Making a friend of a creaky crank!

What a strange day this turned out to be, Changeable in so many ways. I tried hard to take it easy, to let the day pass by as it happened. There was no particular hurry to get to anywhere since I was ahead by 75 miles from yesterday. As long as I managed to keep ahead by some amount, then my last day should be a relaxed one.

So, I stayed in bed an extra hour, ate a big breakfast before I left and sauntered into town to write my blog. I caught up with most of it and continued out of town picking up the very end of the Caledonian Canal as it spilt out into the Beauly Firth.

The A862 which skirts around the south of the firth passes first through Beauly before reaching Muir of Ord, my original destination for today. By this stage though I had a problem and it was beginning to get to me.

Earlier in the trip I had managed to tighten the pedal cranks to stop the developing creak, but now that wasn't working. Trust me a creak each time you turn the pedals can become annoying very quickly. In Dingwall, the next town of size I hunted out a cyclle shop, Dryburgh Cycles, who kindly took the bike in, took the pedals off, greased the crank and put the bike back together...for nothing.

Only problem is, it didn't solve the problem. Instead I tried to adopt the same policy to the creak that it is possible to do to chronic pain. Make it your friend, not your enemy, otherwise it will destroy mentally in no time at all. So the creak became part of the bikes character and I learnt to live with it.

So by mid-day I was now only 5 miles beyond where I was supposed to have been at the end of the day and my hard earnt advantage was slipping away. As luck would have it, I bumped into David, Tanya and Daniel who like me were also heading north to John O'Groats and I discovered from them that there was a youth hostel at Carbisdale Castle. Now that sounded like a good incentive to cover a few miles. But what a few miles they turned out to be.

For the first time on this trip the weather looked set to conspire against me. Sheets of driven sleet and hail crossed the sides of the valley. At first I seem blessed as they went by on either side, but eventually my luck ran out and I ran for cover under a bus shelter as the heavens opened above me.

The road to Carbisdale takes you over the eastern fringes of Wetser Ross. As wild places go, this has to be one of the most daunting that I have travelled through. I imagined that to be dropped in the middle of that vast expanse of moreland and endless forest, could lead to an early demise or madness as you walked round in circles trying to find your way out.

Coming out the other side however, and the views down toward Carbisdale were welcome and stunning, even in the fading light.

Though this picture of the castle was taken in the morning, hence the blue skies, I had to include it here, just so that you could see what Scottish Youth Hosteling can do for you. This particular building was the home of the Earl of Sutherland who on discovering that he would have to pay huge amounts of money to the government, if he sold it gifted it to the SYHA, for whom he had been president for a number of years. What a legacy. More on the inside tomorrow.