Hello everyone, it’s Harry again for the last of my ‘solo’ blogs. Full marks for those who were expecting this and have worked out I do every third blog. Give yourself a Pat on the back.
With just 3 days to go our undercarriages continue to perform dutifully and Beth is nature weeing like a pro.
After the down of yesterday and shortly after writing this blog actually, we assessed the weather for today and formulated a plan: leave by 7am where there appeared to be a small gap in the weather, and then get as much riding done as possible before the heavens were due to open and take it from there.
Our alarms went off at 6.15am, with the sound of rain and hail pelting down on our little pod… this was not the plan! After a brief look at the forecast and a sleepy chat, we decided the best course of action was to back to sleep and wait for it to blow over..
We woke again 90 or so minutes later and with the rain still smashing it down outside we were considering our options, with no real good ones! However, we all knew we wanted to complete the challenge, ideally by Saturday and we had our secret weapon…. Toris (Tina and Boris).
Luckily, my cricket playing history finally came in use and the years of watching it rain and becoming a meteorologist for the day helped to prepare me for this exact moment. I leapt straight onto the metoffice weather radar to track a more up to date forecast and look for an opportune moment to leave. Toris would at stop at regular intervals and we would just try to get there and reassess. We had our plan B, C and D.
We finally got out the door at about 10.15 and we were in full peloton mode.
We managed to get within a few kilometres of our first meeting stop we got absolutely drenched as I had overestimated the distance by a small margin of about 25% (whooooops). We cracked on and had a banana in McDonald’s with Mum (juxtaposition or what), and waiting for it to blow over.
Following a further weather assessment, we decided on our next meeting point, which was a Ben Nevis viewing point and this time…WE NAILED IT! We jumped into Boris as the heavens opened and decided it was an opportune moment to have some lunch. We enjoyed it with this stunning view of Ben Nevis.
We continued this good fortune all the way (with the odd minor soaking) to Fort Augustus, which was 80k into the ride and significantly further than we thought we’d make it today. The last 10 or so kilometres was on the Caledonian Canal Path, and the sun finally came out.
We were also greeted by a couple who had driven past us “miles back” they said and encouraged us to keep going.
We then had our next big decision. To go up ‘the wall’ (the largest climb of the trip) or to go down the flatter, more direct but significantly busier A82. We knew we had a small gap in the weather and decided to take the tougher route with the hope of some reward at the top… and WOW did it deliver. It was about a 400m climb over 7ishk and the views at the top were breathtaking.
After a short photo shoot, we knew the weather was closing in and agreed that one more downpour would end our day. We also knew we had a long descent after our hard earned climb so we rolled down trying our best to take in the spectacular views.
After a couple more short checkpoints and a serious rainbow…
… the downpour finally hit us after 110k, significantly more than we thought we could do today and leaves the end in sight in 2.5 days time…
We loaded up the bikes onto Boris and headed off on a fair drive to our good friends Sarah and Woodall in Lossiemouth. They are two of the all time great hosts and the promise of home cooked food, clean clothes, and an opportunity to become clean humans beckons.
We simply could not have done today without mum – what a champion she is!
Summary:
Distance cycled 111k
Elevation: 1,009m
Time pedalling: 5 hours and 26 mins
Towlers' Travels 
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