What Have We Learned?

Garrison Keillor starts his short story "A Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra" thus: "To each person God gives some talent, such as writing, just to name one, and to many persons He has given musical talent, though not as many as think so."

Similarly, in our family, there are some self-effacing people, though not as many as think so.  I accept, however reluctantly, that I cannot count myself among their number.  I can also readily say that in a family of talented musicians I do stand out as one on whom that particular gift has not been bestowed.

Keillor goes on: "For the young Lutheran, the question must be: Do I have a genuine God-given musical talent or do I only seem gifted in comparison to other young Lutherans?"  I have no excuse for quoting that section other than its brilliance, for which no apology is required.

It might be thought that continuing to write about my cycling trip after the last blog is stretching a point too far, and bearing down too hard upon the indulgence on those kind enough to take an interest.  Several people have, very generously, made valedictory comments on my facebook page about the blog, possibly with a view to hinting strongly that that's enough. Don't push it.  Who, after all, do you think you are?

However, I can't leave it quite yet.  I have tried to deal with the events and track the progress of our journey, but reflections on what it actually means have been deferred.  And it has to mean something.  There would be no point in leaving family and home behind for a week if it were simply a self-indulgent frippery.

Now, I should make clear that I am not indulging in the kind of learning exercise so enthusiastically promoted in the modern workplace.  The last thing I want people to envisage is me sitting down opposite them with a clipboard, tilting the head to one side and asking, "Well, what have we learned from this?"

But what was its purpose? Why did I choose to do it, and what did I get out of it?

Let's start with what it wasn't.  It was not a nostalgia trip, reliving our youth and reminding ourselves of better days.  I would not need to travel to the highlands on a bike to have secure the memories of our original trip, or to enjoy the friendships which were strengthened by that experience together.  In any event, I don't consider that those were better days.  It was Norman, funnily enough, who made this point in characteristically succinct form on the birthday card they gave me for my 40th birthday, when he wrote: "40 and wishing you were 20? No, far better to be 40 and have all the things you wished for when you were 20".  I have thought about that a lot since he wrote it.  Not only was, and is, that true(Tom was about 2 when I was 40, and Charlie would come along less than a year later); it meant a great deal to me that he acknowledged it to be true for me.

In any event, I don't know what reliving your youth would be like.  You cannot go back 29 years and hope to experience what you had before in the same way, since you are bound to have changed as a person.  Pity help you if you haven't grown in that time. 

This is not some kind of pro-Murdo manifesto but why would I want to try to recapture what I was at 18 when this life is altogether more blessed and yet still filled with all the good things I had when I was that age.  Apart from youth, and frankly that was wasted on me.

In short, if it was all about looking back, we didn't need to go. 

Part of my thinking was to test myself again, to see how I coped with a week of steady, hard physical exertion.  I like to think I have a reasonable baseline of fitness, like many people do, but testing it is another matter.  There were times where I thought I couldn't go another yard - Achanalt in Strath Bran comes to mind - but a short rest and a change of landscape refreshed the spirit and the legs, and away we went again.  There is no doubt that I was undercooked but the legs improved as the miles gathered, and with that the confidence and the enjoyment.

However, there were really two main reasons for going again.  Firstly, I wanted to revisit an area of Scotland I hadn't seen since 1982, and which I have no normal prospect of seeing, and to do it in a way which allows you to experience, taste and feel it.  The road to Achnasheen, and from there to Torridon, is one of the last wild places in Scotland and feels much more remote than the islands.  When you're on a bike you have no choice but to press on in the midst of this emptiness, and while in a way it feels desolate, there is something thrilling about being so far from home, under your own steam, in what feels like a proper adventure.

It is also a reminder, should it be needed, that Scotland is truly the most beautiful country, and to say that does not sentimentalise it at all.  To pass through the enormous variety of landscapes, weathers, colours, skies, road surfaces, wind directions and temperatures we did, in such a short time, tells you that we are in an amazing place.  You should see it.  And, if possible, not in a car.

The second reason was to spend some time with Norman, in a way we haven't for some years.  It will be apparent from the way I have spoken about him that this is a friendship which means a great deal to me.  I am aware that I am, and am increasingly, expressive about my relationships, and that this is not typical of a highland temperament.  Norman, though brought up in England, has much more of that family reserve, and the last thing I would ever try to do is embarrass him.

It is also typical of men of our age to say as little as possible that might be seen as sentimental, especially about our male friendships.  To my mind, there's a risk that by saying nothing we miss opportunities to make clear to the people we love what they mean to us. And, when it comes to it, what's the problem with doing that?  Unless you're a stalker or a creep, the expression of mutual friendship must always be welcome.

It is not always awkward to speak about these things, but we tend to box them up in a safe context.  The two best examples are what might be called The Band of Brothers approach, and The Australian Cricket Team.  The Band of Brothers allows for strong feelings to be expressed in adversity, in order to demonstrate fellowship against a common enemy.  When I managed to lock my car in an empty car park in Durham last year, leaving a group of five of us stranded for the night, the other car came back to pick up survivors.  When I texted my thanks to Jonesi, the driver, he replied simply: "No man left behind".  Motivated by action rather than word, this is a comfortable form of meaningful expression.

The Australian Cricket Team is a variation on this, in which the autobiographies of one grizzled Aussie cricketer after another says that while playing cricket was good fun, the best thing to emerge from their years in the team was the sense of "mateship", of bonding with your mates and having a good time together.  It has always seemed to me that this is as much about telling outsiders that they don't belong, as forming mature bonds.  Paul Collingwood recently spoke about the change he experienced when he dropped out of the England cricket team, in that he still gets the odd text from his former team-mates but no longer has that sense of belonging he only recently enjoyed.  This demonstrates the limitations of both these kinds of relationships.

I have an extraordinary and beautiful wife and two wonderful, fascinating, funny boys; that's the my inner circle.  I have been born into a great family, and we're still travelling on together as a family, led by Mum and Dad.  So where do friends fit into this? 

A man without friends is a pretty poor man, and a married man without friends won't be married very long.  Emma has her friendships, and looks after those friendships by regular contact.  I hear a lot of men saying that women are just better at that kind of thing than men.  Maybe, but that's just an excuse for being rubbish, something we wouldn't accept or excuse in any other area of our lives.  If my friends weren't important to me, that wouldn't matter, but the reality is that not only is it an enormous pleasure to have good friends with whom to spend time, it is essential to my wellbeing as a person, as a husband and a father.  I think the heart of it may be that men are very concerned that they might appear to be needy.  Does it make me needy to persist in making arrangements with friends, to make the first contact? Emphatically not. 

Paul's famous passage in his letter to the Corinthians about love is often read out at weddings.  Fine; the very place to hear about love.  But not the only place.  Paul tells us that love always hopes.  While there may be an eternal aspect to that hope, I think it's also a very wise and compassionate encouragement to interpret the actions (and omissions) of those whom we love, friends included, in the best possible light.  Once we have established who our friends are, (and that may be the difficult part) we are to stick with them. I have found this so often.  If a friendship is truly a friendship, it will endure over time.  Paul also says that love does not keep a record of wrongs, perhaps the most challenging statement in the whole letter.  It is human nature to defend ourselves by pointing to the failures of others, but Paul counsels against it, primarily, it seems to me, for our own benefit.

