Wednesday 2 July 2008

Inverness to Aviemore

We had our earliest start today, not exactly up at the crack of dawn, but we were on the road after a stop in a supermarket by 10am.
Inverness had been a pit stop area on the way up and the way down, although it was useful it was good to see the back of it.
The hill Dave had warned me about the night before had a bigger brother lurking round the corner, another 25 minute climb ensued against more 20 mph headwinds.
We had our first encounter with 'proper' rain today. The clouds in Scotland are very strange; they are always there and are ready to rain, it's just whether they do or not which is the hard part to predict. Unfortunately, we were rained on, and mixed with the wind was chilling to the bone. I stopped in one of the hundreds of layby's that litter the A9 and put on the kersey mill bomber jacket. The rain stopped almost instantly after this and I found myself slowly cooking away in my new attire. Less than a mile up the road I swapped it back for the vest.
We rolled along happily for a few more hours and I was feeling so good I pushed a few miles past where we were scheduled to stop for the night.
All the previous days uphill pushing had seemed to come into one downhill at once, the last 30 minutes of skating were all on a gentle slope downhill.
I'm sure I'm going to pay for it tomorrow.
The pushing leg is now classed as a weapon as it has gotten so hard, and although the foot has a small bilster on it we are coping with it well, (we cut a hole in my shoe)!
Dad doesn't know where we are going tomorrow........God help us.

No comments: