THE LAST DAY!!!!

A brilliant, sunny September Lewisian morning with a welcome home reception committee of our home grown midges (much more vicious than their Skye cousins).  An excellent breakfast and ready to set off, contacted Dave Rattray (who was to cycle with us for the last day), to rendezvous at Achmore when Martin discovered he had a flat rear tyre (to match the front puncture he had on the first day).  A 20 minute delay while we removed the offending shards of glass from the tyre and fitted a new tube.

Then off in the sunshine (after a further delay trying to find my sunglasses which I must have left behind somewhere - not having needed them for nearly 2 weeks), again unencumbered by bags.  A couple of miles down the road I realised I had left something else behind - my water bottles!  Briony to the rescue again, doing a U-turn on her drive back to Stornoway to collect the bottles from my hotel room and deliver them to me.  Rattray had been waiting for an hour by the time we met up with him at Achmore.

Dave (Mr Fair-weather Cyclist) Rattray

The 3 of us had great ride chatting in the autumn sunshine.  What a fabulous part of the world we live in - the scenery is stunning and second to none!!
We stopped for lunch at Loch Croistean  café where we weren't charged and were also given a generous donation by the owner Marianne.  Then the final leg to Uig. I was way ahead of the other two and waited for them at the turn-off to Gallan Head.  Dave arrived first and carried on past.  Then Briony arrived by car followed closely by Martin.  The next to show were Sylvia and Linda so I had a quick reunion hug.

So off to Gallan Head and the finish with the last mile being quite hairy as the road has steep ups and downs which are very gravelly in parts.

Dave, Sylvia, Martin, Briony, Linda, Don

And so the FINISH to be greeted by bubbly, Dave, Briony, Sylvia, Linda, Eric MacKinnon from the Stornoway Gazette and Rachel Wade from the Linda Norgrove Foundation.


Home for a bath and change, a quick pint at the Carlton (another beer but it doesn't count!) and then for a celebratory meal at the Crown.