Day 12. Glencoe to Inverness.

A spectacular day's cycling of 87 miles. 859 down, and 148 to go over the next two days. Which means our grand total will be 1007 miles in 14 days. Amazing. And all under our own steam... already it feels like a fantastic achievement and we're not there yet. This has been an amazing holiday. Great laughs, loads of new friends, and lots of our country seen in a new way and at a new pace. Enough of that romantic drivel... Back to today....

Left Glencoe in the drizzle and being eaten alive by midges. Yes midges. Heard a lot about scottish midges but never experienced them.. till today... have lots of itchy little bites all over us, despite wearing insect repellant. Think they must like the stuff...

Those lovely boys worked us hard today. We almost didn't get a brew stop this morning as Nigel thought he'd missed us and had moved on. Eventually found him after about 37 miles... Not long after that I came off my bike when I clipped Sharon's back wheel as we were going uphill in a tight line. Nothing to worry about but I've a nice wound on my knee. A mere flesh wound but another dent in my pride... second time in a week. Fell off the other side of the bike so I'm all square now.  Lunch stop was at 50 miles so like I said the boys worked us hard today. And threw in a competitive challenge after lunch. More about that shortly...

The morning's cycling was superb through Fort William, and then more or less flat alongside the Caledonian canal. Some large luxury vessels and lots of yachts in Neptune's staircase of locks. Lunch at Fort Augustus followed immediately by an uphill challenge... a climb of 5 miles and a time to beat. Fastest lady record was 38 minutes. Our queen of the mountain was Rachel who beat that by a couple of minutes to claim the crown. I did it in a respectable 43 minutes. By now the sun was shining and the scenery getting better and better with every metre of climb. A fantastic and thoroughly enjoyable climb; I almost wanted to go back down and do it again!

Euphoria at the top, think we were all high on endorphins, followed by a lovely descent to Loch Ness. Then into Inverness for the night via a pub for a swift pint. B&B luxury tonight. No more YHA's this trip - think the 'girls' will miss that! Does it sound like we're enjoying ourselves too much and that this really is a holiday?  True.....

We've set a task for Steve tomorrow. 13 pairs of marigolds and some yellow nail varnish to buy.. on the last day of the trip we're supporting chicken....