To Inverness and beyond.......

So Le Tour nears it's conclusion, we are now camped at Dornoch a tantalising 80 miles from John o Groats. We have decided that we would rather finish it at the end of a long day, so tomorrow we head for the end of end to end.
We left Port Augustus this morning at the now usual 09:00 and spent the morning riding alongside Loch Ness, looking out for Nessie, with little luck. You can see how people could believe they had seen her, as the way the purple haze quality of light reflects off the water makes ripples in the water look like something in the water.
Through Drumnadrochit and up to Inverness, where we met Claire for lunch. We were joined by Maria and Alix who were also passing through Inverness. Matt and I took my defective wheel to a mountain bike shop where the 16 year old assistant told us he had no parts and couldn't fit it in for two weeks. He did however reccomend a shop round the corner, Fitness Bikes, where the guy was more than helpful and said that the stripdown and rebuild that Matt had carried out at the campsite last night had fixed it. Unfortunately for Karen and Claire there was a cyclo cross bike in the shop, a type of bike thay is missing from both Matt and my bike collections (really have to have one you see, because there are those days when a road bike is too focused and a mountain bike too slow etc etc).

So we left Inverness over a spectacular suspension bridge with a howling crosswind and carried on up the A9, across Black Isle, past the Dalmore distillery at Alness and the Glenmorangie distillery at Tain (for those of you who know me, you will know what an effort of will it took to pass without stopping). We arrived in Dornoch at 16:00.

Matt's top cycling tip - if the bike mechanic looks like he has recently inhaled from the type of cigarette that Bill Clinton definately didn't inhale from, don't let him touch your bike.

Something we didn't mention yesterday, we passed Loch Lochy, if that is translated into English does that make it Lake Lakey (we can testify it did have a very lakey feel to it). In the same Le Tour feel Loch Ness is now Lac Nees (needs to be pronounced in a very Monty Python French accent)

As this tour comes to an end, please post your suggestions for next years cycling challenge

Peace

Iain, Alan, Matt and Claire