Bike Touring, mit Fahrrad und Hund durch Schottland 2020 (#12): Inverness, Finthorn, Cycle Path No 1
Yes, we are in the process of packing everything up. Because there is supposed to be a storm today and tomorrow it's going to rain really hard, so we have decided to take the direct route to Inverness That is 90 kilometres. Let's see if we get there today. I will accompany Will & Charlotte.
Hello (in German) Yes, it was really good to have a shower and a bed and I feel really refreshed. It was really, really good. And now we will get a week of rain and Zuri got sausages yesterday. That's why she didn't want her dog food. Now they have passed me. Where the white thing is driving - the bus...
We have to go up there. That's quite a steep hill, that we went down yesterday. Even though the sky is already cloudy and it's supposed to start pouring at 3 o'clock, it is so humid. I am completely sweaty although I only have a windbreaker on It would be a good day to probably just ride waering a t-shirt and shorts. But then I would certainly freeze quickly going down the mountain, We are now just before the mountain where it goes up. Zuri will have to get out soon.
But it was already exhausting, because it only goes (up and down) And slow bikes. It's such a anoying headwind. It's super hard to cycle.
Now it's also going uphill. That is not so pleasant. Found it. Yeah. Stage 1 completed. We took a break for 1,5 hours and I charged the battery. Now I should be able to get to Inverness
there I sat with Will & Charlotte for a short while. They even paid for my cappuccino. I just noticed now at the end. Super super sweet. It was so great meeting them, they were so kind.They already left and started cycling. They want to go home today. My plan is to cycle all the way to Inverness Maybe a bit further, because I I have a place to stay in Sandend.
I'll try to get there by tomorrow evening. That's another 200 kilometres or so. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain very, very much. That's why I'm going to try to cycle a bit more today. I hope that the sky will stay dry a bit longer.
That would be really good. It's hard to believe, but I'm riding down a mountain and it's actually really hard work. Because it's such a strong headwind that I can hardly make any progress.
I don't want to know what it would be like if I had to go uphill now. We are now cycling on the A9. I am curious, if it will be very busy, because the A roads are always the very big roads.
and the A roads with the single-digit numbers even more so. Otherwise I am very happy today because it's already the second day, when it is not raining, although it was supposed to rain. I've had so many dry days, it's unbelievable. I would never have expected this in Scotland I had 4 rain days so far and the rest was relatively dry 5 rain days I think. Amazing. Really, really good
I think we are through the mountains. Now there's just farmland, which I don't find so exciting. Back to the adventurous Komoot trails...
Okay, let's see where we get there. What kind of road is this? This has nothing to do with a cycle path. Okay, and where do we go from here? Oh dear, super sandy. Hi It's alright. I'm glad it didn't rain. The road with mud would have been nasty
God, I really hope I get out of here. I'm not so sure about this way. We are actually supposed to use this path down here, but I'm not so sure, so I'm going to go around. There was a little baby kitten, but it ran away. That looks kind of interesting, like it's low tide here right now. I don't know if this is also part of the sea? Behind it the water is moving.
But here nothing is moving. Interesting. But it looks really nice! This is a bay. That means it's definitely an inlet. so it's a bay of the sea. I think that's Inverness up ahead.
The sun! At 5 o'clock it was supposed to start raining Maybe only in the mountains. I just met a cyclist now. He wants to ask me some questions, because he is also planning a cycling trip and has invited me for a drink. He is a bit weird, but I think nice, hopefully. It makes sense to me to get organised here At least you can buy everything here Wow, what a gigantic bridge. I have lost him, because I have followed cycle path 1, and he probably continued straight ahead across the bridge.
Well, he's going to message me on Facebook then and will ask me there what to keep in mind when cycling around the world. I must honestly admit that I was not angry about losing him because a couple of statements gave me an uneasy feeling. He also wanted to sleep where I sleep and he also told everyone we met that he was going to marry me. It is now 8 o'clock and it will be dark in half an hour.
That means I'm going to try to cycle through through the city as quickly as possible, to get out on the other side and then maybe find a place to sleep somewhere. That's nice. Here they have blocked off something for cyclists. Oh, that looks nice. Oh this is getting a bit tight here. Once again nobody has throught of a trailer. One wrong turn. Everything is already closed.
