Day 2 - Invergordon to Fort William

A shorter day today at only 85miles, and with less severe terrain the going was good. I felt a bit stiff from yesterday's horrendous journey but that disappeared after a few miles.

Yesterday we were told of an impending tail end of a hurricane hitting the west coast of Scotland and quickly moving east, and whilst is was raining hard when we left this morning the sun soon came out and the 20 mile ride to Inverness was genuinely enjoyable. Turning westward towards Loch Ness however and things rapidly deteriorated. The headwind was back, albeit much weaker than yesterday, but this time the heavens opened and remained that way for the next 6 hours whilst we made our way the full length of Loch Ness and down to Fort William. "Soaked to the skin" probably best describes it, even through a goretex jacket. That said, give me rain over a strong headwind any day!

The conditions in Fort William are a lot worse (and predicted to get even worse overnight) than on the east coast so a decision was made to not bother setting up the tents, so instead I find myself writing this blog entry from the Ben Nevis Inn bunk house which is the main place from which people start their climb of the mountain. It's a pretty basic but functional sort of place but with some interesting people. It's communal sleeping but to be honest having a nights sleep on a proper bed when the conditions outside are so bad more than makes up for it.

Tomorrow should be one of the highlights of the trip with the stunning scenery of the far west coast and quiet roads to ride on. That however can only be the case if this weather improves otherwise it's going to be a nightmare with the strongest headwinds so far. It's going to be an early start so that we've got as much time as possible to do the 100 miles as planned before it gets dark, and as we found out yesterday we might need every minute of that time. The limited Internet access that I've got makes finding info on the weather very difficult (even this post is sent to blogger the day after I wrote it) and as we found out today people and the media have a habit of exaggerating things - today was wet but generally ok despite what was reported. That said one look out the window tells me that this is a major and very real issue in these parts. I hope that the worst blows over during the night. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things look in the morning.

The good thing though is that if the weather does stay, the morning and early afternoon will be incredibly hard but from that point onwards if should be a tailwind all the way from Ardnamurchan Point all the way to Lowestoft! That would be fantastic.

I'll try and report how things have gone but due to the remoteness of where I'm going and camping tomorrow it's unlikely that I'll be able to say anything until the end of day 4 when when I get near to Glasgow (writing anything during the day just won't happen as I need to concentrate on getting the miles done). I'll try my best but mobile reception for calls is patchy at best, and mobile data connections very rare.

Rich



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Location:Ben Nevis bunk house!