52.6km: 1017m accent: 771m highest point: 5 hours ride time
Punctures 1: Stacks 0
A still morning as we left Fort Augustus, a pleasent surprise seeming 25mph winds were forecast.
The route today took us up over Corrieyairack Pass along General Wades military road. There was not much in the way of warming up, we were quickly heading up.
Several stops were had along the way, we had learnt from yesterday that regular stops involving usually a whole lunch worth of food was required. Sometimes under-sized jelly babies or a carrot were enough!
Unlike yesterday, the track was ridable....if you had it in your legs still!
The top gave us the backdrop for our group photo of the day, a 10 second timer wasn't quite enough to get all three of us on top of the old electrical building...you just have to imagine the end result!
The descent consisted of many consecutive switch backs, the patches of gravel provided some opportunities to slide the back wheel around and on one or two this has build up a berm. The gradient steadied off, then came the drainage ditches. Most of which could be hopped, avoided or not - resulting in a blow out.
The second lunch of the day was had in this rather luxurious bothy with its sofas.
We were then back on the tarmac, time to whittle down the miles. The lane became the A-road (quite non the less) which bought us into Newtonmore - our home for the night. The Straithspey Hostel was quite and a short walk to the shop which had convenient opening time for us to refuel and restock for the next day.
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