Easy riding day today – about 100km and 90 minutes from Ullapool to Drumnadrochit where we’ve booked four nights accommodation (at the bargain price of 201 pounds for the four nights, breakfasts included).
Karen helped me get the bike out of the pebbly driveway at Creagan’s Guest House and onto the footpath so I could load it up – it takes me about six trips every time to load and unload the bike.
Karen had a simple porridge breakfast but with all of her tablets that wasn’t going down to well. I read the other day that on the St Kilda Islands the locals used to add flavour to their porridge by adding a puffin (bird) to the porridge whilst it cooked 🙂
Refueled the bike in Ullapool – Karen walked to the servo which was just around the corner from the guest house as mounting and dismounting is painful. One pound 32.9/litre for 98 RON super unleaded. Had a beautifully sunny and warm ride from Ullapool to Drumnadrochit – the sun was shining and it was a magical day to be on the bike.
On arrival at the Drumnadrochit Hotel their reception didn’t know anything about our four-night booking, so a frantic phone call from them to the Clansman Hotel a few miles down the road secured a room for us, and the Clansman is right on the shores of Loch Ness – we’ve been watching tourist boats departing from the jetty across the road every hour on the hour this afternoon whilst we waited in the cafe for our room to be prepared. Had a good chat to Alisdair – the car park attendant here – very thoughtfully he pointed out a tarred bay I could park the bike in – a welcome change from all the pebbles we’ve had to negotiate in other car parks. Alisadair is an ex trails rider, keen quad rider and sidecar rider (but doesn’t have his road licence), and provided some good suggestions on places to visit both locally and further north of here.
Downloaded the GoPro video to the Mac and had a quick look at that – the video of the Pass of the Cattle enroute to Applecross worked out well so I’ll try and post that up tomorrow. Had a drink in the bar overlooking Loch Ness where we finally managed to get the wifi working, and now relaxing back in our room, watching the 1960’s movie “The Lost World” – quite fitting given our current location.