Well, this way we get through the city faster. We now follow cycle route 1. These are pretty steep hills here for a cycle path. It's not worth getting Zuri off in the middle of town, It all looks quite nice here, actually. It's a pity that I have to jet through here a bit. So that I can get to the other side of Inverness.
find a place to sleep before it gets dark Look at the sky. It's amazing what it looks like. It's all blue. Where has the rain gone? I hope it stays good. That would be so good Just outside of Inverness, I made an Instagram post and stopped for it and then a jogger approached me, she asked what I was doing and where I was going to sleep. I said I was actually looking for a place to sleep and then she offered that I can sleep here in the garden, which is super cool.
So I don't have to look for anything else now, it's really getting dark.. So this is my bed for tonight. And where is Zuri? There... Under the bed...hello...
It was a bit difficult with their dog, because he was trying to approach Zuri all the time and Zuri didn't find it very funny. But she behaved very very well. It was a bit stressfull. Yes, but they are super nice. They cooked some dinner for me. I got pizza and quiche and ice cream and cake.
and tomorrow morning I will even get breakfast and they are both so kind. It's an older couple and they have two sons. One of them is also here right now and she is also a music teacher. Yeah and tomorrow morning I can have a shower. So really cool.
I was really lucky, she said that there are no sleeping places around here Nothing for the next kilometres at least 1 hour cycling away. It would have been late. Good Bye biscuit. You are able to run double fast today Yeah, so much food in the morning Thank you for everything. Thank you for the bed, the shower, the breakfast
No, it's fine. It was our pleasure. It was so great with Alison and Colin I had such a good dinner yesterday and this morning I had a really really good breakfast. And their son is a professional musician in Scottish folk music. I got his CD now and I also met him this morning He is also very nice. and I got some cake. For the day as a snack.
So wonderful! and today, I think it will also be really good and dry. I saw on the news yesterday that over the Highlands they had really heavy rain showers yesterday So I have done the right thing in heading east now. Towards the sun.
Beautiful! Ohhh a rainbow!! Cool! So great. What a beautiful day! There is the bridge of Inverness, which I crossed yesterday. Crazy Wow, what a massive bridge. "Dancing in the dark"... I am truly not a singing talent, but the sun made me soo happy.
oh the rainbow is following us. It's been here all day. This is super beautiful! Look at that rainbow, it's just gigantic. It just won't go away.
Still there. How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful. The rainbow, still there, two hours later It's raining here all of a sudden, let's hope that it goes as fast as it came.
Scottish 5 minutes of rain hopefully. Look, I even got some cake from Alison. This has quite a lot of similarities with Germany. We are now cycling towards a castle It is 1 km of diversion But I am sure it's worth it, let's take a closer look. That looks fantastic! I have to say that the cycle path no. 1 so far is rather boring though and it can't keep up at all with the west coast, so it's not worth for me to cycle it from what I have seen so far.
But let's see what else is to come. We're almost at Findhorn. Findhorn, is the largest and oldest ecovillage in Great Britain. Let's see if we can recognise it as an eco village and what it is all about.
Okay, a Caravan Place.. Zuri,Zuri come here. Wooden huts. What else is there? I read that 1400 people feel responsible for the Findhorn community and have also set up their own business in the area. Community Centre Turning food waste back into food OK, that's cool. Looks like eco houses.
Here I have also seen a meditation room It is really nice. The Findhorn Foundation has been around for almost 60 years, three friends have started it and they have 61 houses here now in this eco-village. They have solar, wind turbines, organic vegetables, waste water treatment, UN training centre. They bring about 4 million pounds to the local economy every year It is a very eco-friendly and spiritual community as well. I went to the community shop and bought a chocolate, because the way is kind of boring, so that I need something to eat to keep me entertained.