So why am I saying all of this now?  Because being away with Norman for a week made me think so much about friendship, both his and others.  Emma recently described Norman to another friend as being "like a cross between a brother and a best mate" to me.  On those occasions when I have needed a friend, he is one of the crucial ones on whom I have been able to lay burdens without a thought.  He's not the only one (and I'm not forgetting the critical importance of my family here) but he's been there longer than anyone else outside the family.  He fortifies me in my marriage, reaffirming Emma at every turn, and before we were established as a couple, Norman and Alison's positive endorsement was an important encouragement to me. The foundations were laid each summer when we were teenagers, when he would come up to Inverness for weeks; we were students together; and before we got married we were in and out of each other's way, spending a lot of time in Edinburgh together; and perhaps critically, we went on these cycling trips together, to Harris twice, to the south west of England (our cathedrals and county cricket grounds tour) and to the south of Ireland with Alison.

This recent trip simply reaffirmed all I knew about our friendship; it was a fantastic time together.  Not a cross word, no significant disagreements and, from my perspective at least, the constant pleasure of each other's company.  When new people were attracted by his charm and natural good humour as we met them along the way, I gained their interest by simply being with him.  He is such a generous companion and always ready to help.

In other words, a true friend.

The reason I have written this is that I think that we rarely reflect on friendships and to encourage others to do so.  And it is my privilege that I have a group of friends I could readily nominate as being crucial to me in similar but different ways, though it would be invidious to mention any names.  This is an example; it is amazing to me that there are others.  If you think this is embarrassingly hagiographic of Norman or anyone else, you need to read it for what it is: an expression of friendship.  If I thought he was perfect, it would not be a real friendship.  It's just that I choose not to record any criticisms here.

I have used these words elsewhere, at Dave Rankin's induction social, but I repeat them here for their aptness: "Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends."(W B Yeats).  But Yeats didn't quite express it right.  It's a token of God's glory in my life that I have such friends.


I return to Garrison Keillor at the end of this set of blogs.  I am acutely conscious that by putting all this stuff about myself on the blog, I am effectively asking people to recognise how interesting am I and my life.  I have tried to make it more about the journey but my personality, my weak spot, keeps getting in the way.  In Lake Wobegon Days, he embarks, in footnotes, on a diatribe against his parents entitled 95 Theses 95.  It's one of the funniest pieces I have ever read, and in it he includes a devastating blow to false modesty:

For fear of what it might do to me, you never paid a
     compliment, and when other people did, you beat it away
     from me with a stick.  "He certainly is looking nice and
     grown up." He'd look a lot nicer if he did something
     about his skin. "That's wonderful that he got that job."
     Yeah, well, we'll see how long it lasts.  You trained me
     so well, I now perform this service for myself.  I
     deflect every kind word directed to me, and my denials
     are much more extravagant than the praise.  "Good
     speech." Oh, it was way too long.  I didn't know what I
     was talking about, I was just blathering on and on, I was
     glad when it was over.  I do this under the impression
     that it is humility, a becoming quality in a person.
     Actually, I am starved for a good word, but after the
     long drought of my youth, no word is quite good enough.
     "Good" isn't enough. Under this thin veneer of modesty
     lies a monster of greed.  I drive away faint praise,
     beating my little chest, waiting to be named Sun God,
     Kind of American, Idol of Millions, Bringer of Fire, the
     Great Hafi, Thun-Dar the Boy Giant.  I don't want to say,
     "Thanks, glad you liked it."  I want to say, "Rise, my
     people. Remove your faces from the carpet, stand, and
     look your lord in the face." 

That's not me having a go at my parents, but an attempt to acknowledge that in publishing a blog I am not being modest, and that makes me slightly uncomfortable.  However, we are what we are.

Thanks for reading. 

Day Six

Duly refreshed, but still a little sore and carrying respective injuries, we rose on Thursday in the knowledge that we had a very long day ahead of us.  We had to cycle to Tarbert; ferry across the Minch back to Uig; cycle to Kyle (50 miles or so, bound to be into a headwind) and then drive to Edinburgh.  John recently completed his third Ironman Triathlon - swim, cycle, marathon - so here was our equivalent.  The Jellyman Triathlon - ferry, cycle, car.

Leaving Harris is always, without exception, painful.  On a day such as this, it was almost unbearable.  The ride over to Tarbert, while comprising 13 miles of rollercoaster hills, was a glory from start to finish; flawless azure skies accompanied by a warming sun and the mildest of breezes.  Climbing up the Bays road to the turnoff to Tarbert is a long series of sharp bends on a steep incline, but it was so pleasurable experiencing the still sea air and the wide unmeasured skies that not even the wretched road surface could dim the mood.

On the point of departure. Not quite as warm as it looks...

Where's Wally?  Can you spot a camouflaged figure heading up the Bays road? One of my favourite roads anywhere.

The turnoff to Tarbert. You think you've reached the summit.  Then you look up.

We were in plenty of time.  We left Quidinish about 9.15, and the ferry was at 11.50. Allowing for punctures and general stoppage, we still had no need to press hard, and so this section of the trip was thoroughly enjoyable, other than the increasing pointedness of the shooting pains in my right knee.  No time for shirking, laddie.  Head down, bottom up, and keep going.

The views were as magnificent as ever.  There is a wildness about Harris, and yet at the same time a welcoming homecoming too. The sky is endless, and always puts me in mind of Burt Lancaster in Local Hero arriving on the beach and putting an arm round Peter Riegert and saying "Good sky you've got here, McIntyre.  Well done!"  It is, without the shadow of a doubt, the most wildly romantic place I've ever been, though I mean romantic in its widest sense - engaging all the senses and emotions, drawing in memory and hope; life in all its abundance and possibilities.

We stopped shortly before the penultimate descent before Tarbert to appreciate the amazing panoply opening before us.

"Spoils the view" said Norman.  Can't argue.

On reaching Tarbert in very good time (unlike early July when we were last on the ferry), we spent a happy half hour in the Firstfruits Tearoom near the pier, sharing our table with an older couple from the south of England on a bus trip.  Charming company and excellent coffee.

Cal Mac tend to take the bikes on either first or last, but usually let them off last, so as to allow the cars, buses, lorries and caravans to set off ahead of us.  It makes sense, though it's mildly frustrating when you know you have to cross Skye before you even collect the car.  We clustered together with two other cyclists, who though together were from Aberdeen and Manchester respectively, and shared our experiences with them.  They had come up through the Uists and were camping.

Now, they were cyclists.  We, though Norman may disagree with this, are not.  We are people who cycle.  There is a significant difference.  Cyclists wear proper cycling kit, colourful and figure-hugging to an unnecessary degree (I've already covered this so I'm not going back there); they wear shoes which are excellent for cycling but on which walking seems to be a very delicate and uncomfortable business; they assert, evangelistically, the rights of the cyclist and the superiority of cycling as a way of life; and, worst, they shave parts which have no business being shaved.  They tend, also, to be very lean and wiry but with muscles jutting out at disconcerting angles from parts of their legs and arms.  They have muscles in places where I don't even have places.

We do not belong to such a brigade, but these two clearly did.  Nothing wrong with that.  I'm not being critical, but it was noticeable that when we disembarked we moved of first, and were quickly overtaken by both of them charging away from us.  (We got in front of them near Sconser and didn't see them again).

On the ferry, an uneventful journey was enlivened by the appearance of Ben and Clare from Sheffield, heading south after a couple of days on the island, suitably impressed as we insisted they would be.  Docking shortly before 1.30, we were off the ferry by 1.40 and on the move, facing the first challenge of the day, something we had been contemplating for some time, the huge steep hill ascending out of Uig.  That stretch between UIg and Portree, so easy on the Tuesday, now presented a challenging headwind and, now that we were in Skye, appalling road surfaces.  It became a bit of a grind until we got to Portree, but we pressed on a little further to have coffee in a viewpoint cafe at Aros, just to the east of Portree.

We then had to climb for about 45 minutes, by my reckoning, slow and steady but, as I've hinted before, punishingly painful. After several long days of long hill climbs the old nether regions cry out for a rest from the persistent nadular crushing.

Sconser was a reminder of a rookie error we had made on the Tuesday.  Entering Sconser we passed the Sconser Hotel, and were keen to enjoy a cup of tea.  I didn't much fancy the road facing aspect of the hotel, though, which was essentially the back of the building, but drew Norman's attention to the sign for the Isle of Raasay Hotel, which was said to be 200 metres or so from the jetty for the ferry.  Let's go there, we thought, knowing that the ferry goes from just down the road.  When we reached the jetty there was a further sign confirming the proximity of hotel to pier.  On Raasay.  Ah.  Many years at University were spent fashioning and sharpening our fledgling minds and this is pretty much the result - the inability to read a road sign properly when in need of a cup of tea.  For previous generations this kind of incompetence would have led to them sleeping under bushes or starving to death pretty rapidly, but for us it simply meant three more miles when we would reach Sligachan.  We made no such error this time. We just kept going.

Just after Sconser (where there is a perennially beautiful but soggy golf course) we came across the sign to Moll.  On the other side of the mountainous obstacle in our way, there is a small road end with a sign to Moll.  We stopped to mull this over.  If the two road ends were joined, the road must go round the headland, and be reasonably flat, as it follows the shoreline, or at least appears to.  I wondered out loud if we could simply avoid the long climb by nipping over this back road.

Even as I spoke it was clear to me that this was not an acceptable course of action.  The huge hill which would lead us back to Luib was in the way.  But that hill is one of the institutions of that road, one of the rocks of the journey.  Take that out, and the journey lacks something vital, and awful, and awe-inspiring, all at once.  We started the weary road up.

It was a hard afternoon.  We were pressing as hard as we could in order to reach Kyle at a reasonable hour, no later than 8, in order not to be back to Edinburgh in the middle of the night.  We barely paused for breath, and towards Broadford I was tiring a little, but it was good to arrive there, and rest with another cuppa.

We were now on the final lap, down to Kyle, and we really pounded those last 8 miles.  The weather remained remarkably sunny and warm, and the views awesome, but it was also tolerably hard work. The Skye Bridge eventually hove into view, and at just after 7.15pm we wheeled up to the car, and our cycling trip was over.

Journey's end. Bikes back on the car and ready to go home.

What is remarkable to me, looking back on it, is how relatively uneventful was that last day. It was almost routine to be cycling 50 miles at a good pace across the breadth of a substantial island but now it seems extraordinary that such a journey could be routine.

Actually, I think it's perhaps simpler than that.  Going south and east can never match the thrill of going north and west.

But it was, and is, great to be back home.

Day Five

On the Wednesday, we slept long, and didn't really contemplate going for a cycle.  We spent much of the day in conversation with those at no 8, and enjoyed a leisurely walk down the village to see the seal colony on the road to Finsbay, which I have never been aware of seeing before.  Norman was taken aback by that.

We did a little to earn our keep by moving some sand off the driveway and into a convenient corner, but we were interrupted by midgies and rain.  Norman completed the task wearing a midgie net, which gave him the appearance of an intruder from another planet in a Ray Bradbury story, with a hint of Ned Kelly.

The sandman. I took inspiration and went inside for a restorative kip.

Roneval - a glorious afternoon after a turbulent and wet morning

Well populated seal colony near Finsbay - a great find.

To have one holiday in Harris in a summer feels right, and satisfying, and good.  To have a second visit is luxurious.

Day Four

Having had a night in the Lion House, we refuelled on a handsome full Scottish and prepared for the journey to Uig, about 40 miles.  Travelling through Broadford takes longer than you think.  It is made up of a series of little villages or suburbs, of which Harrapool, where we were staying, is the eastmost.  We cycled past the road end where pointed a sign to the youth hostel, but ignored it despite its historical significance for us.  It was not long after 9 that we were on the road, and to our astonishment we were quickly aware that we had a following wind.  A following wind.  Those words usually just mean, the next wind in your face, as in "it took us a long time to get through the first wind we faced, only to hit the following wind after that..."

No cyclist ever likes to admit that he has a following wind.  The best you hope for is that there's no wind in your face other than the enormous draught which you cause as you cycle at speed.

Now I am well aware that much of this blog has been obsessed with the wind and other weather conditions.  However, I need to address a few apparently extraneous issues which, after two long days on the road, move from the periphery into the centre of your attention on a bike.   These are: (1) road surface; (2) baggage; (3) holding the line and (4) physical discomforts.

(1) Road surface

When in a car, the surface of your carriageway occasionally passed across the brain, when you hit a pothole, or when the chippings are loose.  Otherwise, frankly, don't come complaining to me about road surface.  On a bike, however, there comes a point when you almost notice nothing else.  In Skye, it occupied a good 110 to 120% of any conversation which passed between us.  The road surfaces from Broadford to Portree are disgraceful.  I do not profess to be an expert on how to lay tar, but I would have thought that throwing it randomly from a helicopter in the hope that some of it lands on the road - and not spreading it once it does land - would not have much to attract it. And yet this appears to be how it was done.  A crazy undulating line approaching but never touching the edges on either side marked the border between smooth, carefree cycling, and boneshaking, tooth-loosening agony.  All fine and well if you can simply cycle along the middle of the lovely flat section. Or call a cab.

But when there is excessive traffic commuting to Portree - who knew? - you have to stick rigidly to the side of the road in order to avoid being mown down in an embarrassing death, and ending up as a stain in the road roughly the same shape as the tar squashed across it.  As I will come to, holding one's position on the road is crucial but there's only so far you can stay from the verge without holding up all of the traffic, and while irritating BMWs is all good fun it's only a matter of time before one of them comes at you like a raging bull and then, in the words of that cheery songmeister Kenny Rogers, "the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep".  (That man was obviously an FP).

In some ways the worst part is that from time to time there are strips of new road which come as an enormous relief to the old tender portions but they only last, say, 50 yards, at which point the return of the potholed, bumpy, irregular road hits you even harder.  Up to Luib was really poor.  After three days the sensitivity of your entire frame to each bump and rattle is significantly heightened, and with it your commensurate hatred of the Highways Department of Highland Regional Council, who have obviously blown their budget on salt and snowploughs for the winter, thinking nothing of the likes of us.

(2) Baggage

It is obvious that over a long distance you want to be travelling as lightly as possible.  Paniers now differ markedly from those we used in 1982.  They are, for example, simple to clip on and off, as opposed to needing a Blue Peter badge and an O grade in knotsmanship; they are genuinely waterproof, as opposed to being no more than a 10 minute shield against a light shower; and they are relatively small, as opposed to being suitcases on your rack, held down by a complex web of elastic ties and hooks.


Still, packing is among the most crucial skills of the long distance cyclist.  At least we didn't need to carry food.  In Ireland in 1992, Alison, Norman's then girlfriend and now wife, suggested tentatively that she was a bit fed up of pasta and fancied some potatoes.  "You can carry them yourself if you want them" was the slightly unsympathetic reaction.  However, while I think I managed to get away with the minimum (bearing in mind that I had to carry my CPAP), Norman definitely over-packed, and spent much of the time berating himself for doing so.

You do become used to the weight on the back.  If a gnat were to land on your baggage and stay there for more than, say, a second, you would notice something different, and if you could discount the wind and the road surface, stop to ensure that all boarders were repelled immediately.

(3) Holding the line

On a bike in heavy traffic, you are, and feel, very vulnerable.  As a result, you have to be bold in maintaining your road position, to the extent that sometimes you stay in the middle of the lane holding up a line of cars rather than meekly clinging to the verge and ensuring they get away.  Norman is a master of the former; I tend towards the latter.  On single track roads, Norman would on occasions veer out to command the road and stare, with fixed menace, daring the driver oncoming to take him on.  None of them did.  I wouldn't have. 

But he's absolutely right about this.  A bike is a road vehicle and entitled to space.  The number of times cars would overtake us on narrow sections and cut in just in front of us was remarkable, suggesting that people simply didn't see us, or didn't care.  There is of course a school of driver - encouraged by the loathsome Jeremy Clarkson - who see themselves as kings of the road, and not only entitled to bully other vehicles but actually supposed to.  Interestingly enough, lorries and buses, by and large, were very considerate.

Coming out of Portree, I looked back after the Co-op roundabout to see that Norman had stopped at the side of the road.  When I say the side of the road, I mean still on the road.  He was bending down to fiddle with something on his paniers, I think.  Behind him, flashing and hooting, was the Uig bus.  He ignored it with a masterful indifference.  When I pointed out to him that he had held up the bus and that the driver was hooting, he simply shrugged: "well, he could wait."  That's the way to do it.

(4) Physical discomforts

This is the area that most people, asking about the trip, have touched upon.  Apparently they think that it is more difficult to sit down after an extended cycling adventure than otherwise.

I hesitated to cover this subject because it's not pretty and there's no delicate way of doing it.  However, it is a significant factor in the journey so here we are.

Firstly, it is not difficult sitting down after a long day cycling.  It's a great relief to be sitting down. It's sitting down on a saddle which, after 10 revolutions each day, transforms itself once more into a blunt razorblade, that's uncomfortable.  Wearing padded cycling shorts provides no protection whatsoever.  It's just a sore position and as time goes on the pain increases.  Get over it.

Secondly, people seem to think that the worst affected area is the buttocks - I apologise to those of a sensitive disposition but there's worse to come - but this is simply naive.  Groucho Marx once said that the guy who called it necking didn't know his anatomy very well. In the same way, a little thought will make it quite clear that the greatest ravages are visited upon the area described by our friend Matt Clegg (7) as the "wedding vegetables".  Constant rhythmic pressing on what polite cricket commentators call the lower abdomen leaves one feeling permanently winded and mildly disorientated.  A long hill can be agony not just on the thighs but further amidships. Some of my finest pictures on this trip were taken not because the view was breathtaking but because I had to take a break from the pain.

Thirdly, each of us succumbed to a middle aged injury. Norman's was his achilles (literally) whereas mine was my right knee, which really started to hurt in Skye on the way up and lasted until I got into the driver's seat back in Kyle.  That's the only time I felt my age.  John sent me a message suggesting I lift the seat up, which was a good suggestion but slightly pointless since there was only 8 miles to go, so I didn't test that.

Anyway, that long digression apart, we headed from Broadford to Luib, and suffered with the road surface, though the weather remained sympathetic and there was a stillness about the bays that is even more beautiful when you consider the wildness of the surroundings.

From Luib, a brief stop illuminated the way ahead.  It may not be clear from this picture but the diagonal gash in the hill represents about a third of the first and most challenging climb of the day.

Just above the bay, to the left hand side of the picture, is the line of the road. It may not look much from here...

but this is perhaps a more accurate portrayal.

The worst thing about bad news is when it's unexpected.  We knew that this hill was an old adversary who saved up his worst treachery for what you thought was the top but turned out merely to be the end of stage one.  Out of four.  The last of which was the steep part.  Reaching the top was a magnificent agony.

We're happy.  No, really.  You can see Luib in the background, way down the bottom of the hill.

There are two substantial climbs before Portree, the second after Sligachan.  There's nothing in Sligachan apart from the inn, where we managed a modest break - Norman suffering at the hands of an inexperienced barista who got the coffee proportions completely wrong - but it rests in the corner of an extraordinary range of mountains.

Sligachan

Ascending out of Sligachan, we were overtaken by a man without paniers on a racing bike and a smile.  That's just unpleasant, and cheating to boot.

Before reaching Portree, there is an enormous and very long descent which twists and turns its way down the valley to the narrow bridge just after the Braes turnoff.  Magical, that was, and set us up nicely for a pleasant cruise into a very sunny and warm Portree.  Finding somewhere to eat lunch was problematic because the high school had just got out and there were piles of bus trips just arriving. Queueing in the bakery was a haphazard and unpleasant business, with the elbows of English pensioners hovering close to the ribs and ready to be used at the slightest provocation.

Still, lunch in the square was warm and reviving, and then we managed to secure an outside table at the cafe next to the bakery, where tea and cakes were taken prior to the final leg up to Uig.  I took a photograph of an elderly couple who were sitting over a cup of tea, staring at their own mobile phones not speaking a word to each other, probably complaining about how teenagers behave in public nowadays.  Unfortunately it didn't really work.

There was a table full of Glasgow ladies next to us, of varying generations.  At one point we got into brief conversation and I said something which made them laugh. I can't remember what it was - typically - but it was gratifying, nonetheless.  The youngest of the three broke off and said "you're very funny, you know".  Norman sighed: "Don't encourage him!"  I protested and said, "there you are, I told you that some people think I'm funny."  There was a pause as Norman contemplated this:  "Short bursts".

Away we went, about 2pm, with the 6pm ferry in our sights.  The section between Portree and Uig is about 16 miles of pretty but unrelenting cycling, undulating and open to the elements. We were still favoured by the wind, though, and some of the longer climbs were almost unbelievably easy.  Through the delightful village of Kensaleyre with its prominent white church on the shore of the loch, we came out the long hill on the other side, and eventually reached the top of the hill opposite the magnificent natural harbour that is Uig.

