101m today, 187m so far, Ride time 7 hrs 27 mins.

I was up early chatting to our host’s husband who was on shore leave from the rigs and had been fishing first thing. He had caught a monster salmon that would have made a great Desperate Dan sarnie. Wet morning and cold with it, I didn’t have the right top layers so got damp and couldn’t warm up again.

A few nutty lorry drivers thought it would be fun to spray us and a bus got far too close for comfort with Ed. We passed many famous distilleries, no wonder the Scots are always happy! The Whyte & MacKay shown here was close to my heart as they used to sponsor Leeds Utd. We had a welcome rest and change of clothes near Dingwall library to help us warm up, and then it brightened up. Beautiful through Muir of Ord, Lochs and lunch with Nessy in the sun. Plenty of guys loaded up with kit doing the journey un-supported, mad fools, the best was from Germany (we think) who was just cycling different countries for the fun of it.

More stunning small towns and scenery saw our first burger van in 170m – not much passing trade! First and only puncture of the trip was for me and midges attacked us while we fixed it.

Made our own evening grub in YH and chatted about the 284ish monroes in Scotland (mountains over 3000ft) maybe that’s the next challenge?