Day 2
June 12th - Tongue to Scourie

As expected day 2 was not quite as good as day 1 but still not bad. After the best fry-up of the trip so far I left the b&b at Tongue at about 9.30. The weather was drizzly and after about a mile I decided to go for the waterproofs. I didn't need them for long as I soon hit a large incline and started getting warm. The drizzle soon eased off but it remained grey. My right knee began twinging again but it was no worse than yesterday so I was not too worried. This landscape was much more like what I expected from the very north of Scotland - very sparsely populated (if you don't count sheep) and a bit barren. My water bottle soon became empty and I was looking for somewhere to get a refill. Travelling south down the east coast of Loch Eriboll there were no signs of life at all. Eventually I collared a passing postman and asked him if there was a cafe or a shop nearby. He said there was a cafe about 2 miles down the road. 2 miles came and went and I had to resort to filling my water bottle from a stream. The route south down the east side of the loch was hard work because it was hilly and when I reached the bottom and started to head north the road was flatter but now I had a stiff wind in my face. It also felt a bit weird to be heading north on a John O'Groats to Lands End trip but there is only one road to the west coast so I didn't have much choice. Eventually, after what felt like 5 miles after speaking to the postman I reached the cafe. I had lunch and made sure I stocked up on bottles of water. The cafe owner said there was only one big hill on the road to Durness. I asked if it was an big uphill or a big downhill and everyone in the cafe had a good laugh.
I got over the hill and it was a big relief to reach Durness. I had a quick look in Smoo cave but I couldn't stop long as I had left my bike unattended at the top of the footpath and I was worried about it not being there when I got back. Fortunately it was ok and I made my way towards Durness town centre. I stopped in a cafe, had the worst cup of coffee so far and tried to decide if I should finish there for the day or go on to the next town. I was getting regular route-advice text messages from Kirsten which helped a lot. The cafe owner informed me that the next town, Scourie was 26 miles away. I knew it was south west of Durness so I would have the wind behind me and I decided to go for it. I was glad I did - the road was mainly flat and had the best scenery of the day. There was one really good downhill section that seemed to go on forever and I averaged 30mph for a couple of miles with no effort at all.
At about 6.30pm, having covered 58.9 miles I reached Scourie and started to look for a b&b. The first one I tried was full, the second wanted £40 for a single room and the third wanted £30 for a double which was all they had. I went for that and soon after arriving I plodded off to the local pub for a very nice gammon steak. I asked the barman if it was possible to get a mobile phone signal anywhere in the town and he replied with "Ye cannae . . . something . . .something . . . something". I knew that no matter how many times I asked him to repeat it I was never going to understand what he was saying but I got the gist of it. If a mobile phone signal was such a no-no in Scourie I thought it not worth asking about an internet cafe. My search for a wifi hotspot goes on.
Today could have been a lot worse, I was travelling through open countryside most of the time and if it had rained there would have been nowhere to shelter. Also the bike was faultless for the second day running and my decision to go on to Scourie turned out to be a good one. If I had stopped at Durness I would only have done 34 miles and I would actually have finished the day further away from Lands End than when I started which would have been really depressing. My average for the two days is now a little over 61 miles which puts me on target for a weekend off before going back to work but there's a long way to go yet though.

The Routemap

The Speed (in blue) and the Elevation (in Green)