We had breakfast in the room and then put on our wet weather gear and braved the rain.
We had a 115 mile day planned so decided to look for stops at around 40 and 80 miles to split the day into three large chunks. We would then stop for longer than our regular breaks to give us time to dry out and warm up.
By the time we got to Inverness we were at the 40 mile mark, neither of us could feel our hands or feet and it wasn't getting any better. We stopped at a Subway for a sandwich, coffee and defrost out hands and feet.
We looked on Google maps and found quite a few shops in Inverness so headed to Blacks and Mountain Warehouse to get some more heavy duty wet weather socks, gloves and jackets.
We set off and the weather eased slightly, after crossing the Kessock bridge we were so warm we had to stop to take layers off!
The rest of the day was unpleasant to say the least, our route followed the A9 for most of the way so was busy, visibility was poor so we couldn't see any of the scenery anyway. The website we used for planning the routes had been absolutely bang on up until today. It had always picked the quiet scenic route on good condition paved roads, a cyclists dream. Today at about the 100 mile mark the route we had preprogrammed into our Garmin's took us through woods on muddy off road tracks, only suitable for mountain bikes, it then dropped us back on the A9 a few miles up the road. Just unnecessary and now the bikes were clogged up with mud.
We kept smiling as it was now laughable how bad the weather had made our last big day. We started seeing signs for John o'Groats now in double figures and that made us more determined to finish this beast.
We made it to our B&B in Helmsdale, our hosts welcomed us. They had a dry shed for us to store our wet bikes and gear and a washing machine to clean all of our muddy kit. I think they must be used to this type of arrival in sunny Scotland.
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