim, with rain and very strong winds (31 mph has been reliably predicted by Robin in his daily W and T report) from the south east hitting us from an angle of 45 degrees but even with this forecast we are really pleased that we took this quiet route up the centre of the highlands rather than the quicker and supposedly much more dangerous A9. In fact the ride around Loch Naver and along the River Naver has to be one of the cycling highlights of the whole trip.


Arriving at Bettyhill on the north coast suddenly brought our minds into focus as the wind was getting stronger and we hit one of the first steep hills that populate the route from here towards John O'Groats. 

Todays ride was scheduled to be 77 miles straight to Bettyhill but given the fact that the sun was now shining and the adverse weather forecast for tomorrow we decided to do a few extra miles from tomorrows route today - hence the title of todays post.

That's enough for today

The bikes were put on top of the car and ferried back to tonight's accomodation and will be ferried back in the morning.

Tomorrow will be a hard and emotional day as we each remember Vince and reflect on what we've done in his name. We think he would be proud.

Fingers crossed for a change in the forecast.




PS. A few more photos from today courtesy of the support team: