Lochluishart - Inverness
54 km, 406 m climbed
Sunday 19th June 2011
We started the day with breakfast with the other guest: Dave from Paisley (whose motorbike had broken down). This breakfast was amazing -with strawberries, raspberries and blue berries. Before we left, Sheena advised us to take a forest track to avoid the big A road at Garve.
It was a fine morning and we had a good view of Ben Wevis as we rode alongside the loch. We turned off at Little Garve onto a track through the forest, crossing a little stone bridge with a rushing river below.
After a couple of miles the track became very boggy - we asked a local who advised us that it would soon improve, so we continued. But it became worse and worse and we had to get the tandem across a small river with stepping stones.
Next we were on a big rough forest track with great big troughs at intervals, across which we carried the tandem. The people who advised us clearly had no idea of the sort of bike you’d need to actually ride this path.
Finally we reached a decent track to the village of Cortin where we bought our lunch. After a short section of major road, we turned off through Muir of Ord and after about 5 miles, turned onto a very quiet road that runs along the north side of Beauly Firth. Although this didn’t look like a through route to Inverness on Google Maps, and it isn’t for cars, George spotted that it was marked as a cycle route on the Open Cycle Map he had on his iPhone. In fact it joins with Sustrans NCN route 1 near to Inverness.
The landscape from Muir on is very green, rolling no big hills. We saw many dog roses as well as the pink foxgloves and yellow broom.
As we sat by the waterside at Milton, eating our picnic, we noticed that many cyclists, including one unicyclist were using this quiet road. This cycle link has a good cycle connection to the big Kessock bridge (over Beauly Firth) into Inverness. We rode over the bridge alongside heavy traffic but on a separate path – very windy and high up above the water. Route 1 goes into Inverness through an industrial area. We locked the tandem at the station and checked the bags while we walked a bit by the river Ness. After a pizza supper by the station, we boarded the train, split and stacked the bike in the guard’s van and then spent some time in the bar admiring the landscape, drinking hot chocolate and brandy and chatting with a friendly local couple travelling to London for Wimbledon and other social events. No changes of guards van this time, so we slept without disturbance until we arrived in Euston a bit before 8 am.