We now have 55 km of 110 km from today, it is half approximately This looks like a military airport. The good thing is that we can sleep at Bob's tonight. Bob has been following me since the last trip through Eastern Europe and had more or less persuaded me to do this round alons the East Coast, because the roads are smaller here. This is at least one advantage eventhough it seem a bit boring, and I have a place to sleep and therefore I don't need to charge my battery, because I will probably make the 100 km with two full batteries.
or 120 km, what we have today. But it's been a long day of cycling 7 hours cycling, so 7 hours really cycling. pure riding. That's really long. Today only straight roads, we had only 2-3 small hills, and the battery ran out after 75 km. That is much more than in the Scottish Highlands. I don't know if you can see that right now on the display, but I am on cycle route 1, and the first 2 km Komoot said: "turn around, turn around, turn around" I really don't like that about Komoot That you are on a real cycle path and it tries to steer you away from it.
I hope it does not affect us that would be really annoying because it didn't say that anywhere before. It said "closed", but I just cycled passed the sign because there was no construction work. So we were lucky. Not like in Eastern Germany last year There were just so many road works blocking the cycle lanes. Look, the pigs are having a great life.
They all have boxes here where they can sleep. Very cool. That is soo good. I saw that in Finland the last time. Happy pigs Bob, where I'm going tonight, just wrote me that the beer is already chilled, that we are having vegan curry and that my bed is already prepared and the shower is also ready for me Mega cool.
Now we have 33 kilometres left, it is still 2,5 hours to go then we have cycled almost 120 kilometres. This is the longest day of the tour so far. I am glad that it is relatively flat and also sunny Interesting sheep, they have a completely different face.
They are very, very muscular. Now we have missed the cycle path because the Komoot road does not go where it should go, but here it is. A shortcut that wasn't a shortcut. But good, it was one for us. Looks like an old train line It's quite cool.
ohhh, it kept us waiting for some hours. We now have cycled 98.5 km. Soon, we will reach the sea. This will be a bit nicer Another view at the rainbow Left and right...
This is the official cycle route, that's not much use here, especially because at the bottom the tarmac road continues next to the sea hi Did I actually tell you that Alison also gave me the CD of her son, who is is a folk music artist. A very very good one. It is also the music you are listening to right now. As you can see back there the very distant mountains, that's by the way, the north coast of Scotland. Ullapool and that area but even further upwards, because it sort of stretches out like that and then Scotland goes around here.
The rainbow is back too. Even a double rainbow this time. Always stupid when cycle paths go up the mountain and a perfect road runs right past the sea, you see here it goes further uphill. Scots do much, much better with the barriers. Small, lonely beach The views here are great, much better than all the farms before but it's amazing how many golf courses there are in Scotland. I didn't expect that the Scots are all so golf fanatical.
Wow, what a beach He says he is standing by the road Hi, I found it! Finally That was a long ride Yeah, I think the longest so far Look at this I have just heard that the farmers are now slowly starting to clear the fields from the middle, because it gives all the animals a chance to run away, so all the birds and mice, because if it was still harvested from the outside, how it was done in the past, they would get caught and then the birds would die in the process. As you can see, I am here in my bunk bed room. This is sort of a little garden shed. and here I can sleep tonight and it was really good, Bob made me some really really delicious curry. It was really great. That was so good then I got raspberries for dessert and for tomorrow morning, he's already got me some porridge and he put all the coffee things here.
Coffee up here and a cup here and he even bought me Soy milk because I said, that I don't want to drink normal cow milk any more. So really cool. He used to be a tour guide, an adventure tourguide and he told me a lot of interesting stories, from India and from Scandinavia and Portugal, especially with tourist groups.
The things you are exposed to to him the environment is also very, very important. And he tried to teach this to the people because it is all so important. Most of them were middle class people, who have influence in society and through this I think he also made a contribution.
And now he is retired and is writing his memoirs. So kind of cool. Yeah so, I'm going to sleep now because it's 10.30 pm and tomorrow we have another 100km day ahead of us.
And the second one will be a bit more strenuous than the first. Well, yesterday was 100 kilometres too, So good night from here. In the next episode it's going to stay exciting. Among others: I was completely perplexed when a bus driver gave me 40 pounds.
I got locked in in a construction site on Friday night at 6 o'clock Sylvia and Julian show us the seal beach. And we are spontaneously invited again, this time with a real whisky tasting. See you in the next video.
2022-02-05 00:14
