Saturday July 5, 2014

Had a bit of a lie-in this morning (7:00) and on the road by 9:00.  I felt good as we started off, but at some stage my legs left me behind and I had no energy for about 15 kms.  Sometimes your mind starts arguing with you – I knew we had about a 75 k ride to do, I looked at a traffic sign and did the calculations in my head from miles to kilometres and realized I had to cycle 80 ks – now usually 5 ks is nothing, but for some reason I was also calculating how far we had cycled, the time it had taken and how much longer I had to be cycling that day.  Mind games, sometimes you have to ignore them other times you cannot.  That was my problem this morning.

On the opposite side of the Firth from our warmshowers host house is Invergordon.  It is an industrial town with the prime industry being the repair of oil rigs.

After lunch the legs came back and I finished the ride feeling strong.  At our lunch stop was this Scottish air ambulance, raising money and awareness of the work that they do.  It turned for this perfect side view shot before flying away.

It rained on and off during the morning, maybe that was part of my problem as well – I am definitely solar powered. As we came down one hill the road sign said watch out for otters. Unfortunately, we don\’t usually stop to take photos when we are hurtling down a hill, especially if you can use the momentum to get halfway up the other side.  Ralf on the other hand couldn\’t resist taking a photo of this dam, not far from where the otter sign was – he didn\’t see any otters.

This was the first road sign that we have seen with John O\’Groats on it – we are going in the right direction.

I didn\’t know Scotland had a county called Sutherland.

We arrived in Brora and stopped to pick up some provisions for dinner.  A fella stopped to talk to us who was from Toronto.  We carried on to our campsite just outside of Brora where it started to rain, we chatted to the owner and I had an ice-cream, by the time I had finished my ice-cream it had stopped and was a lovely evening.  After setting up the tent we went for a walk.  We crossed a golf course and there was a lovely quiet beach.  In Australia the golf hazards were kangaroos, in Scotland the golf hazards are cows and sheep.

The last time we camped next to the sea was in Australia.  We went to sleep listening to the surf.

Early to bed tonight 8:30 pm.