We awoke in Dalwhinnie to find that Julian had decided not to go 'skinny dipping' in the nearby loch with the friendly German chap who had taken a shine to him the night before. "it is very private - no one vould mind - you could be naked and no one vould know".
After breakfast and some last minute blogging, we set off from Dalwhinnie, just managing to avoid a diversion to the local distillery. We were on the old A9 again for quite a lot of the day, so kept away from the traffic quite a lot, except for descending which would have been a bit too exhilarating on the old and sometimes loose road surface. For once, the sun was shining - almost like summer, but the wind was still there. We'd checked the elevation profile for the days route and it had looked reasonably gentle, but then, spread out over 100 miles, most roads look reasonably gentle.
The full extent of our gentle ascent became apparant when we found a summit sign informing us that we'd climbed to over 1300 feet without fully noticing - perhaps we were getting better at hills...
We found a lunchstop pub with a suntrap courtyard, and once the wind was diverted, the full warmth of the day could be felt and we didn't really want to move on. Still, many more miles had to be covered and we decided it was better to make some proverbial hay while the sun shone.
After lunch, we were still on the busy A9, unable to work out where all the traffic was coming from or going to - then we reached the edges of Inverness. The wind was fighting us again as we descended towards Inverness and we were clocked by a police speed trap, though at 28mph I don't think we were breaking any laws. The bridges were an opportunity for a few photos, and better still, took us away from the congestion of Inverness.
Our aim for the day was to cover a reasonable distance so that our last day would be 'relatively' easy. We'd decided on a safe target for the day, and asked our booking agent to try for that or somewhere slightly past it. Unfortunately our agent seemed to have temporarily forgotten that we were on bikes, and booked us a hotel some 16 miles further that we'd planned. As the wind picked up again, it was turned blue by the profuse cursing aimed at our booking agent.
Those last 16 miles into a strong headwind were ticked off one by one - largely in silence apart from the grunts and heavy breathing associated with extreme exertion. On reaching Golspie, we had achieved our highest daily mileage and it felt like it. Our accommodation was suitable, though on finding somewhere to eat, we realised that we had not necessarily found a bargain. Our hotel manager was a little 'ecentric', patrolling the hotel and gradens with a walkie talkie on his 'utility belt'. The next morning, he was cooking up breakfast in cartoon pyjamas, still sporting the walkie talkie...
Golspie itself was a strange place - deserted apart from a handful of joyriders and a gaggle of teenage girls refining their distraction and shoplifting skills in the local mini-mart. It had just started rainng as we left, but we were heartened by the fact that we were leaving.
Julian's statoids - Day Nine
Daily Distance: 111 miles
Cumulative Distance: 815.5 miles
Ride time: 7 hours 20 mins
Top Speed: 38.2 mph
Average speed: 15.0 mph
Calories Burned - 5500
Terrain - Some climbing, and big descents
Key Events: Good sunny weather, Finding an altitude sign at the top of a climb, Comedy B&B booking.
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