Now, Uig is an odd place.  On the one hand, pleasantly wooded hills with good housing and excellent views; on the other, the village itself, which is really unattractive and nothing more than an extended jetty. Anyone with a little entrepreneurial spirit could make a killing during the summer there.  Thousands of passengers, including many families with nothing to do and weary after a long drive, pass through Uig on their way to the ferry, and there is no provision for them apart from a small cafe and a garage, as well as a pretty insalubrious bar.  With one building, containing a soft play area, a Costa coffee, a McDonalds and a more upmarket restaurant, Uig could become a place to stop instead of being the devil's layby.

Here is an example of a typical experience of Uig.  We set off down the hill with the intention of finding a cup of tea and a scone, a fairly humble ambition in the west highlands. You might think.  First up was the Uig Hotel, a reasonably pleasant building which promised at least polite service.  We went in, admittedly in fluourescent yellow and showing our legs, and the lady in charge said we could have a cup of tea but no, they couldn't offer food.  Oh no.  Silly of us to think of it.  Gordon Ramsay would have had a right tantrum about that.  Not us, though. With a certain relief, we moved off down the hill and arrived at our second option, the Ferry Bistro.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I were setting up an establishment in Uig to attract visitors, I wouldn't call it the Ferry Bistro.  A bistro it wasn't.  They wouldn't know what a bistro was if it bit them.  I suspect they thought they could call it that because it went in the gravy.  Two elderly locals were ensconsed at the bar.  Food wasn't their specialism.  Nor, apparently, was hygiene, or welcoming or even saying hello to strangers.  Reversing out of there was the quickest we'd moved all day, following wind or not.

And so we ended up in the cafe at the pier.  I went for a fruit scone and Norman took charge of a flies' cemetery, perhaps in memory of the Ferry Bistro, an actual flies' cemetery.  It was adequate.  What I didn't tell Norman was that one of the other fruit scones had recently borne the footprints of a bluebottle on them, so we were pretty much taking our lives in our hands eating from there.

This just reinforces my parents' suspicions about eating out.  They hate going to restaurants because, in essence, they think other people don't wash their hands properly. Except in Marks and Spencers.  My dad once told me, in all seriousness, that the cleanest place to eat in Edinburgh was the Marks and Spencers staff canteen.  There is an almost religious fervour about the way in which certain members of my family worship at the altar of St Michael.  Even my children have now completely signed up to the notion that if it came from Marks and Spencers it must be superior.   What would astonish my parents, and many others, would be the regular hygiene reports issued in the press which authoritatively say that McDonalds has consistently the highest standards of cleanliness of any of the major food chains.  I'm no advocate for McDonalds - I won't touch the stuff myself - but credit belongs where it's due.

Anyway, this would be an academic discussion in Uig, since we were far away from either noted institution.  We had a long time to pass there, too, but we did end up quietly reading over a pint in the bar, and phoning and texting home.  We also covered some important subjects which detain us over these long conversational interludes: the worst player to play cricket for England; the best John Candy film; the worst piece of road covered during the day; and on this trip in particular, will we be okay without lights when we get to Harris?

At last the ferry came, and we were allowed on first.  We then fulfilled all the usual ferry conventions, rushing to the canteen to get early into the queue for the fish and chips and trying to get a table near the window to see the Minch properly.  It was strange being on the ferry without wondering what the children were up to and whether Charlie had attempted to throw anyone overboard or, worse, stirred up mutiny among the crew.

While we approached Harris we noticed that the weather was changing once more, darkening skies appearing above. As we stood at the handrail enjoying the views of Scalpay, then Carragrich and Urgha, all home to my father's family, we got into conversation with a couple from Sheffield, Ben and Claire, who were travelling over with a converted Ford Transit van and heading for a campsite on the east side that night.  They were particularly interested in our cycling trip - Ben's obviously a cyclist himself - and we had a good chat, giving them our impressions of Harris and recommending different parts of the island to visit.

Ben and Claire - cool people

When we disembarked from the ferry, the rain was hammering off the road (smooth tarmac, though, so thanks for that).  It was pretty Novemberish, even though technically it was still light.  The yellow jackets were therefore crucial in the absence of bike lights.  We had 13 miles to ride to Quidinish where Norman's mum would be waiting for us.  A race against the light then ensued, and we pounded the miles from Tarbert.   There are some incredible hills and dips on that road, too many to recount, but after a long day it was not easy revving up again for that last chapter.  It felt great to be back on Harris, though, and then a couple of miles out, a Skoda estate passed us, then reversed down the hill into a passing place. This was my cousin John, on his way back from playing tennis - they scoff at the idea of a roof over a tennis court in Harris - who leapt out and said "I thought it was you.  I'll take your bags to the house."  What a man.  We were delighted to accept, and off he drove.

As his taillights disappeared over the top, Norman turned to me with a baleful look and said "Neither of us had better have a puncture now."  John had taken all our stuff, including the essential repair kits.   After a moment's contemplation of that hideous thought, we burst out laughing and set off again.  I stopped a few miles on to call the children from the top of the hill, and was assailed by heavy rain and clouds of midgies at the same time.  There's a word for that, but I'm not sure what it is.  Paradox doesn't really say it, though that's what it was.  Impossible, again, is accurate but incomplete.  Unbelievably, exhaustingly, infuriatingly unjust - that's pretty much it.

When we arrived at the house, the peat fire was on, and so was the kettle, and following soothing and warming showers, a splendid supper was ours.   It was a glorious end to the day.

Journey's end

Knowing that we would not have to cycle tomorrow was a strange sensation.  It is not normal for me to wake in the morning and think I have to cycle 50 miles today, but that week it was, and I accepted it and adopted it very quickly as a way of life.

There's no better place to arrive than Harris.  All things considered we landed in good shape and very happy to be there.  The rain was no more than a distraction.

Inverness to Harris in three days.  In our late 40s. Felt great.

But it's not over.

Day Three

The room at the Torridon Inn was exceptionally comfortable, and following a satisfying night's sleep, we woke to one of those extraordinary highland mornings which come after a black storm the night before; sunny, breezy but offering hope and light to the traveller.  Breakfast was superb.  The mushrooms were enormous and tasted like fillet steak, and the coffee was hot and strong.

We were filled, if not with optimism, with a renewed sense of energy and purpose, but knew that today presented a different challenge: hills, and loads of them.  Still, we look, in retrospect, pretty contented as we prepare for lift off:

Norman in front of the eighth wonder of the world - the Hanging Baskets of Torridon.  Utterly incongruous, like a Scot in the British Lions

An attempt to appear relaxed about the day ahead

As we left the car park, the weather had cleared, and while it would be stretching it to say that it was warm we were not unhappy about the start.  Unfortunately, we turned right and remembered what we had noted the night before: that our introduction to the day was a huge long climb.  Just the thing to get the lactic acid flowing round the legs, I suppose, but that kind of worthy thinking is as unwelcome as a long climb first thing in the morning.

Anyway, up we went, and for the next few miles were out of breath, partly due to the exertion required to get anywhere and partly due to the extraordinarily spectacular landscape we were experiencing.

Although we still had a headwind, the hills kept the worst of it off us.  We made it to Shieldaig within half an hour, about 7 miles, where it was calm.   It's a beautiful village, with a spectacular sea bay, into which has been dropped a forested island. This is an unusual feature in the west highlands, belonging more to the Swallows and Amazons school of locations.  (Haven't read Swallows and Amazons, by the way, but I understand that's a good literary allusion, and I like them).

