Blog / The North Coast

10 May 2019

We have a breakfast of cheese and ham sandwiches in the morning sun.

There's more ups and downs on the way over to Scourie, but none as stiff as those we finished yesterday with.

Scourie has some farming and a campsite with a café. We stop for a coffee to complete breakfast. John, a guy from Edinburgh we chatted with in the pie shop in Lochinver, sits with us and we update him about our progress. He's just pootling about in his Audi having a bit of a holiday.

There's a hill to get over on the way to Durness. It's fairly benign. There's a long descent off the top, and I try to keep the speed up. It's headwind vs descent and you know who wins that one... The road flattens out and it's heavy going.

Another small blip of a hill takes us over to Durness. The small supermarket here is surprisingly well stocked: I see such exoticness as chillies, root ginger, mushrooms, aubergines.

Durness is a bigger settlement than we're used to passing through. There's sheep farming. I'm guessing the population might be a few hundred.

We stop to refuel at a café straight from the 1970s. The cash register looks like it's just undergone decimalisation. The lady who runs the place, which seems to be part of her house, seems equally weather-beaten.

We have about 58km on the clock and know we have to do 45km or so before we reach Tongue. We're blown out of Durness and blown down the western shore of Loch Eriboll. Turning the corner brings us back into the wind. It's a steady grind north along the eastern shore before a turn inland to Hope, and then up and over. The climb is initially very steep, but only has a few pitches before easing off, allowing further wind assistance to help.

The descent into the Kyle of Tongue is fast, and then we pootle across the causeway before calling it a day.

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