Day 16Loch shin to Thurso
90 hard hard miles
After a bit of a slog into a headwind to our hotel on Loch Shin last night, today mother nature decided to really show us what she was made of. And to make sure I wouldn't go back saying a LEJOG is easy.
We left the hotel and both scampered onto our bikes, the scampering on account of the midges and practically flew the 13 miles back to the A836.
We turned onto it and both were hit with a case of tourettes. The wind. Oh my god the wind. It was worse than a meal of cauliflower curry with beans for afters. And to make it even more fun someone decided to chuck sand in our faces. Well that was what it felt like. Jurek called it exfoliating rain.
We were cycling along the flat and had to really push to keep our speed close to 7mph. The cloud shadows moving over our heads were moving very fast. As fast as the cars. I've never cycled into anything so difficult. I honestly thought we would have to give up.
With some wailing and gnashing of teeth we made it to the crask inn and stopped for some food. We were 25 miles in and it was already 11am. This was not good considering we left at 0830. I will confess to asking jurek to call national rail to enquire about options for a train to thurso. No problem there was one from lairg a mere 10-15 miles south of where we were which would be easy considering the north westerly wind. Except the train was at 1945 getting to thurso at close to 10pm. I figured we could actually cycle it quicker so that was our decision made.
Thankfully, the crask inn does good food in its very own quirky style (I urge anyone cycling through that neck of the woods to stop and try it - a more friendly welcome you will not get). So refuelled we set off again. Out route turned ever so slightly so we weren't cycling directly into the wind and it was marginally easier. Surprising to both of us we made it to altnaharra in reasonable time.
We turned eastward along loch naver which was utterly charming and then into the strath naver valley which was more sheltered and simply lovely. I would love to come back and do some more cycling around this area as we kind of had our heads down focused on trying to make some progress.
We had both sort of figured that if we could make it to bettyhill we might just be ok. And eventually, after a good 6 hours of hard slog we made it.
We stopped in the pub and ate. I knew it was another 30 miles to our B&B in thurso but we knew it would be a bit easier than what we had already faced.
And sure enough we didn't have wind directly in our faces anymore. It did come from the side and tried to knock me off my bike on more than one occasion which I have to admit I didn't like very much and after about 15 miles I had had enough. We had done 75 miles of the hardest cycling I'd ever done and I didn't want to do it anymore. I felt like crying. Jurek decided to start taking lots of photos of me. I couldn't have sad photos of me weeping so I pulled a cheesy grin. It helped. He kept snapping over his shoulder. Clever guy. Suddenly we were less than 10 miles to thurso. It all seemed doable.
With about 3 miles to go I felt myself getting all "floaty light". My hands were starting to shake and I couldn't focus properly. I thought my chain had dropped off when it hadn't. I didn't really know what I was doing and I certainly shouldn't have been allowed to operate heavy machinery. But my garmin was counting down the metres and I knew we were no more than 10 mins away. We arrived at the postcode to our B&B which was not actually where it was
We called and found it and arrived, like the mint, after 8.
Thankfully my parents had dropped off our luggage on their way home and had left us food. I could barely talk to antoinette the B&B owner and in the room I immediately sat on the floor in the way and ate EVERYTHING. And then crawled into bed and slept like rip van winkle.
That has got to be one of hardest days of cycling I have ever done.
