August 27, 2021
Day One - Inverness to Dornoch
A comedy of errors - good riding though.
Hardly slept at all on the train, ugh. The mattress seemed less comfortable than my air mattress (which is pretty good), but the main problem was how much the train moves around when travelling. I guess I already knew this was the case on our railway network but it's not really worth paying attention to when you're just sitting there rather than trying to get some shut-eye. The best way I can think of to describe it is it was like trying to go to sleep on a plane going through constant turbulance...or trying to sleep through mini-regular earthquakes. I don't really see how anyone gets sleep on these trains (Says the guy who used to fall asleep less than say 50ft from loud PA speakers).
Of course, this therefore led me to worrying as I lay in bed that it would be dangerous for me to cycle today and I'd have to camp ten miles away from Inverness or something after giving up. Fortunately that wasn't the case at all, and I managed to ride 65 miles, which I'm quite pleased with.
Several things did go wrong today though, fortunately they clearly didn't hugely affect my riding, pleasingly. First of all, I owe you a photo.
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By the time I'd got all my stuff together on the platform I'd decided I needed to go to the toilet, and I'd like a shower afterwards. Let's just say I don't think loo roll does a good job, and I'd rather keep my cycling shorts as clean as possible. Sorry if you just spat your porridge out.
Anyway I was informed the Inverness station has a "Caledonian Lounge" across the road but I'd have to pay £5 to use it as my ticket wasn't up market (despite, you know...costing over £200). That said once I got in there it is pretty small so I can see why they'd feel the need to limit it. Anyway it turned out the lovely woman inside let me take a shower for free! Huzzah. She also at first didn't want me to bring my bike in ("Do you have a lock?"...yes, but given I have a total of six bags attached to my bike...). So after my "free" shower, things were off to a good start.
Surely that means things are up then, right?
After some entertaining wrong turns in Inverness, it transpired that my Garmin had a malformed version of the route on it. Great! Of course it was the part I was riding that was screwed up too. Cue an undiginified laptop session. Fortunately it got a grip the first time I put the file back on the device.
So I was finally actually on the route, and what do you know, the route wants me to play hike-a-bike up a steep path in some woods. Well that wasn't happening. Had to cross this delightful road twice too.
Fortunately I figured out an alternative route, and it wasn't a huge detour, which was a relief. What else happened in the morning...ah yes, some unplanned off road riding. The first section was a lot like a bridleway and just hard packed dirt. A bit lumpy and slow going, but not too bad. The second section though...yuck. Fun on a mountain bike I'm sure. Think sand mixed with big rocks. It's all fun and games until your front wheel slips and you wonder if you're gonna crash and destroy the laptop I'm writing this on. Fortunately the off-road section ended eventually...after some cursing from me.
After that the riding in the morning was rather spectacular. Quiet roads, good surface, beautiful weather. Here's some photos.
Yes reader, at least one of the above photos was taken while riding my bicycle. I'm sure that the droves of people, fauna, and general wildlife clearly visible in said photos were in grave danger thanks to my wreckless actions. I can only offer my humblest of apologies.
Eventually I arrived in Dingwall, where I bought some lunch from a local baker. It was a bit underwhelming however the carrot cake was tasty. Unfortunately by the time it came to eating the carrot cake I was on a bit of a timer. Not only had I realised that I had not packed a USB-A to C cable so I could actually use my USB batteries to charge my phone, I'd also told a campsite about 35 miles away that I'd aim to be there by 6PM. It was already 2PM and I still needed to go to Tesco across the road to buy provisions for dinner and hopefully find myself a USB cable. Without said cable my phone would possibly be dead by tomorrow, which would deprive you of further journal posts! Perhaps you're gutted that I did manage to find a cable. Managed to be back to riding by about 2:45PM, and so far I'd averaged 10mph, so by 6PM was doable.
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By the time I took the above photo I was flagging a bit. I did stop to take this, the bridge is the A9 so the traffic isn't particularly cycle friendly. That said I don't think I was close passed at all so that's something at least. I was still following the route on my Garmin once I'd cross the bridge, I'd assumed that the route had me passing through Dornoch, it it did not. Such drama. Fortunately I'd remembered where my turning off the A9 was, and it was a relief to get off that road. After that it was a pretty flat road to the campsite. I was somewhat running on empty at this point, good job there weren't any hills. In the end I got there by about 5:45 rather than 6, winner!
Setting up the tent for the first time on a trip can be a bit daunting. What if I've forgotten how to do it, or worse still something's gone wrong. Fortunately all went well. Set up bedding, had a shower, now to cook.
At this point it's two years since I last used my Trangia pots complete with Trangia knock-off gas burner. Seemingly I'd completely forgotten how overpowered it is. First attempt...my spatula started to melt that's never happened before. The plastic is still on that pot as I couldn't get it off either.
Well, I do have two pots...time for a second attempt then. Somehow I still hadn't cottoned on. Who would design a burner that even at what seemed like 40-50% power is completely unsuitable for cooking? I put my oil in my second pot...
Oops! How did that happen. Fortunately I had the good sense to not to put the stove too close to any of my belongings, however my camp table (Helinox, reccomended) did get close to a singe. Picked the impromptu campfire up and put it on some short grass. Considered options for putting it out however I couldn't think of anything, and I was pretty confident pouring water on it wasn't a good idea! It went out within about 20 seconds or so. Such drama.
After the fire had gone out, doused the pan with some water so it wasn't super hot and then tried again, with the burner as low as possible. Managed to get my chile con carne...hmm I guess it was more chile con quorn, cooked. Tasted good but it was unfortunate that I had to bin half of it. Would it have kept until the next evening? Possibly (although outdoors it did get to 20c today - yes I'm writing this part in the future!), but I don't have a recepticle to store it in. Perhaps something to consider for the future.
Gave my pots and pans a clean, had a chat with the other person in the pot washing room, she seemed nice. Spent the rest of the evening writing this journal log, even after it got dark! Suddenly occurred to me the benefit of backlit keys (after I did CTRL-C rather than CTRL-V, always an annoyance when that happens. Didn't finish the log that night, it got to the stage where I was too cold to continue so I packed away. Walked to the toilet block shivering...ended up walking quicker than I normally would just to warm up.
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Getting the photos can be a bit cack-handed. Either I upload to Google Photos and then download again on the laptop, or I plug the phone in to the laptop. It took me a while to realise the laptop was charging the phone in the process I have two big batteries to charge the phone however, but I have to plug the laptop in to a wall socket to charge it. Fortunately it has a big battery and sips power. Next time I'll be copying the photos over immediately and then unplugging the phone again. Charging the phone with the laptop is counter-productive. Enthralling minutea I know.
As I wrote my journal log, a couple turned up in a car and put up their tent in the dark, only aided by the headlights of their vehicle. Reminds me of turning up to a folk festival as a family as a kid and my dad doing the same with a trailer tent. I suspect a headtorch is useful in such situations...somehow despite this being my sixth cycle tour trip, this is the first time I've brought one. Very practical once the sun goes down.
A good day's riding, if not occasionally frustrating.
Today's ride: 66 miles (106 km)
Total: 66 miles (106 km)
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