clairedavieswriter

On paper, today’s ride looked like a doddle: barely 60k, and less than 500m of climbing. But I refer you once again to Mike Tyson and Helmuth von Moltke’s views on what happens when plans meet reality. In this case, the adversary that punched our easy day in the nose was a 20-25mph wind blowing directly in our faces, with scarcely a tree in sight to slow it down. Despite the gallant actions of my domestique, who took the full brunt of the blast all day (honestly, I would have offered, but if I had we’d probably still be out there), I found it very hard going.

The day had started well enough, with an enjoyable chat over breakfast with the doughty Miss Brown (we were very definitely not yet on first name terms), a regular solo visitor to the hotel, who must have been in her 80s. Among other things, she noted that the dialects spoken in Shetland and her native Lincolnshire were mutually comprehensible because both regions had been under Dane Law – can anyone confirm this arcane but interesting linguistic claim?

Recalling her own daring cycling adventures as a girl, she gave me £5 towards my ride – Miss Brown, I salute you, and I hope you found your Whooper swans.

As we set off, Loch Shin and its luxury duck house were veiled in mist.

But that quickly lifted, to reveal blue skies and warm sun.

We followed the lively River Tirry upstream, but its otters were as elusive as Loch Tay’s red squirrels.

The domestique still didn’t know what he was in for:

And neither did I:

But sadly, we had most definitely ‘had the best of the day’ (copyright Spruzen).

For the first 20k of single track road we found ourselves giving way to a surprising amount of traffic – either rugged-looking farmers taking trailer loads of breeding ewes to today’s auction in Lairg (the tups were sold yesterday), or hi-viz truckers ferrying construction materials to a new wind farm.

Just as the first rain started, we reached the legendary Crask Inn, which claims, with some justification, to be the country’s remotest pub. The coffee was weak but the welcome warm and the small fruit scone I ordered as a mid-morning snack turned out to be lunch.

From Crask, we pedalled on into rain and a freshening wind through the wild and barren landscape of the ‘Flow Country’ – the world’s largest area of blanket bog. There really wasn’t much else out there.

In this weather, there’s no point worrying what you look like:

The road seemed to go on forever…

But we did at least spot a Golden Eagle, turning wide, lazy circles above our heads on huge, plank-like wings. And eventually, to my great relief, we reached Tongue, and better still found that the village shop doubled as a café. Seldom have a cheese bap, jam scone (with English clotted cream!) and cup of tea been so welcome.

At this point, I bolted for the B&B, had a shower and put my feet up. Mark on the other hand set off up the coast to do another 20 miles. Clearly I’m not working him hard enough. Tonight we eat in the somewhat dubiously named Tongue Hotel. There’s definitely a joke in there somewhere, but I’m sure they’ve heard it already.

Tomorrow we head for Thurso, where I’ll be joined by my support team in the form of Jonis in the van. 70 miles to go to John O’Groats.