Yipee no rain this morning, makes a change!

The trip up to Inverness was set to be fairly straight forward, mainly A roads with a small deviation towards the end just to get in a big climb!
All was going well and the pace was quite quick untill I noticed the back tyre feeling a bit spongey, we stopped to put some more air in it and then did the same pretty much every 4 miles untill met up with Lyn, I replaced the inner tube at this point.

Riding up the side of Loch Ness provided some stunning scenary but I didn’t get a glimse of the monster.

We cut the top corner off to get away from the main road and also give us a nice climb 15% for 3/4 of a mile although it felt like much longer! the benefit being what goes up must come down and it surely did pretty much all the way down to the site. A welcome relief after 70 odd miles.

Jim

The rain was relentless all night! We woke up to flooded areas on the site, I wondered why I bothered washing my feet when I got back from the shower.

Mike decided, over McDonalds breakie, that he would travel to the next site in the van and see how the day goes. We got packed up and went on our merry ways. It was too wet to do much in the way of sightseeing so we all headed straight to the site. On the way we saw Jim and Gerry so we stopped in the next layby to see if they needed anything and for me to sneak some action photos of them!

We travelled through some really amazing scenery, stopping to take photographs along the way. We arrived at the site mid afternoon and were greeted with the most amazing view of any site yet! Jim and Gerry arrived shortly after Lyn and I, they had massive grins, they had thoroughly enjoyed today’s ride.

Mike, Sophie and Jack had gone into Fort William, Mike was in much better form after his day off and he has decided to give it a try tomorrow. Fingers crossed the weather is good for them tomorrow.

We have had tea now, kids went off to play with their 15 new mates! It is great to hear the sound of kids playing so well together. Then the moment every parent dreads, the funny thing is you always know your child’s cry, Alex was brought around the corner by some of the bigger kids, I was already half way across the road as I knew it was him. He had a massive lump on his forehead with another right next to it coming up quickly. He had a small cut on his nose and another on his cheek. He had run into an open window, it probably looks worse than it is but to be on the safe side we have put a film on for him to watch to keep him awake a while.

Today started off very wet, it had rained all night and was showing no signs of clearing. We rode up the side of Loch Lomand getting steadily wetter towards Glencoe on the A82.
It was a long climb up to Glencoe, so we stopped off for a sarnie. Fortunately Lyn was driving past and stopped to make us a sarnie. That done we were off again climbing and climbing. Louise shot past in the motor home beeping the horn, she stopped off a bit later to get some shots of Gerry and I in pain.
After Glencoe it was all down hill a nice steady 30mph for 6 miles.
We got to the site for just after 3 – 75 miles in just over 5 hours, not a bad pace considering.

Jim

View from our pitch

Another day and we wake up the rain yet again! It was a miserable start to the morning, the lads set off in the rain, Sophie was heading out to find a Doctor to get Jacks cough checked out. On the up side Alex and I headed to Hamilton to meet up with Kiz for lunch.

The rain was really heavy on the motorway, we arrived in Hamilton and got parked up outside Homebase. The lads had needed some bits from Halfords so we braved the rain and headed over there. We decided to have a bimble around the shops as we were early for our lunch date. We passed Maplins and they had a bogof deal on bug killers which seemed and excellent plan so we got a couple. Typical that with all this rain that we probably won’t get to use them! I am covered in bites already, I look like I have chicken pox!

We met Kiz in Frankies and Bennys, it was nice to catch up with her, Alex got a game in the kids pack so we all had to play that! Kiz won, Alex was not impressed! It was still raining when we were done so we all headed to the van and sat in there chatting.

We droved up the new bit of motorway to Loch Lomond, the rain seemed to be getting heavier! We got parked up at the next campsite and caught up with everyone else. Lyn had a trouble free day but sadly the same could not be said for Sophie and Jack. Sophie received a call from Mike, he had hit a deep pothole and had come off his bike. He had hurt his hip, he had struggled on for 5 miles but couldn’t go any further. He is going to see how it goes overnight but it may be then end of his ride!

There was no eating outside tonight, Pizza was the easy option. It felt really anti-social sat in our own vans but sadly there was no other way. Here’s hoping for better weather soon and fingers crossed on the Beverley Bimbler’s hip.

Rain, Rain go away come back another day! Bloody weather, raining all day

We got soaked through today, at one point the rain was been blown from the side with so much force it hurt.

As well as the weather there have been numerous disasters today, I snapped 3 spokes and in the middle of Glasgow my left hand crank decided to fall off . It was a bit tricky stopping with the pedal and crank attached to my foot. Mike also had a spill and has graised his thigh, he got picked up by Sophie at about 35 miles into the route.

Not much more to say really as it has just been about getting the head down and plowing on. The rain is due to stay with us till Friday

Hopefully when we finish on Sunday we might see some sun??

Jim