Day 33: pretty Black Isle

Day 33:

Day 33: 'I can't stop eating. Full Scottish breakfast this morning, roast beef lunch and fish and chips tonight, plus various snacks when I can fit them in - my Snickers habit is barely controllable' - Richard Fosh (2 x Lejoger, also from Basingstoke). I know what you mean Foshy. Yesterday afternoon I ate a 3 course meal in Johnny Fox's in Inverness, and 5 hours later I bought 2 pizzas from Dominos, ate the entire large one plus a large bar of chocolate on top of 6 or 7 pints. Then a full Scottish at 08:30 this AM, followed by the second pizza, more chocolate and another 3 course meal. I will have cookies and maybe more chocolate before bed. Did I mention recovery and electrolyte shakes? And a can of coke? And 3 more pints? This is the only time in my life where I can eat anything I can get hold of in any quantity and still lose weight. It will be tough to re-adjust. I'll need to start running again...I like Inverness. I left the B&B at 10 and walked over to the Tattoo Centre where I had Friedrich's 'Wanderer above a sea of fog' tattood on my chest in May this year by Kenny who was most surprised to see me! The staff are great there, friendly and professional and genuine artistic talents with needle and ink. After that I walked the familiar route to Kessock Bridge, crossed it, and walked over pretty Black Isle. I took a quiet route to the Cromarty Bridge before re-joining the busy A9 and continuing via cycle route 1 to Alness and finally Invergordon where I am now (7 hours 45; 24 miles?). The landscape here is distant mountain peaks rolling down to rich farmland and the firth. So - 98 miles left. The schedule says 4 more days. But can I do it in 3?

DAY 34

The mouth of the River Ness, Inverness, from Kessock Bridge.

Kessock Bridge.

My favourite piece of LEJOG graffiti from an underpass in Kessock on Cycle Route 1.

A really pretty view south over the Moray Firth from Black Isle. This view looks towards Inverness airport.

I could convince you this landscape is Hampshire, not the extreme north east of Scotland. The similarities are many, the differences few.

When you run out of place names...


Sheep meditating.

The Cromarty Bridge. I was escorted over this by two workmen who were put there specifically to escort idiots like me over the road works who insist on crossing the bridge on foot or bicycle. They were very talkative and keen to hear about my travels.

The Ocean Vanguard oil rig moored in the Cromarty Firth.

Invergordon. The construction on the left is called the Maersk Reacher.

A note about the blog

I must be the only LEJOGer without a smart phone. This means I don't have the ability to update this blog when I'm on the trail. My support team back home kindly offered to update the blog for me, so this will be communicated by text message and written up on my behalf. It will therefore be brief and without photos. I will expand on this when I get back from my journal entries, dictaphone recordings and photo journal. The detailed account will be published as a book which will be available on Amazon.

Charity

Thank you to everyone who has made a donation to Helping Hands for the Blind, a respectable local charity. You can make a donation here. Using Gift Aid, the charity is able to claim an additional percentage of each donation from the government as part of the Gift Aid scheme.  

While I am not tracking how much has been raised, the charity themselves may wish to do that; leaving a note with your donation such as "LEJOG" will help them do that. To be frank, it's more important that they receive donations than it is for me to take credit; they're actually doing something important whereas I am going on what could be described as a holiday.

My books

Lastly and leastly, I am an independent author. Writing is a pleasure even if reading it isn't! I will write an account of my LEJOG journey in the form of a book which hopefully will encourage other people to give LEJOG a try (and probably discourage many more). If you want a copy, the first batch will be given free of charge. Ask and you shall receive...

My other books are available on Amazon:


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