Sadly today was to be the final day of my amazing adventure, however I still had a challenging 60 mile cycle to deal with. It was raining heavily when I woke up. I had perfect weather for 2 weeks and on the last day it was lashing it down :-( . I made my breakfast in sombre mood watching the rain fall and the fact it was the last day of the trip.
However by the time I finished up and started to get my kit together the rain stopped and the sun started to peep out from behind the clouds. Maybe it was going to be a fine day after all !!!!!
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| The rain stops and the sun shines !!! |
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| OK, ready to go for the last time !!! |
Today's ride was fairly sizeable, 63 miles but the NC500 route was sticking mainly to the A9. I wasn't too keen on this as yesterday the traffic was getting busy. I got a good tip from a guy in the hostel the previous evening, to take a quiet back road over the hills just past the Dornoch Firth to Alness called "The Struie".
The ride down across the Dornoch Firth was lovely not to busy and was along the coast. I then turned off the A9 to Edderton then up across the Struie. It was a great road quick hilly, but that's the way I like it !!!!!
I rejoined the A9 at Alness and had a coffee and bacon roll at the
Skiach services. The next section was horrendous. Heavy traffic and lots of lorries zooming past fast and very close. I was glad to get past the Cromarty bridge where most of the traffic seemed to be heading across.
Lunch stop today was in Dingwall. Then the next stop was Muir of Ord. I has now cycled full circle as I stayed here on my first night of the trip. From now on I would be retracing my steps through Beauly back to Inverness.
No trip around Scotland is complete without a trip to a distillery, so I stopped of for a tour of the
Glen Ord distillery for a drop of the 'Singleton'.
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| Glen Ord distillery. |
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| Fancy a cask ? |
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| Me and a still. |
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| Spirit still. |
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| Slainte !!! |
A great last excursion and a nice wee dram. So then it was the final 10 miles, through Beauly and back along the Beauly Firth into Inverness. I watched my GPS count down the miles till 0, and I stopped outside the Train Station, the North Coast 500 was complete. !!!!!!!
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| Back to Inverness |
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| Still smiling !!! |
I parked my Boardy to the station, got changed out of sweaty lycra and went for a walk around the town. The sun was shining and the pubs busy, so I headed to
Johnny Foxes for a celebratory dinner (for 1 !!)
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| Thumbs up in Inverness |
After that it was time to jump back on the train to Edinburgh, so I loaded "Boardy" up and headed home !!!!
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| Boardy heading home !!! |
Lets just say I had a few beers on the train as I watched Scotland slide past me and I had time to reflect on what I had just done over the last 2 weeks.
I had cycled in total 598.2 miles and raised £1672.11 for Health in Mind. I only had a target of £500 !!!!!
Final Route:
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