Nessie says Hi

Fort William to Drumnadrochit (top of loch ness): 53 Miles

A much nicer days riding today than yesterday, mainly as most of the ride was away from the busy roads. Yesterday was a day for head down pushing along all day long dodging the traffic, today we were able to look around at the scenery which was nice. However in places we were somewhat too far away from anything that resembled a road - after an hour or so the route took us down what should have been a gravel track through a forest - however come the autumn time the track repair people move in with their earthmovers - so parts of the track resembled a ploughed field (see picture). The remainder of the track was a little better but much more suited to my mountain bike than a road bike. The track was several miles long and just before the end I whacked a large stone which resulted in my second puncture of the tour. The track was pretty hard work as the surface was a softish sand sludge, so cycling through that for 45 minutes was pretty tiring.

Then back onto the main road for a bit, then off again for a 5 mile zip alongside the Caledonian canal on the towpath, having lunch at Fort Augustus at the bottom of Loch Ness.

Back onto the main road after lunch all the way up Loch Ness, past the very pretty Urquhart Castle. Stopped by the castle to have a chat with nessie - she's quite a shy little monster and asked not to have her photo taken - but she did ask me to say Hi to everyone. Not sure if anyone else would have seen her today as she was obviously in one of her timid moods.

Poor bike is sounding a bit on the rough side, lots of things rattling and clicking / scraping that should not be - not helped I'm sure by the several miles of crud track we went down today. Think it should last till the end OK, it's just in need of a good service. Most of the components (except consumables such as tyres, brakes etc) are original from when I got the bike 5 years ago and it's done nearly 9,000 miles since then, the equivalent of London to Singapore so it's not doing too bad I guess.

Just three days to go now, so far the weather gods have been really kind to us with nice weather - not to hot, just a couple of rainy morning and a tailwind for most of the way - fingers crossed that this continues for the last push home.

Stats for the day:

Time spent cycling: 3hrs 51 mins
Average speed: 13.7mph
Max 33.5mph
Times I swore at the tour oganiser whilst down a forest track: 34
More suitable for a quad bike than a racing bike
















Great views from the top of the track







The sun is out, the sky is blue, there's a lovely tailwind and only 3 days to go. smiles all round (except John who doesn't like his photo being taken it seems...)
































Urquart castle, on the shore of loch ness