Post 15, Day 9. Slogging it in paradise

Things are starting to get tough. As the miles countdown, there's a real sense that we are almost done but rather than deliver comfort, this seems to be making the going even harder.

With only two full days remaining the end is well and truly in sight and the pressure is now on to get the job done. We are no longer starting, we are finishing.

...or at least that's how it feels to me.

Today's weather forecast sounded rough. It cast a shadow over the enthusiasm of the group well before doing to same to the landscape and nobody seemed to be in a rush to leave the luxury of the hotel and its accommodating, linen clad, breakfast tables.

A few souls began to drift into the car park, shiver a little, then rush back in to change their wardrobe one last time. Whilst it wasn't truly cold, it "looked" cold and the wind was doing overtime to make up the difference. What to wear became a crucial decision.

Jen and Larchen braving the morning chill at Inverarary

No body got it right.

We set off and left town to face a long slow climb over into the next peninsular. The surroundings were awe inspiring. Long clear roads, lined with ferns and backed up by dramatic hills. The clouds broke occasionally shining a spot light upon small sections of hill side, illuminating them in bright yellow.

Spots of yellow on the hillside

The Lochs reflected the sky in shades of dark grey and green, punctuated with bright but brief flecks of white, driven up by the strong wind.

That same wind was going to become a major factor of today's ride.

The terrain was unchanging, constantly dramatic, constantly imposing, constantly beautiful and enhanced somehow by the bleak, threatening sky. Mists swirled, clouds rolled...and always the wind.

With such constant surroundings, it became harder to judge distance. The miles that had previously taken us from county to county and even  country to country...in a single day, now seemed to crawl us along the side of a single loch.

Progress seems very slow in Scotland. Everything is so vast, so huge and so far from the next thing, that it takes an age to make the horizon shift, even slightly. Add to this the need to traverse huge lochs, over vast distances, simply to progress a matter of miles from your origin.

well... its a bloody good job Scotland is pretty.

To break the journey up and to escape the ferocious head winds, we dropped into a small but exquisite church on the shores of Loch Awe (or as Angus called it Loch Awwhhhh fu***ing hell, as he banged his shin mid description).

Despite being captivated by the intricate architecture, the romance of the occasion was killed somewhat when Angus (still in a hump over the whole shin thing) announced that the entire building was a pastiche of about 5 different medieval architectural forms, all cobbled together in the late Victorian era...to look very old.

So this was actually a "Theme park", a "McChurch", a "bastard of a building".

Nice...

Still, it wasn't windy inside so that had to be good.

Our tea stop seemed further away than ever before but was approached on the back of an impressive tail wind. These tail winds worked in a simple fashion, one way up the loch...big head wind,  back down the other side...big tail wind...Simple in description but in practice...incredibly hard and hugely wearing.

After tea we eventually crossed the end of Loch Awe on the Connell bridge, a tall box bridge that allowed traffic in one direction at a time, we had the bridge to ourselves and rolled across side by side..

We pushed on, head to tail, tail to head...on and on, over and over until finally we reached our lunch stop some 30 miles later.

I was exhausted but managed to find the energy to spin straight past the stop and had to ride all the way back. This was the second time this week I'd done this. I blame the wind.

After lunch the weather deteriorated a little more, the wind picked up still further and the rain came in. We approached Fort William and split of in search of batteries and a spare light (tomorrows forecast was grim so lights...and strong ones at that ...were the order of the day). The roads became increasingly rough until eventually they gave out altogether and we found ourselves riding on something akin to cobblestones, for a good mile or so.

We rode on regardless (what else could we do?) and soon found the explanation just outside Spean bridge, when we were treated to an escort of Royal proportions. We had our very own "convey" car and lead vehicles, out riders wouldn't have seemed out of place. Unfortunately both escorts were restricting our progress to approximately 3 MPH and at times we and to stop and walk to save bumping into the back of our chaperon.

The road out of Fort William was being resurfaced in time for the harsh winter and the workforce were literally rolling out fresh tarmac for us to ride on, this meant we needed security front and back to escort us safely away from the sizzling hot tarmac and the prospect of instantaneous melting of tyre's.

Just outside Spean Bridge, we stopped to visit the commandos memorial and enjoyed the most windswept of tea stops, complete with lashed down tables and gazebo. Larchen, our DA crew member had stood in the memorial car park for an age, being sandblasted by the Arctic winds for hours...just to wait and serve us tea and jelly babies. It was a solemn, bleak and reflective place and the memorial seemed ideally positioned to reflect the occasion.

We began our decent into Loch Lochy, which was a gift after such a hard days ride and within an hour we were pulling up at the Hostel that would be our evenings accommodation. No 5 star spa for us tonight. Instead a home cooked lamb tagine, created masterfully by Jen, Ian and Larchen followed by pie (unidentified ...and unimportant) with custard.

We were hugely grateful to them and they put on a great spread. The Hostel is a vast country house set in the base of the valley, flanked by tall hills of pine forests.

Its a dream spot, lets hope its beds are comfortable enough to provide some sweet dreams too.

Loch Ness tomorrow accompanied by our biggest most frightening hill yet....in the sheeting rain.

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