Melvich

July 21, 2019

We woke up to midge hell this morning. Clearly the place we had pitched our tent had contravened every rule of midge avoidance. We packed up as quickly as we could, even forgoing the normal morning ablutions, and rode up the hill to escape the wee beasties.

These are just a few of the wee beasties that decided to expire, of their own volition, on one of Leigh's panniers. There were many more that decided we were even more tasty hosts.

We stopped for breakfast at one of the many fishermens' bothies that we had seen dotted along the Helmsdale River. In retrospect, it might have been better to push on a bit further yesterday evening and camped near one of these. It was a great shelter in which to cook our porridge and was close enough to the Helmsdale River to get water for washing up and cleaning teeth.

The fishermen's bothy where we had breakfast. Not sure if we were trespassing or not.

After that it was an easy ride up to the top of the climb - a fresh tail wind had sprung up and pushed us a long quite nicely. After the summit we stumbled upon the RSPB site at Forsinard. This nature reserve serves to protect the peat bogs that existed here in the past. Birding was somewhat dull but the plant life was quite interesting.

Then it was an easy downhill run to the coast, punctuated by a small incident with a speeding motorist (why do they always seem to be males in their twenties driving small vehicles and breakneck speed ?).

The campsite at Melvich, a few kilometers west of the junction with the road at the coast, was mentioned to us, along with the route that we took, by the cycle tourist from Worcester who camped near us at Evanton. After setting up, we walked a few kilometers to the beach which was well worth it, even just to stretch our legs. We pigged out and had supper at the restaurant attached to the campsite. A real indulgence but most enjoyable.

Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 2,424 km (1,505 miles)

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