The day started with breakfast at 7am - porridge and cooked breakfast. The B&B in Wick was great and definitely recommended, we were very well looked after. Note: Laura would like Elsbeth from The Clachan B&B to read bedtime stories to her as her lulling Scottish accent was restful and, funnily enough, Scottish! However, nobody we speak to seems to be able to get the weather right!! Arrived at John O'Groats to fantastic weather (well when we say fantastic, what we mean is FANTASTICALLY WINDY, COLD & WET). Not the best start...in addition, given this is a major tourist attraction it was a really under-whelming as a place i.e. It was a dump! However, the lady in the shop was very nice and obviously lonely given she wanted keep talking to us! We did meet two very nice men from the Isle of Man who Dave seem to get on with very well. We had our customary photos next to the reserve sign and the lovely scenic view of the hotel (which by the way was about to be demolished). We set off got ten metres down the road and then had to stop as the heavens opened and they continued to be open for pretty much the whole 88 mile! We rode for 50 miles and the huge hill we were dreading yesterday wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be but it was bad enough...Even though the weather was against us the wind was with us and Dave’s wind definitely also helped! We eventually arrived at Helmsdale after 50 miles and found the most wonderful cafe/restaurant - Gilberts. The owner turned the heating on to dry out our clothes, he had the most wonderful food. We had leak and potato soup & cakes which were delicious, in fact the cakes were so nice Dave eat mine as well! We also found out what a small world it is as the owner's mother-in-law lived on the street Dave did when he was a lad (just before the bomb damage!). The owners also gave us a £20 donation – thanks to Gilberts (www.helmsdale.org/gilberts-tearooms-restaurant.htm). We set off again and got wet again!! We were riding back steadily to Tain until the man we like to call 'cockleg' got a puncture but had lost the spoon that he had brought with him for taking his tyres off, then Dave managed to over stretch his muscle and struggled to shoot off. It was actually his hamstring along with the fact we had kicked him because he made a bad joke:
“What do chickens like to sing in Tain?”
”Let me Hentertain you!”
We made it to Tain 17:30 covering 88 miles in 5.34 hrs and a 16.3mph average. Tomorrow is 67 miles to Fort Augustus but is set to be quite a bit hillier!!!
See you tomorrow.
The Smiley Milers.
Well done on your first day – love to all (Editor in Chief) xx
1 comment:
Well done all of you, thank goodness dave helped with the down wind.
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