Shieldaig

 

 

From there, the landscape changes again, and becomes less spectacular and more bleak.  The weather remained fine, with a hint of rain (that fine rain, soaks you right through) and we began to tackle the type of cycling we would face all day: going up without apparently going down much.  It was hill after hill, and it felt like we were climbing constantly, for hours, and without reward.  If that sounds like typical self-pitying cyclists, it's an accurate reflection of how we felt.

Here's an example of the kind of road we were on, taken from one spot looking in both directions.  Both of which show that whichever way we were to choose, we would be going up.  It's not logical.  After a while, it's not even sane.  But it's real.

And though sometimes it appeared like you were going down, the effort required simply to keep the wheels turning made it clear that either the wind was incredibly strong or that we were facing an optical illusion.

From here, it was a long haul to Lochcarron, with several further enormous climbs to defeat.  I remembered a lot of extended hills but thought they were on the other side of the loch, so I allowed myself to feel that perhaps we had got the tough phase out of the way before lunch.  We stopped for an excellent if slightly uncomfortable cuppa in a small cafe near Kishorn, before eventually reaching the top of the hill and flying down into Lochcarron.

My friend Tim spent a lot of time in Lochcarron when he was a boy engineer, fooling about with the water treatment facilities.  He went from there to a posting in Indonesia, and I'm not sure which he felt was more remote.  Apparently the reception on the telly was better near Djakarta.  It has a slightly odd feeling, Lochcarron.  It should be beautiful but it just has a slightly desolate, isolated, cut off air.  Maybe that was just because we had come at it from the back roads, which had made us feel desolate, isolated and cut off.  The word that comes to mind is anomie, which I remember from my jurisprudence lectures (and let me tell you, my jurisprudence lectures are lucky I remember anything from them, given the amount of time I spent asleep in them).

We decided to keep going until the turnoff towards Kyle, just before Strathcarron, at the head of the loch.  As we approached the village, we saw that there was a hotel and agreed that lunch would be due about now.  That small section of road was a tough gig, because the wind was coming right up the loch and gave us an ominous foretaste of what was to come.  On a bike, there's not much that puts you off your lunch more than an ominous foretaste of what's to come.

Lunch was a drab panini in a bar heavily populated by working men in excellent mood discussing, very disconcertingly, a friend of theirs called Murdo in loud but not disapproving tones.  I was pleased to hear it.  A Murdo never likes to hear a Murdo badmouthed, even if Murdo deserves it.  We Murdos have to display a degree of loyalty.  We're pretty much out on a limb in the 21st century and it doesn't do to side with the anti-Murdo brigade.

I should perhaps clarify that I don't think there's an organisation called the Anti-Murdo Brigade, convening marches and sit ins to fight the rise of those with excessively highland names.

I have done some research on the meaning of my name. Murdo Macleod.  From time to time people actually tell me I have a great name.  These people are never under 70.  Murdo means either Sailor, which is slightly plain, or Sea Warrior, which is frankly heroic; and Macleod, well, that's the subject of much debate.  Mac, obviously, means Son of... Leod, from whom the clan derive its name, was a chap who apparently divided opinion, if what I may have read once and lodged in my brain but can't now independently verify at all bears any relation to the truth.  It means that either my name is Sea Warrior, Son of the Silent Wolf (magnificent, majestic even, a heroic protagonist in a George R R Martin epic perhaps); or, sadly, Sailor Son of Ugly (which conjures up a picture more of, well, me).  My Dad was not pleased when we discovered we were sons of ugly, but John and I have since had to bear the fact that our sons are now sons of ugly too.  John named his company Silent Wolf after I told him that that was what our surname means.  Better than Ugly, I suppose, but he has no more right to it than Tony Cascarino had to an Irish cap, not to say 93.

Leaving Strathcarron, we quickly found, again, that the wind was frustrated by the enormous hills in front of us.  And then we realised that the morning was, in fact, the easy part.  I mean wow.  We both of us remembered two hills in particular, one open to the elements but a 1 in 7 in old money, and the other into a forest which just went on a long time, and on which I vividly recall being mocked by a caravanette full of pointing Italian children.

The first hill we met seemed terribly steep but it didn't look like it had 29 years ago.  Fair enough.  Neither did we.  Looking back on it, though, there's no doubt it was our old nemesis.  A panini is no match for a 1 in 7, let me tell you.

Norman disappearing into the trees.

Thankfully we made smooth progress but until mid way through the afternoon the climbing was just relentless.  It's not just the pain and the exhaustion that do you in.  It's the resentment of the jokers who designed the roads.  Because along the line of the loch, there's a railway line.  It's simply cruel to watch another form of transport, with much better engines than us, cruising along a flat track when we're on the rollercoaster next door.

We reached what we understood to be the top of the hill, and were beginning to cruise down it when we came across the turning at Achmore, towards Plockton.  The conversation here turned towards 1982.  My dad had recommended that we take this road because it was very attractive and also flatter.  You can tell he's never cycled anywhere.  As if you would put attractiveness ahead of flatness when commending a route.  Honestly.  But Norman had it in his head that going this way caused a certain amount of resentment all those years ago, because it was not in fact flatter.  It is, however, quieter, and very pretty, so we decided to go round that way to Kyle.

Weaving through the rhododendron bushes was an enormous pleasure, but the climbs just kept on coming, and frankly if it had been right or appropriate to resent my father for his promise made 29 years ago, we would have.

Still, we were about half way up the hill when a turning appeared, inviting us to Plockton.  Now, Plockton is a charming village, quirky and beautiful, but it was obvious to anyone with any map reading skills that if we were to head that way, it would add 4 and a half miles to the journey.  This was where we had our only disagreement of the whole trip.  Norman stared at the map for some time and reasoned that it was simply a loop and, tellingly, that we might get a cup of tea there.  I resisted, and in the end I think it was the right decision.

I'm sure there's a cup of tea there, and I'm not going back to Henry's Hovel

I'm not cycling 4 miles extra for a cup of tea.

It looked as if we were heading for a very ordinary break in Kyle when Norman spotted a small hotel in Erbusaig, about two miles out.  The sun had broken through and the time was right so in we wheeled and sat down in the sunlit garden.  Tea wasn't the stuff I was after, though, and so I ordered ginger beer.  I was tempted to refer to lashings but thought better of it.

Here's what arrived.

A brimming pint of ginger beer with stacks of ice, with fruit scones and all the fixings.  On an ordinary afternoon in Edinburgh I wouldn't dream of such a snack, but in that place, at that time, it was the perfect interlude.  While we sat there, I received several text messages telling me that England had taken 6 wickets in no time at all to win the Oval test match v India, and that Tendulkar had failed to reach his hundred.  A small celebration ensued, not for Tendulkar, who's pretty good, but for the overwhelming 4-0 victory over the summer.  Brilliant.

Leaving aside the Enid Blyton connotations of this interlude, there was something perfect about it.  Sometimes the best moments are the ones you don't anticipate, which slip up on you unnoticed.  This was one of those.  No rush, most of the journey done, warmth and refreshment readily to hand, good and contented lives to return to at the end of the journey and the best of company.

