Day 11 - Fort William to Evanton

The day dawned dry and with patches of blue sky!! Ben Nevis loomed on the horizon, but still was in its cloud duvet.

We headed off up the Great Glen, admiring the view as we went. After a little while we split into on-road and off road groups as we tackled both sides of Loch Locky. The off road variant was relatively smooth at first, a few bumpy parts. We, the off roaders, descended back down to the Caledonian Canal, and followed the 'tow path'. I say tow path, but it resembled more like a Blue graded mountain bike route. I'm not sure if my Dad will ever take my word for the route choice again.

After a stop at Invergarry to regroup, we headed off as one group to Fort Augustus. The day's main hill loomed ahead, all 400m of it. It went without too much of an issue, and we were greeted with an awesome view at the top.

After an exhilarating decent (where an interactive physics experiment concluded even with enthusiastic pedalling from normal bikes, a free-wheeling tandem goes quicker downhill then anything else), we stopped at Whitebridge for lunch. We thought it was downhill to Inverness, however the road proved more undulating then we thought.

20 miles and a broken spoke later (bike still ridable, thanks to disc brakes), we arrived in Inverness. After a quick stop at a helpful bike shop which fixed Heather's wheel, we were on our way, over the Kessock Bridge and picked up the National Cycle Route 1 north.

We have been enjoying spotting the wildlife as we've cycled up the UK. However, a shrew wanted to get a closer look at us by darting between several bikes. A few screams later the shrew emerged unscathed.

Dingwall appeared on the horizon, and after sampling the delights of all three carparks in search of the toilets, we left towards Evanton up a devil of a hill.

A few of us still had a bit of energy left, and as usual this ended up as a competitive speed study. Again the tandem came out top on the flat and descents, though the normal bikes had the advantage on the ups.

Our accommodation soon appeared, and we dived into another great dinner.

87 hard miles covered as we crossed from west to east Scotland, with only two days to go!!

Simon