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.