From there, it was a freewheel into Kyle, just about, and no thought of stopping other than to check, briefly, that the car was still there and hadn't been smashed up in our absence.  It was striking how long it felt since we'd left it, but it was no more than 52 hours.

And our next challenge was the Skye Bridge.  The designers of the Skye Bridge are many things: visionary, spectacularly gifted and able to take advantage of incredible natural advantages.  Cyclists, however, they clearly weren't.  It's unbelievably, unnecessarily steep.

There's no need for the bridge to be as precipitous as this.

Still, the views behind old Helmet Hair are pretty impressive...

Coming down the other side was pretty awful.  After a good sweep down the hill, there's a little dip and an upward slope to the roundabout, and if that's not enough, with the urgent changing of gears down and the undignified comedy pedalling, the impatient traffic behind really raises the hackles.

From there to Broadford into a strong headwind should have been hard going but it's a strangely fast surface, despite its pitted and grainy appearance, and although the last couple of miles were testing, it didn't take long to find the Lion House, our excellently named B & B.  That stretch was by some distance the dullest of a remarkably varied and fun day.  I had hoped that the Lion House would be greeted by two cheesy concrete lions at the gate posts, but sadly there were none.  It was later suggested by my cousin Norman in Harris (that's Norman Harris, not Norman Middlesbrough, who was with me)(and that's not mentioning Norman Stornoway or Norman Glasgow - I'm well stocked for cousins called Norman) that it might have been lion in Gaelic, which apparently means net.  Maybe, but I prefer the Lion House to refer to the kingly beast.

Comfortable and clean; welcoming hosts; excellent dining at the Claymore in soothing evening sunlight.

Two big days under the belt.  Harris to come tomorrow.

Ended the day well.

Day Two (b) addendum

Just realised that I forgot to give the second reason for my glasses' poor fit.  Charlie sat on them.

Day Two (b)

Emerging from the hotel into the bright and, by then, scorching sunshine presented an entirely different landscape to the one from which we had sought refuge before lunch.  We looked across to Achnasheen and the place seemed downright pastoral and, to a point, appealing, when we know that in an hour it might well be bleak and forbidding again.

Back to the roundabout, and turning left, we were now on the road to Torridon.  This section fell into different chapters: a long straightish stretch along the valley floor, into a strengthening headwind, for about 5 miles; a turn up into the hills, climbing to the top where we would see Loch Maree laid out at the foot; an extended downhill into Kinlochewe; and a final haul to Torridon.

Last time we did this, one of our number reached his limit on the climb, threw his bike away and requested a quiet demise.  After a hard push along the valley, accompanied by constantly changing light but with a relentless wind pressing back at us, we turned with sinking hearts to face the climb. We started to climb when my mobile phone, in my waterproof pocket, started to ring.  I ignored it, assuming, perhaps naively, that it was either just Orange with another offer or my mother wondering where I was.  When we reached a suitable stopping point on the way up, I checked the voicemail.  It was Emma, with a detectable strain in her voice, pointing out that while it was lovely to hear from me, it was unnecessary to have sent 16 blank texts messages to her in quick succession.  I switched off after that.  A metaphor, perhaps, for my life: many communications, no content.

And, rather surprisingly, we met a new road, which, though it took us to the top of the same hill, had improved very considerably on the old single track, and was unquestionably afflicted by a lower gradient.  We pedalled long and hard but by the time we reached the top we turned to each other and asked - this isn't it yet, is it? However, the evidence was clear:

That's Loch Maree.  What a sight. 

Reaching the top of any hill can never be described as an anticlimax, and we know far better than to express the thought which appeared to be crossing both our minds simultaneously - that was easy - but it was mildly disconcerting to be there, 29 years on, and on the same day as we had passed through the sunny lowlands of Conon Bridge.

Adrian Mole once went on a Scottish holiday and in his diary he eventually took to describing every sight he saw as "majestic".  It's an understandable temptation and in this case, Kinlochewe, Torridon and the surroundings are majestic, but they are also mildly threatening, and with the cloud down and the prospect of rain and wind before us, the relief didn't last.

We released the bikes down the immense decline.  Now that's an expression of joy.  Until two thirds of the way down when a gusting cross wind nearly knocked both of us off into the majestic hillside adjacent to the road.  It came out of nowhere, like a goal for Scotland, and felt alarmingly personal.  We cruised to the foot of the hill and into Kinlochewe feeling slightly shaken.

Going fast down a hill presents a difficulty or two for the bespectacled cyclist.  Never the best fit, my current pair of glasses no longer sit in the position intended.  I believe there are two reasons for this: firstly, I have asymmetric jaws, a piece of good news delivered to me by my optician when I first needed visual aids at 18, and so one ear is slightly higher than the other. I had always suspected that there was something wrong with my face.  Now I had scientific proof.  Not only does it affect ear positioning and general grotesqueness, but it also means that one side of my face is shorter than the other.  As a result, I am left with a Geoffrey Boycott smile, which ranks some way below Bette Davis eyes or Pippa Middleton figure in the beauty stakes.  It does explain why my nose was left in a somewhat precipitous position, looking over the ledge.  It had no solid foundation from which to grow.  Given that I had no chin when I was 18 - I went straight from none to two - it's a wonder I ever ventured out of the house without the neighbours approaching with pitchforks.

So screaming down a hill means that every so often it is necessary to take one hand off the bars and restore the floating frames to their original position, and on highland roads at high speed you can't really afford not to cling on for dear life, with every sinew stretched with the effort.  A second impediment is that the wind, already robust, become intolerably severe, so that even if my glasses were remotely in front of my eyes, there's so much water in my eyes that I can't see a thing through them.  Closing the eyes would probably be a better option.

When we reached Kinlochewe, I was feeling a bit sensitive to every loose chipping under the back tyre, and it was apparent that I had a slow puncture going on.  We stopped for coffee, and put some air in the tyre, but within a mile of leaving for Torridon, we had to concede the point and change the inner tube.  Thankfully, Norman had brought two spares to accompany my having brought none.  A quiet and efficient procedure later and we were under sail again, though a significant amount of oil had departed from the chains and decorated our legs, hands and fluourescent jackets.

That last stretch to Torridon is amazingly wild and beautiful, but remote and moderately frightening.  It is also characterised by short downhills and sharp little uphills.  These are the worst kinds of uphills.  With a long hill, you can steel yourself, get in a low gear and surrender to the inevitable slow haul; with a short hill, you retain the hope that your momentum will take you most of the way, so you go downhill in top gear pedalling furiously, only to reach a point halfway up the hill when you have to go down two cogs immediately and, agonisingly, up the pedalling rate instantly to get you to the top.  It's like fast bowling (isn't everything in life like fast bowling?): face a quick bowler with a long run up, and you're set by the time he gets into his delivery stride; face a quick bowler off a short run and he's on you before you know it.  The last thing you want on a day like we had just had was a lot of short sharp ascents. 

I know it's a bit odd to be using a cricketing metaphor, but as Harold Pinter once put it: "It's not so much that cricket is a metaphor for life, but that life is a metaphor for cricket".  Now that's majestic.

