Day 6: Fort William to Inverness

We set off along the A82. Delighted to see that there is a cycle track along the side of the road, but this soon stops, and we are back on the road itself.

Fortunately doing it on a Sunday morning means that there isn’t a lot of traffic, so by keeping to the white line marked bit, we seem to be safe enough. Nevertheless we are pleased enough to turn off at Fort Augustus, and go along the South/East side of Loch Ness. Boy, is this scenery (see previous comments about scenery and climbing hills). It beats Tak Ma Doon, the previous record holder, into a cocked hat. Even Norman has to take a couple of breathers.

We bowl along by a delightful little loch, and after one final exhausting climb, we find ourselves at a spectacular view point. This is at 400 metres, over 1300 feet, so probably the highest point in the whole trip. We have our lunch in the sun (and wind!), and then, noticing that clouds are coming, we push on. There’s a spectacular downhill stretch, all straight so we don’t need to worry about blind corners, so we really let go.

We soon reach Whitebridge, our target for the night. The local red telephone kiosk is not too useful as it takes neither coins nor cards. (What else is there? Would it take a cheque, perhaps?) We can’t get a mobile signal either, so we push on. The road by the Loch is enchanting, and it has a good surface, so we push on, and eventually make Inverness. That’s quite a day by my standards anyway- 63 miles. Inverness is a beautiful city, but awfully full of drunks.

The support team join us, and we make it back to our B&B. A bit difficult to find- in this part of the world a lot of quite separated properties have the same postcode. It’s excellent- the hostess even makes us egg and chips for £2.50.

The support team spent the day visiting Ben Nevis Range, just outside Fort William. They took a Gondola (ski-lift) up the side of the mountain and watched a downhill mountain bike event on a world cup downhill track (pelting down 2/3 of Ben Nevis in average times of 5 minutes...mad). It keeps the hospital in FW, which was going to close, in business during the summer months.