I woke to hear a little bit of rain on the tent, but fortunately it didn’t last long. I had breakfast, packed up and set off, but not before one of the local feathered friends dropped a present on my hand and my frame bag! I’d decided to do the simple road option today rather than the rolling route up a hard climb as I didn’t feel my legs were up to some more off road stress. It was good to feel the tarmac buzzing under my wheels as I set off, and after a quick divert to find a post box I left Cannich over the River Cannich. This fed into the River Glass, which was a good size and remained on my right as I headed north. A couple of miles out of Cannich I passed St Ignatius’ Well, a historic holy well and roadside cairn built in 1880.
More gorse was blooming along the road, and I came across a sign declaring “Never Mind The Ballachs”, designed to resemble the Sex Pistols album of nearly the same name. This was advertising a group campaigning to stop a proposed Ballach wind farm by a German company. As in many other places in the Highlands, this highlighted the ongoing debate / fight between needed energy and destruction of local habitat, and in that place it was hard not to argue with any potential desecration of such a beautiful wild landscape. Further on I passed a field of black sheep, of a type I’d not seen before, then the beautiful church at Struy just before crossing the magnificent River Farrar on a bridge.
Here I stopped for a photo and noticed two other Roamers coming up – it was Fiona and Sara, Calum’s sister and niece. We had a chat and then resumed our journeys. The Farrar joined the Glass shortly afterwards and the two combined became the River Beauly. Approaching Beauly I passed the extremely ugly Beauly Substation, a real eyesore although no doubt very necessary, and headed into the village, stopping at the Corner On The Square cafe for coffee and apple pie. As I was leaving to set off again Jim, my glasses saviour, was arriving and heading into the cafe for his break. I headed out of Beauly, noting that the fibre glass Highland Cow from my previous visit was still there, and called in at Robertson’s Larder and Highland Cows. They have two orphan cows which have been on the farm since they were two weeks old, Katie Morag and Jamie Mackenzie Fraser.
I bought a couple of gifts to take back with me and resumed my journey north to Muir of Ord, where I took a left at the railway station to cycle past the Glen Ord Distillery. From a previous trip here I knew this was going to be a very pleasant road to cycle on, and was even more so this time due to the road being closed at the distillery, resulting in very little traffic as I rode through. There was more gorse at the roadside, and I rode over the River Orrin just down from the falls and passed a very funny roadside sculpture at a house, resembling the robot Bender from Futurama.
A nice downhill followed into Marybank, then after crossing the River Conon I turned left into a headwind on the A835. This was on the North Coast 500 route, and although very busy it wasn’t long before I came to a turn for Strathpeffer, and I headed uphill for a couple of miles before riding into the village. Strathpeffer is a Victorian Spa town and contains many beautiful buildings including the Spa Pavilion and several churches, but I was heading for the Old Station.
This was
built in 1885, with passenger services ending in 1946 and the line
closing in 1951. The station itself is remarkably well preserved, and
looks every inch a Victorian station with wood panelling in the gents
toilet and other interesting features. Today it houses the Highland
Museum of Childhood in addition to a community gift shop and a cafe,
which I called in at and enjoyed a warming bowl of soup and a cup of
tea. After my break I set off back down the hill to rejoin the A835
into Contin. It had started raining by now, and in a few hundred
yards I pulled up at Contin Stores which was just outside my
campsite, and joined a couple of other Roamers in the shop where I
bought an ice cream – well I was on holiday! The rain had stopped,
and I went outside to join the Roamers on the benches and had a chat
whilst waiting for the campsite reception to open. As well as Mike
and Jason from the train up, I chatted to Graeme and his dog Zak. As
well as carrying his camping kit, Graeme was pulling a dog trailer
with Zak in it! Zak was the most placid, relaxed dog I’d seen and
seemed utterly unfazed by anything that was going on, and stayed in
the trailer while Graeme rode over the rough tracks. After this I
went into the shop again to pick up my supplies and then booked into
the campsite. I pitched my tent, showered and then went back four
hundred yards up the road to the Smiddy Chippy, buying fish and chips
which I ate whilst sitting at the edge of the River Conon that ran
alongside the campsite.
Another Roamer, Kenny, had arrived at the camp and we sat chatting for a while before turning in. It had been a very nice and reasonably relaxed day, with just one more to go.
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