The North, as everyone knows it over here, is a beautiful place, although mostly under appreciated by one and all Scotsman. On a not-so-bad day here, we only passed one car parked at a starting point for a walk.
Our journey from Lairg to Tongue on the north coast was made by following the one road for the entire day. There aren't many roads in The North.
With a nice tail wind and hills undulating through differing degrees of gentleness, we cruised along at a cracking 17.5k.p.h, our best yet. We also reached our finishing point of Tongue at 3p.m, so it was off to the pub for a hot chocolate and caramel slice.
The town of Tongue doesn't contain much - a pub & hotel, a general store and a service station/convenience store - but for what ever reason the ladies of Braemar had mentioned how much they love Tongue (especially Miriam), and strongly recommended a visit. So visit we did, and enjoy Tongue we did. Not for the service at the pub, but for the great weather that Tongue bestowed upon our trip. Just before arriving in Tongue, the clouds lifted on what had been a very dreary day and gave us a beautiful sunlit afternoon to relax and throw the frisbee. And this weather was to continue.
The next morning the sun was out and so were the cyclists, with several passing us before we had finished packing. Although none seemed to be carrying any tents or sleeping bags.. cheats. Once we were away it was a beautiful down hill run to the very bottom of our first massive up hill of the day. This hill claimed Nadia as a walker, as the next few would claim me also. There didn't seem to be any need for that sort of steepness. All that was at the bottom of each coastal valley was a sleepy little village with a beautiful river leading to a deserted beach, and a shop if lucky. A simple bridge would have been ample to protect the locals from all the tourist vehicles rolling through, and would have saved us a lot of time and effort.
Apart from the huffing and puffing, the day brought us some nice views over the Atlantic ocean, a wind farm, a decommissioned nuclear power site and the 'flow country' which we figured meant flat, featureless plateaus.
By the end of all this we had ridden 70km for the day, and had made it to Thurso - the surf capital of Scotland, and it was flatter than Sandy Point on a flat day. We were informed though that a month before O'neill had held a competition there in 20ft. surf.
In Thurso we gave ourselves a rest day and gave the bikes a well earned 'happy 500km!' service at the local bike shop. We were camping at the Thurso Caravan Park and it would be leading most, if not all, in the 'caravan park with the best view award'. From our tent we could see down onto the main town beach, the town itself, Dunnet Head (the most northerly point of mainland Scotland) and off in the distance we could see some of the Orkney Islands, and just make out The Old Man Of Hoy (a massive pillar of rock).
Our day off was spent figuring out ferries, catching up on emails and still trying to find a way of getting from Shetland to Norway on the cheap. And the good weather continued to shine down upon us. We even got burnt on the bike ride to Thurso.
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