John O'Groats to Dunbeath

Friday 20th July, 40 Miles.  Lovely sunny morning turning cool and cloudy in the afternoon, then a gorgeous sunset.  Left Dornoch for JOG after brilliant breakfasts (it's all about the food...).  Windy roads a bit queasy.  Arrived JOG and offloaded the bikes in the big car park.  Chatted with a chap who donated to the fund raising, then two ladies did the same by sacrificing half of their ice-cream money too.  

Jan says "check out the oversized shirts"...

One for Dave's sponsors

Took the obligatory photos for our charity and sponsors at the signpost, then we were off, dinging our dingers, Dave's gold donger and whooping as we went.  Got a 'lot of support' from the riders just finishing the other way, most just ignored us!!


Waved a long bye bye to Alan (thanks again Al, who had a 9 hour ride back to Penicuik, with a flat tyre on the way...ugh).  


The ride was undulating coastal, no wind, which was brilliant.  

We sang songs and decided on a swearing penalty of 10p a go (Charlie is winning this today, suggestions for a jersey colour anyone?).  After a little while getting used to each others natural pace we settled in to the ride. The sun went away, jackets went on and we made our way to the pub....


The Old Smiddy at Thrumster was our accidental target, we ate our ration of brown roll with cheap ham and a tangerine washed down with cola ..then went inside.  Met Lesley, Alice and John who were very generous with their donations.  Thank you.

On with ride, finding out that Charlie was unresponsive to calls to stop (was she trying to take the yellow jersey early?) to meet Paul, Fran's friend who had flown in from Italy, then taken a 7 hour train journey from Edinburgh to join us as our 'fridge' to Dalwhinnie.  Welcome Paul!  We rode on to Dunbeath.  

On arrival at Tormore Farm we were welcomed by Mary who provided tea, scones, shortbread and millionaires shortcake (note from Jan: It's all about the cake, Mindy, Mork and Crawford).  The gable end of the house is beautiful.. Mary's got a big heart full of sparrows!

Dinner a short walk away at the 'unpretentious' BayOwl shack.  Don't order the gin, they have at least 80 types of whiskey..."It's a normal bar"...  Great views!  

Big day tomorrow.. to the Black Isle with a 14% grade early on.... OMG.