Day 17

Today, as yesterday we spent a lot of time cycling the wrong way down the A9. Thankfully it is the old A9, abandoned for the past thirty years, with grass growing in the middle and now part of the National Cycle Network. It’s a rather eerie experience as the road still has white lines and reflective cat’s eyes in the middle and was obviously once a busy thoroughfare. But now it has over grown and hasn’t seen a car for some time. The new A9 still runs at a close distance, howling through the central High Lands of Scotland up to the North. And it is the North of Scotland that we have now entered. With only 3 days of cycling left, we have just 150 miles between us and John O’Groats. Tonight we are in Avoch 10 miles north of Inverness, staying with the Barlow family in their lovely home overlooking the Firth.

Today has been another long one (63 miles) routing via Aviemore ski resort… well it is for some of the year. The last time we were here was twenty years ago for a family holiday. My main memory of the place was finding a dead fly in my chicken at dinner time. The waitress just offered to replace the chicken! The restaurant was still open for business today, so it must have cleaned up its act since then.

After climbing another high mountain pass we passed the battle field of Culloden, where in 1746 the Jacobites (mostly Scottish) suffered a huge defeat at the hands of British Government forces. Today a very swanky visitors centre offers an interactive museum, access to the battle fields and a rather nice café. After wondering around sites of ‘intensive hand to hand combat’ in the cold we decided it was time to hit the road and dice with our own death on the A9 as we crossed the Kessock Bridge at Inverness during rush hour.

High points of the day: Crossing the 800 mile mark.
Low point: crossing the A9 bridge