Might as well go out on a big one. The most (or nearly most) daily ascent of the trip. But the slopes were fairly gentle except for what must have been nearly .5 km of 1:10 coming out of Tongue. Rest of climbing was mostly long gentle stuff in 1st or 2nd gear over the Flow Lands (bogs and peat on glacer scrapped hilltops).
But people live on the actual soil in the valleys (straths) so for every village it was ripping roll down from the hills and grind your way back up again. And repeat.
One significant stop of the day was at Betty Hill for coffee, lunch supplies and to call ScotRail to book trains back to London. The lady at ScotRail call centre was amazing. Over 36 minutes she got all four of us and our bikes onto the same train from Edinburgh to London. The problem started with the local Thurso to Inverness train not having room for all our bikes on Tuesday so she divided us up between trains on Wednesday to get us and bikes to Edinburgh then booked us and bikes all through to London. Great effort annomous call centre Scottish lady and greatly appreciated.
All this at a cute cafe in Betty Hill, a town so exposed that an old guy with a six foot walking stick that we asked how to find the Cafe said that three times the wind in the centre of town had picked him up off the ground.
Near the end of the day we thought Hillary and Christine were lost but it turned out that they were patting curious cows in a paddock. There was a multi-MW wind farm nearby and the sheep were so scared all they could do was lie down in front of the turbines and chew the cud.
Saw another cake box roadside honesty stall at Betty Hill.
I thought Thurso would be pretty busy as a North Sea supply centre but quiet this Friday night. A few groups of teenagers looking for action but that didn’t seem to be happening.
Maybe Saturday night there will be a big caleigh when the town finds out we have finished LEJOG? We saw a few couples doing LEJOG on bikes but starting in John O’Groats and heading south into the headwinds. And one backpacked walker heading up a steep hill on the road back to Tongue. Big smile though.