I didn't manage to take many photos on that part of the road but here's a couple of snapshots of the surroundings:

We came to the Torridon Inn about 6.30pm.  Naturally, I went to the wrong place initially, the Torridon Hotel.  You wouldn't think a place like that would be overburdened with hotels but I went into this rather grand reception in the hotel, not, perhaps, at my best - wet, knackered, covered in the produce of numerous highland puddles (one of the perils of slipstreaming, by the way) - only to be told that I was in the wrong place and should go next door.

Not the right season for this "no room at the inn" approach but thankfully the Inn turned out not to be a barn but what seemed to me to be a new building around a courtyard which could once have housed stables.  A chalkboard at reception intimated "Muddy Wellies Welcome", which might give a false impression of the kind of place it was: no youth hostel, this, but a very comfortable, relaxed and welcoming place, where we had our own large room in the stable yard building, with massive space which even accommodated the bikes as we didn't want to leave them outside exposed to the elements.

After getting a wash we sought out dinner, but I was so wiped out I could hardly face it, though my energy was in urgent need of replenishment.  Still, a well-stocked bar gave us a rich selection of malt whiskies with which to end the day, and I chose the Balvenie Double Wood, taken in a warm and giving leather sofa in the corner.  Magnificent.

As we headed back to the room, the thought returned to me, from all those years ago.

It's going to be just as bad tomorrow.

Day Two (a)

Bearing in mind the troubles we encountered when we cycled to Torridon in 1982 - ref http://www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland/dayslikethis/stories/the_achnasheen_desolation.shtml - the prospect of heading into the great wide open did not horrify as much as it might have when we rose on 21 August, day two, ready to head west and north.  Having a very poor memory may have contributed to this.  The morning opened up bright and calm - as, consequently, did we - and matters improved quickly as our landlady arrived from the main part of the house bearing two heaped plates with bacon, eggs, sausages and all the fixings.  The kitchen only contained Tetley tea bags and instant coffee.  I don't know about you, but I feel that Tetley are excellent at making adverts but their tea bags taste suspiciously like tea confused with sweepings from the factory floor: bitter, metallic and gritty.  Following some gentle hinting, a steaming pot of coffee arrived.   The day was set up.

We resumed our saddles with slight tenderness but set off in excellent spirits.  Conon Bridge, Contin and Garve all fell under our spell quickly.  One long climb after the roundabout at Brahan was mildly testing but these hills were no match for the Macleodine physique, and we pressed up on the middle cog.  We were flying, though noted with a moment's tremor that we had a headwind to deal with.  A slight catch in the breath when we saw the sign coming out of Contin - "Last Shop Till Ullapool" - but no mind, we were still in top form.

A word about kit.  I have developed a very comfortable ensemble for long distance cycling (he said like it's a common activity).  An improvement on the 1983 collection, which certainly caused more problems than it solved, it comprises from low to high: the well-fitting Reebok running shoe; the snug white sports sockage; the bare but unshaved leg; the lycra cycling short, overdraped by capacious swimming or adidas short; the cotton or otherwise breathable comfy shirt; the ubiquitous fleece (I am aware of the limitations in my wardrobe and this is perhaps the most obvious and vulnerable to critical comment); the fluourescent yellow cycling jacket, in slightly disgraceful state but still effective and absolutely essential in the absence of any bike lights: the Melbourne Cricket Ground cap brought home to me by my parents in law from their antipodean visit, intended as an act of kindness but merely a constant reminder that they had been to the MCG and I haven't; and the brain-encapsulating, skull-protecting cycling helmet.

Now let me be honest.  This does not a good look achieve.  I have, if I'm honest, never seen anyone wearing a cap under a helmet, but I started doing it in Israel when the sun would get under the inadequate peakage of the helmet but over the top of the inadequate shades.  A peaked cap is crucial on a bright day for me, much more important than dark glasses.  And, as may be apparent to the casual observer, I really don't care what I look like.  The cap stays.  It's also good to wear a tangible reminder of Australia 98 all out England 157 for none, my second favourite scoreboard of the last 25 years (the first being 517 for one, and if you don't know that one, just ask...)

Norman's apparel was much simpler but achieved the same general effect of being warm and comfortable enough to take the mind of clothing and on to the important stuff, like how do we get to lunch.

We stopped at the Garve Hotel, shortly before the rain began.  I'm not sure I've ever been in Garve when the rain isn't on.  We enjoyed a cup of tea in somewhat incongruous surroundings.  I mean, we were the incongruous ones, not the surroundings.

I was surprised they didn't come along and put a newspaper under us to prevent the unpleasant sweatage transferring to the soft and giving surface of armchair

This table was extraordinary.  A glass top perched over the fur of something which must have been enormous but which doesn't normally find itself on a table top - Beethoven (the dog, not the composer) came to mind.

It will be apparent, though, that we were in grand form when we departed Garve, looking forward to an interesting reunion with Strath Bran, the wilderness which takes you to Achnasheen:

I recognise that this look does nothing for me. Hapless codger rather sums it up.

We left behind the sleepy aristocrats and the dead game - or dead aristocrats and sleepy game, it was hard to tell which - and at that point it really hit home that we were now in the wild.  We had to stop briefly to check which was the Ullapool road and which the right way, but the recently-acquired map of Scotland turned out to be useful: first left it was.

The thing about this journey was not to try and reclaim lost youth, nor to prove something to myself about my capabilities now as compared to 18; it was, fundamentally, to see parts of Scotland that we normally don't see in a powerful and vivid way, absorbing the surroundings without the mediating sealed-off blandness of a car.  We knew it would be hard, and that there would be times, as before, when someone wanted to give up.  Last time it was Andrew surrendering to the instinct to curl up and die; this time, somewhere near Achanalt, about halfway to Achnasheen, it was, unquestionably, me.

I did not throw my bike away nor truly give up - though nor, to be fair, did Andrew - but after 9 miles or so of relentless headwind in fine rain, the kind that Peter Kay says "soaks you right through", I was cold, exhausted and feeling not a little foolish for thinking, less than an hour before, that I had this cycling lark all down and all that stuff about training in advance was just new age nonsense.  Apparently I was wrong.  Had it not been for the Chunky Kit Kats which Norman was carrying with him, no further would I have gone.  There would have been an embarrassing scene at the gates of the large property sat at the side of the road where we took shelter, involving a certain amount of wailing and beating on the fence.

To paraphrase Bertie Wooster, if ever I marry and have a son (or in my case another son), his name will be Chunky Kit Kat Macleod in honour of the day his father's life was saved in Wester Ross.

And yet, in a symbol of the journey to come, within half an hour, we were freewheeling into Achnasheen with the sun burning on our backs.  The cafe which we thought would provide us with lunch was closed, dismayingly, but a well-signposted Ledgowan Lodge Hotel was just over the roundabout through the village, and happily supplied us with substantial provender, including this cherry pie and custard, a boon to an exhausted traveller (as is apparent from the photograph):

Achnasheen in sunshine - never seen that before.

Fine pudding. Still thought I was done for the day.

It's a strange feeling, sitting in delightful but wildly remote surroundings, comfortable but knowing that the next stage is going to be just as hard as the pre-lunch sessions.  The comforts of pudding insulated us from that foreboding.  The knowledge which rather dented the good mood was that about 5 miles on was the layby where Andrew proclaimed his desire to end it all, and that right soon, and there was a good reason for that.  The landscape was changing again.