Day 11

North Ballahulisch.. to Drumnadrochit.

64 miles

Again the plan was to have breakfast at 7.30 and leave at 8.00, and again we got away by 8.30, that’s ok for days where we only have 64 miles to go, but tomorrow when we have nearly 80 it will be a different story. For the third day in a row we had fine weather and this was to be the best weather day of the journey so far. It was a 12 mile cycle in to Fort William, and the wind was blowing with us for the first 4 miles, and against us for the last 60 for miles, but never mind the sun was on our backs and the scenery was spectacular. Mike’s ankle was getting better, and instead of using the bike frame as a climbing frame and mounting his bike in four stages, he was now able to do it in two moves and first lean the bike over to 45 degrees, then put the foot on to the cross bar, next a little shimmy closer to the bike and then put your foot on to the top of the crank shaft, one final shimmy and then clip in. This is a process that for a normal person would take maybe 10 seconds, but Mike has got this down to 2 maximum.

Once at Fort William, we took a brilliant detour via Neptune’s staircase, this is a series of 7 locks that are the start of the Caledonian canal, this is a magnificent way of getting, by boat from the west coast of Scotland to the East without going around the north coast, it takes an hour and a half to traverse the series of locks, and you pay for this as a toll system, depending on the length of the boat.

We decided that we should follow the toll path instead of the road, the benefits of the toll path was it was flat, the disadvantage was it was gravel, and bumpy. We travelled quite slowly along this road, but we still got a puncture in front of the Ness and Ian’s bike (the secret to riding on the rough road is to pick your path). We travelled to where we had to leave the toll road onto the link road to the A82 Inverness. We rejoined the support team of Gillian, and Mairi at the commando’s memorial, and while we were nibbling 3 fast military jet planes came by significantly lower than the top of the Munroe’s. From this vantage point we could look back at Benn Nevis, Britain’s highest peak, everybody told us that we were very lucky to see this peak without the cloud. From here on we had a great relaxing ride along the locks. Loch Lochy, Lock Oich, then there was a bit more of the Caledonian Canal, before we got to the world famous Loch Ness.

As far as we know we are the only Lejog team to have imported our very own Arabian Nessie to the region, there was a lot of nervousness about the dangers that the Celtic Nessie would be attracted to the Arabian Nessie. Talking of Arabian Ness’ we stopped just after Fort Augustus for a lunch break in a parking bay overseeing Loch Ness, within 5 minutes another van pulled up that was supporting a team of young lads that were doing the Lejog in 7 days (this is equivalent to 14 days on a tandem) all fit young lads on racers, anyway us Lejogers started talking, and lo and behold, the support of these young lads used to live in Dubai and knew Ness… well (for Dubai people they were Hillary and Dave Smeaton, Dubai mid 80’s to 90’s). After lunch the afternoon race was on with neither team confessing there was any race at all. To safe guard the team Mike decided that the brothers should sacrifice the stage win to mount a rear guard against of the possibility of a Celtic Nessie advance. Either that or the brothers just could not keep up with Little and Large. Anyway the stage victory went to L & L. Once into the hotel, for the first time ever we just had a drink, it is amazing what sunshine does for you.2 days to go, less than 150 miles to go, there is a real feeling that this is going to happen we will do Lejog!


Mileage : 64 Miles

Time : 4 hours 40 mins

Total : 817 Miles

Beer of the day: Kildonan

Overnight : Benleva Hotel