Day 11 - The Short Day

Our only short day, and we were looking forward to the luxury of only having to ride 47 miles. We got to start from one amazing part of Scotland and finish in another, leaving Fort William and Ben Nevis (still wrapped in clouds) and ending up along side Loch Ness.

We allowed ourselves to sleep a few minutes longer, and as our host was a fellow North American, had big fluffy pancakes and syrup with our breakfast! The miles were adding up and today we definitely felt them. Tired. All we had to do though, as usual, was just start peddling, and within a few minutes we fell back into a familiar rhythm.

It wasn't raining, but it was threatening rain, and would threaten all day. We got a little here and there, but nothing furious. We climbed the first 10 miles out from Fort William, and then the rest of the day was the usual never-ending roller coaster ride.

There wasn't much in the way of civilization on the way to Loch Ness. Just the odd tiny town with one shop that had a tiny bit of everything in it. We stopped for lunch in the only place big enough to warrant an Inn and restaurant, just after passing the loch with the best name so far: Loch Lochy. Seriously. Fort Augustus is on the southern tip of Loch Ness, and as we weren't in a massive hurry today, we stopped for a proper lunch (our first one, actually) at said Inn, and it was wonderful. The temperature was on the chili side, so the tea hit the spot, and the warm meal was more than welcome.

When we worked up the motivation to get ourselves back on the bikes, there were only 20 miles remaining, but for some reason this day wasn't any easier than the rest. I don't know if this makes any sense, but because we were only mentally prepared to do 50 miles, at 25 miles we were already half way spent. Maybe it had more to do with the fact that my body was starting to raise all sorts of objections: tight back, sore knees, left ankle tightening up, sore neck/shoulders, and a very unamused back-bottom. My bike had also stopped shifting and my front hub was making a slight grinding sound. Bikes and bodies alike were taking a beating.

It was a very tough but very nice final push along Loch Ness. It's too bad it was a really grey day with all views limited behind mist and low cloud, but it's really a very nice place. I have to say that the monster is a bit overrated though. It's not really as big as people say it is. It doesn't even really look like a proper monster. It certainly doesn't behave like one. "Really, I can't be bothered anymore", it told me as we chatted after a quick near sighting. "Someone thinks they see something and then someone else thinks they have to one-up the other crazy old fisherman's story, and then eventually you get a monster that everyone wants a piece of. It's my own fault though", pausing after some reflection, "1600 years of privacy wouldn't have been blown if I hadn't kept putting off doing the shopping. I had to sneak out for an emergency run for coffee early one morning, and some wanker of a journalist caught a glimpse of me with what he later reported as something dead in my mouth, which, as I had my hands full of coffee, was another bag of coffee... Nah I'm just kidding. It was something dead - I'm an ancient sea creature." Once you get that guy talking he just doesn't shut up, and we were tired, so we slowly backed away and went for it as he got caught up in a story about some idiot tourist who parked his car in his drive one winter, just after he finished shoveling it out after the particularly nasty blizzard of '37...

Anyway, we stopped for the obligatory shot of Urquhart Castle, which is overrun with tourists, and made it to our stop for the night a few miles later. To cut this short, we relaxed, we ate, and eventually, we slept. It was going to be a big day tomorrow. The penultimate day or our tour, and one that would take us into the heart of Scotland - our favorite spot of the entire trip.