What a glorious day for our penultimate day of riding! We had an easy day of mainly “downhill” coming down from the Scottish Highlands and starting our final push for the north coast. The area we rode through was particularly effected in history by the barbaric “highland clearances”. This was where the wealthy landlords decided that they could make more money by grazing sheep than from the tenant farmers (or crofters), who had farmed the land since time immemorial. So the farmers were thrown out of their houses with no notice before the houses were burnt to the ground. There was one story I read about on widow who followed her husband around the world to the places he was fighting for king and country. After he was killed in battle she returned to this area of her birth. The landlord’s guards arrived to throw her out of her house and she begged them to give her enough time to get her things out as they were all she possessed. They threatened to start straight away so she could only drag the furniture a short distance from the house. The wind that was blowing took the flames from her house across to her furniture and ended up burning the lot to ashes.
It was such a delight to reach the sea this evening and it almost felt like we had finished even though we still hard 80 odd kms to ride the next day. Our hotel had a view from a cliff above the sea so we could see the rugged cliffs and beautiful sandy beaches in the estuaries.
The weather tomorrow is forecast to turn really bad so i hope this changes overnight.
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- The Crask Hotel
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- Tea stop at the Crask Hotel
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- Welcome cup of hot tea and cake at the Crask Hotel
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- Naver River
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- Lock Naver
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- Corrugated iron hut
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- Missionary church – corrugated iron
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- Lunch stop next to the graveyard – Sue, Lyn and Mary
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- