We set out from Durness SYHA today in the knowledge that we didn't have too far to go.
There were large numbers of horse flies about, but for the most part these didn't bother us because the road was quite flat and we were able to maintain a decent speed. A sea breeze also helped. We just couldn't stop in any one place for too long.
The road followed the coast for the first 20 miles, going down one side of an inlet and then back up the other side. Quite a roundabout journey, but worth it for the scenery.
It was good that today was short because after a gentle 20 miles along the coast the road turned inland and featured no less than four incredibly steep climbs (>14%), which pretty much finished us off. The first couple of these weren't too bad because we had the benefit of a cool sea breeze, but the latter two were in stagnant air so once again we baked and got mobbed by biting flies.
It was such a relief to get to the top, feel the breeze, pick up some speed and be able to look forward to a bit of downhill. Pausing to eat our lunch we met a backpacker who'd just come up from Tongue who told us we had a nice cruise ahead of us. He was right; the roll down to the causeway across to Tongue was a nice relief and well earned.
We were very early arriving at the Hostel so we took the opportunity to go back to the causeway and kill some time on the sandy beach and paddling in the sea. This proved interesting, as the apparently lifeless sand in fact concealed numerous large crabs, which didn't like to reveal themselves before they'd had the chance to scuttle over my toes, making me jump.
When it started to rain we headed for the hostel. As the rain got heavier we decided we couldn't face the mile walk to the village and to buy whatever we could from behind the counter at reception and call that dinner. Pasta, tomato sauce and cooked sausages, as it turned out.
The rain turned to thunderstorms, with loud bangs every few minutes. The power supply for the hostel went down several times during the evening failing completely in the end, as did the phone signal.
Tomorrow is our last day of cycling. It probably sounds silly, but an extremely long train ride with nothing to do but sit sounds very inviting to me right now. We're both very tired!
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