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Tuesday 25th May 2010 Conon Bridge to Lairg The day started fairly cool and after about a mile I stopped and put on my dayglo orange outer jacket. That kept the wind off nicely and I rode on through Dingwall, taking the high, back road to Evanton. Although today was supposed to be a short leg it seemed a bit of a slog with more hills than I expected and a rather demoralising headwind in the higher bits.
From Evanton I headed for Ardgay on the back road and in the middle of nowhere came upon a fellow Thorn rider stopped by the side of the road, checking his tyres. He was on his way south after a camping trip, hoping to get the train at Inverness. Quite heavily laden he was, with both front and rear panniers and a rear top bag plus 3 water bottles. His bike had the Rohloff gears and mountain bike wheels; he said he’d had it for 2 years and that it worked well. Bernard his name was and he gave me his card so I could email him the photo of himself with the 2 Thorn bikes. He was a plumber.
I pressed on, aiming to get some food and drink in Ardgay but the café there closed at 1.00 pm on Tuesdays (I got there at 1.22) and the pub also appeared to be closed down. Consequently I had to make do with a Kitkat and some dried apricots. At Carbisdale Castle I overshot the crossing point for the Kyle of Sutherland but recovered after only about ¼ mile and after backtracking managed to get on the pedestrian/cycle way which led to the rail bridge. There I manhandled the bike down some metal steps and onto a narrow gangway which took me across the river.
On the other side I noticed another pub and made my way over only to find that this too was closed. Flagging through want of sustenance I then missed the cycle route which would have followed the easy, low route by the riverside and instead stayed with the A836 which, of course, flogged itself up a lengthy hillside making me flag even more. Still in the end I made it to Lairg and found a room at the same B&B as Amber and I had stayed at 3 years earlier when we did Ben Hope and Ben Klibreck together. The B&B was run by Ian and Win Brinklow and Win always gives her newly arrived guests a nice cup of tea and a piece of home-made cake, very nice of her. Her husband, Ian, told me he had served in both the army and the RAF, ending up as a sergeant.
That evening I replenished my reserves with a nice nut roast meal at the local bar, the Lairg Highland Hotel, followed by rhubarb crumble and custard and the odd pint or two. Weatherwise there had been a brief shower early in the day, causing me to don my waterproofs but they weren’t really necessary as it was mostly OK after that, apart from the annoying wind. A fine evening at Lairg. Distance: 43.02 miles Average speed: 9.8 mph Max speed: 30 mph | |||||
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