Day 9

Loch Ness to Tongue

Distance: 109.65

Average: 12.4

Maximum: 36.9

Duration: 8:48:21

Cumulative: 973.53

This morning started with my now all too familiar cold oats with milk, and coffee. I got talking to a woman whose husband was doing the LEJoG and he had also stayed here the previous night. He'd left early to meet his LEJoG companion who'd had the good fortune to stay with friends in Inverness. After wishing her and her absent husband well I got my bike from the cycle shed, wheeled it around to the front of the hostel and started the daily ritual of securing my bag to the seat post bracket. A two minute job that usually goes without hitch. Not today! This is the moment on my trip where I got attacked! By midges! I rather foolishly thought that this small exposure would do me no harm! How wrong I was! I suffered the consequences of that two minute midge mauling for at least three weeks and I still have the odd small white scar to prove it! Cor blimey it didn’t half itch!

I continued up the side of Loch Ness until Drumadrochit and then left Loch Ness. No sign of Nessie! Maybe next time. I turned left on the A831 and then right on to the A833 to be confronted by another type of monster! A huge hill! I continued along this somewhat wild road but as I got to within about 5 miles from Beauly I saw hoards of tents in a field! I couldn't quite see why the place was so popular! Granted it was Scotland and all of Scotland has attractions! But why here? The proximity of the tents to each other and the preponderance of young people led me to believe that this must be a pop festival of some kind! This was confirmed some time later back home! I think it must have been the Tartan Heart Festival.

On through Beauly! The winner of Scotland in Bloom or something like that! A very attractive place with every other building sporting hanging baskets! On to Muir of Ord, Conan Bridge and through Dingwall to join the A9 for a while before turning on to the B817 to Evanton. It was here that I came across some fellow cyclists mending a puncture! I borrowed some cycle oil from one of them and realised that I'd come across the guy and his mate and a couple of others from the youth hostel that morning. After swapping notes I was on my way.

Dornoch Firth

Continuing along the B817 I joined the B9176. I then joined the A836 at Bonar Bridge where I had the usual food stop. Up the A836 I then took the B864 to take the back road past the Falls of Shinns and on to Lairg. The next part of the journey, the 40 or so miles from Lairg to Tongue I approached with some trepidation. I'd read that it was one of the more desolate stretches of the journey and I was half expecting to be attacked by wild wolves, feral cats or sassenach hating Scotsmen ...

MacKay Country
Warning in German! Why? (or - Warnen auf Deatsch! Warum?)
Out of all the signs on this 40 mile stretch of road this was the only one I noticed that wasn't in English! This must be a particularly popular spot with out Teutonic visitors!

Near Altnaharra

... this didn't happen. I didn't have a puncture nor did my bike break in any way either! What a great relief as I didn't see many signs of civilisation in those 40 or so miles! On most days I had come to regard 40 or 50 miles to go as been nearly there and this day was no exception. However seeing Tongue Youth Hostel at the edge of the causeway from the hill above was a very welcome and pretty sight.

Causeway at Tongue

Tongue Youth Hostel had just been re-opened in June 2006 and was the most comfortable I stayed in! After eating the usual tinned meat and beans for tea I retired to the living room where there were a group talking about the mad Scotsman that had been talking to them earlier. The mad Scotsman duly arrived a while later and did indeed seem to be quite a jovial fellow. Anyway on retiring to my room a while later I found myself sharing with the mad Scotsman and his mate! During the course of a sleepless night I got talking to these two and we were all amazed at the Italian guy dressed in a kilt propping up the front door to the hostel, making a long distance call back home when most god-fearing folk had taken to their beds!

Still, I didn't feel I needed too much sleep! Last day tomorrow! I'm as good as there!