Day 2 - Brora to Inverness

It's fair to say Brora is a one-horse town. Hell it may even be a no-horse town. Our guesthouse was nice enough even if the woman running it was a little stern. A chap at breakfast very kindly sponsored me a tenner which was a nice touch. On getting on the bikes this morning the one thing that was clear was that my left knee was killing me - I couldn't even ride out. I took 3 ibuprofen and got on with it, however the knee has got worse all day and here I sit now inn absolute agony. This is after icing it for 30 mins, taking 3 (more) ibuprofen and rubbing on some Votarol.


'Enough of the knee - how was the day?' I hear you shriek. It was a great day - although colder than yesterday...in fact the fog didn't really lift until we got to The Cromarty Ferry at lunchtime. On the ferry I tweeted a pic of where we are and a fellow tweeter (@iainbarclay) suggested we make a bit of a detour to 'the best dolphin watching place in the UK', yeah yeah we thought...the photos below back up his claim. We were a few metres away and it was a great break from the cycling.


Coming into the final straight (or so we thought) we were faced with (yet another) 500 feet climb, steep and up a back road, in 28 degree heat. With my knee knocking I can't say I enjoyed it, and despite a wrong turn onto the A9, dual carriageway et al, we arrived safely at our guesthouse at 4ish.


Tomorrow is 10 miles further with more climb, and perhaps more importantly no Matt. Matt is a mate of mine from home that in all honesty I know quite well but we've not known each other long or could be described as 'best mates'. He has though, over the last couple of days, been an absolute God-send. He came up for two reasons - he's always wanted to cycle this stretch but also 'because he thought I'd need some support for the first two days.' You can't ask for more. He's paced me, we've sprinted together (not very often admittedly) and he's taken loads of photos where he's been so far ahead he could wait for me to catch up. He's been a star, and will be sorely missed. I haven't now got anyone cycling with me until Saturday so I've got five days on my own. Not only that but it's a working week so I'll be fielding calls too. To say I'm nervous about tomorrow would be an understatement.


Anyhoo - the stats - 56 miles, 2.2k feet of climb, 13.2mph average.