Tongue

22/5/15

The winds were strong but westerly so we were blown along the north coast. We left after the rain had stopped and were soon bathed in sunshine typical of this part of the world! It is interesting to listen to different perceptions of the weather, the Swiss man who walked to Cape Wrath talked of how fine the weather was but was followed a day later by an American who moaned bitterly about it. A positive attitude is needed in Scotland.

Loch Eriboll provided a big tour south with the wind buffeting us until we turned to the east side of the loch. We were encouraged along by cheery toots and waves from passing cars and the chat, chat, chat of the Stonechat.

An early tea shop at Laid was useful to keep us fueled for several big climbs, one of which clearly had the right sort of gradient as I lost Sue completely on the ascent of the Moine. A’ Mhoine is a SSSI and unique for it's blanket bog habitat for birds. As we climbed this peninsular we had the rare sighting of another cycle tourist, he was decending against the wind on a squeaky bike and didn't look very happy. My decent, by contrast, was a rather irresponsibly 70kph rollercoaster to the causeway across Tongue.