Day 6 and Day 7 - a swap

No update last night as we ended up in a different location to the plan..

Original plan was day 6 -112 miles to Pitlochry then Day 7 - 99 miles over the Drumochter pass and the Cairngorms..

What ACTUALLY happened was that day 6 was going reasonably to plan (if occasionally wet) we set off, reached Lanark, met my parents standing by the road... And headed towards Whitburn..

Only to find the A706 closed and a 5 mile diversion that crucially turned us back into the teeth of what had been a strong cross/tail wind... This really tired me .. We met up with Nellie, refuelled and set off . Everything went ok over the Forth bridge, and a lot of climbing through Cowdenbeath .

The drop down to Perth was glorious, and after another Nellie stop, the planned route on the Garmin went a little wierd .and took us off the A9 onto a bizarre looping route.. Once we worked out were we, and Nellie , were.. We cae back towards Dunkeld... The light was starting to go and the A9 is not the safest road, a decision was made to stop there for the night (on 98 miles) and start fresh today, making it 112 miles or so .. Huge thanks to the Royal Dunkeld Hotel for putting us up, locking the bikes away and doing awesome food.

This morning we cracked on, the climb to Drumochter is long, not hugely steep, but tiring..,and the weather closed in again.we crested the top, met our Nellie , topped up and set off (each Nellie Gap is 12.5 miles) .. The long gentle descent was unbroken so we did most of the next 12.5 miles without having to turn a pedal.. And in great time.. We were getting wetter and wetter and I was struggling to get comfortable in my longs, the pad was so wet that it rubbed "somewhere" .. So at the next stop I switched to some of my own shorts and knee warmers instead.. Huge improvement in comfort and morale for me. The result was great time,each Nellie Gap seemed to fly by..and we were soon plunging into Inverness and on to the Black Isle and tonight's hotel nice and early despite 112 miles, horrible weather and two mountain passes... Epic day..we are tired, but happy with the outcome of toady...day 8 tomorrow !!!