Day 2 - Tender but determined!

So day 1 went well, 84 miles, 6,500Ft climbed, average speed kept down to 11.8mph by that headwind. Time in the saddle 6hrs 50 minutes.......... What would Day 2 bring us after a night in "the cottage"!

Breakfast was first, the landlord, brought us porridge the like of which we never seen before. It was more a soup than a porridge & quite salty, even as a person who likes salt in their porridge. Still, when in Rome..... as we were getting through our full Scottish the lads from Altnaharra sailed by..... they must have been up at the crack of dawn, we were still at the Crask! We didn't see them again until after lunch but see them we did. The weather was ok, just a few spots of rain in the air but much less windy as we headed down towards Lairg & Bona Bridge. We stopped off at Shin Falls between the two for a quick drink, meeting up with Sandra again. After Bona Bridge we turned off the main road to head over The Struie, at 1218 metres, a Catergory 3 hill....... that means quite steep & quite long for the uninitiated!

Steve coming up Struie behind me, Alan in the background! 

After Struie it was up hill & down dale to Dingwall, Sandra had found a nice little place tucked behind the Tescos & Lidl....... Scotch pie, chips & beans! Glad to see the back of Dingwall frankly we headed out towards Beauly and our last final climb. Before that we met the lads again, they are carrying all their gear in panniers so were quite jealous of our light bikes. They were also jealous of our route over Struie, they had missed the turning and carried on adding an extra 12kms to their route. Steve then had a slight issue with an old woman who nearly wiped him out.... Steve was leading and a car just pulled out right in front of him, he fortunately came to a halt without crashing into her but gave her boot a bit of a slam with his arm.... Road rage Numero Uno. After that he sped off for a couple of miles, was it to get away from the cops!

Sandra & I atop of Struie!

We finally arrived at the Polmaily hotel just after four in the afternoon. We had survived another day, 73 miles, 5000ft climbed, an average speed of 13.8mph and 5hrs 30 minutes in the saddle.