Day Four
Awoke my usual early time and thought before setting off I’d stretch my legs and scout out the local amenities. Petrol station / convenience store was doing fresh breakfast rolls so had a bacon butty. Probably will on the coming days too as the cooking facilities where I’m staying are just a microwave and toaster.
I had a 200 mile loop plotted to do in the direction to keep the sun mostly out my eyes, also had the advantage that I wouldn’t be heading into the stiff gusty south wind until on the homeward leg.
Talking of wind, I had put a flyscreen on the bike for this trip, which enabled me to sit at 70 for the dual carriageway blast up, but I was sure the noise and turbulence was spoiling the past days riding so decided to take it off and put it in panniers, now I had space.
Sure enough, when I set of west from Lairg with the sun on my back I just had the slightly varying wind whooshing noise, bliss! And the weather was perfect.
I turned left onto the Ullapool road for a bit, going south through Elphin before turning right again to head to the coast and the Summer Isles. By now it felt like summer so removed over trousers and switched to lighter gloves.
I wasn’t sure then, or later, what pictures to take. Nothing stood out much, just mountains, moors, expansive scrubby bits, lochs and sea, in glorious sunshine 
I went all the way to Archiltibui and filled up with petrol at the little village store then backtrack a dozen miles as it’s a dead end road. Around now I decided to take some sort of photo.
Walking back to bike I managed to turn my left ankle quite badly. After the initial pain it started feeling hot then got numb, that didn’t seem like it could be good but there was nothing to do other than saddle up again.
I was heading north to Lochinvar along the single track road going up and down hills not far from the coast, sometimes with little wooded bits.
Eventually this does get to the coast edge running along the bottom of cliffs at times.
Once at Lochinvar I decided I needed a rest so got a coffee in a cafe and a sausage roll with cheese and jalapeno. 
The little one wasn’t impressed, he was expecting cake. I sat with my injured foot out of it’s boot and it seemed to move OK, without much pain so decided it was going to be OK.
On leaving I decided to not go on the A road but to the single track coastal B869.
Actually, its probably more across hills, moors and by peaty pools than ‘coastal’. It’s also a long route and with the stream of NC500 traffic coming the other way eventually got a bit tedious with the point and quirt hopping between passing places. Still, I joined most of the other people with their smiles and waves as we all pulled into passing places for each other.
Once onto the A road I stopped just north of Kylesku to take a breather, and to take a photo.
The blue haze on distant hills is real, not a photo artifact. And those hills on the right are the end of the route I’d just done.
From here I had a relaxing half an hour on virtually empty roads sitting with cruise control on at 60 as I headed north. The road to Durness does go to single track for the last dozen or so miles, and the approach is along and extremely wide valley that feels much different to others.
Looking at those photos now, it doesn’t look that different. But to me it certainly feels different. I guess that’s a lot to do with scale.
After fuelling up at Durness I head for a drink and something to keep the little one happy.
Heading off again along the north coast I felt I should take a picture of these upper reaches.
Don’t know if it looks much different to Cornwall or Pembrokeshire.
The passing place chess game with other road goers was getting tedious again and I was glad when we gained a lane each way. Then finally at Tongue I turned south to leave the NC500 route and had nearly 40 miles of mostly smooth and not to twisty single-track almost to myself.
The inky peat stained lakes of these blanket bogs don’t look real (photo makes them look a bit lighter) and the stiff wind was whipping up white waves which to my mind seemed incongruous as the visual part of my brain said ‘sea side’ whilst I knew I was in the hills.
Another thing to play tricks on my mind with scales and congruity was a wind farm.
Whilst on this last leg I had received a phone call from the restaurant where I’d booked a table for tonight. They were cancelling as were closing due to a family bereavement. So instead I had another fish supper on getting back to Lairg.
Today was the 4th 9-to-5 day in a row, and according to satnav each day I had been actually riding 6 hours. Fortunately, it’s Friday, the end of the working week and I can rest. 
Actually, forecast for tomorrow was for heavy rain all day from 10am so was planning on not going anywhere, but just checked again and rain delayed until after lunch. May still not ride…
