Today was our last day of cycling for this holiday. Tomorrow we start our long train journey home, and believe me the thought of sitting for hours with the countryside rolling effortlessly by could not be more welcome.
We set out from Tongue SYHA, grateful of the two mile detour to Tongue village which eased the gradient up to the coast road and allowed us to buy lunch at the village shop. The sun was out again, but there was a breeze, which made it more bearable.
In fact as we got up high the wind turned out to be a strong south easterly, blowing at least 15 mph. As we were heading east this made making headway extremely arduous.
The road, which was for the most part high up, also dipped back down to sea level on numerous occasions. The roll down the hill was slow thanks to the wind, and making progress up the other side was hard going, even though the gradients were comparatively gentle.
On the plus side we didn't get drenched in sweat and we barely saw any horse flies. The wind made it practically impossible for them to land on us, even if we weren't moving.
It took 3 hours for us to travel the first 15 miles. We stopped for lunch at a quiet village called Bettyhill, having the pasties we'd bought at Tongue And noting that once again our water was already running low.
We continued on our way, glad that each descent and subsequent climb was shorter than the last, although the wind appeared to be getting stronger.
At a tiny village called Strathy we stopped at an inn for a drink. The landlord was very chatty, probably as we were his only customers at the time, and he recounted a few stories about cyclists he'd had drop by. He also told us that lightning had set fire to a house in Thurso the previous evening, which given the violence of the storms we'd seen in Tongue wasn't that surprising! He also happily filled our water bottles up for us.
With about 15 miles to go the countryside changed abruptly, becoming much flatter and divided into agricultural fields. Near the Dounreay nuclear power station we turned off the A-road, following a quieter, flatter, inland route for the last few miles. We were following the "End2End" route, which continues beyond Thurso to John O'Groats.
Rolling down the hill into Thurso was a huge relief. We booked ourselves into the hostel, and has dinner in the UK's most northern Chinese restaurant before turning in early.
No cycling tomorrow!!!!
Zzzz
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