Lochness

Today I have taken the longest time getting from point A to point B. Along Lochness via some of the Caledonian canal.

As seems to be usual the morning is beautiful and sunny, but sometime in the afternoon rain occurs. And I don't know what is usual for this area but it seems to keep getting me like the monsoons of Asia and quite literally today I cycled around a corner straight into torrents of the wet stuff, and as fast as I tried I was quite wet through by the time I got my raincoat on. And then I rode out of it on the next bend, all quite bizzar, almost like it had its own micro climate?
The option to ride along the canal was not something that I had planned for, but it makes a lovely change to both get off the fast roads and take a spell on the flat tow paths.
The idea of a large mug of sweet tea and a large piece of coffee cake at a tiny tea rooms just on the edge of the canal and about 100 metres off the road helped settle the matter of choice, should I stay to my plan or deviate? No contest!
This was another quite long day for me though at about 70 miles, but I knew that once settled in the hostel I was invited to dinner with another as yet unknown friend, George and his wife. George has done the 'trip' at least twice with youngsters, now that is a challenge!
They dried some of my wet clothes from the day and allowed me a lovely hot shower before a good meal and chat.
Before you could say 'knife' or what ever your choice of short word, it was 22.30hrs and time to get to bed, again. I must say that like a child at Christmas I didn't want the days to end and so tried to hang each moment out as long as possible.
The hostel is like any other independent backpackers, quite a clutter of bodies and stuff often jammed into a building bursting at the seams. Something I used to love, but obviously age is creaping in and it all seemed too much trouble! Eight of us jammed in a room for four on bunks that would look good in a skip. And the totally un-thoughtful, elongated rustling of plastic bags in the middle of the night and early morning totally finished me off!

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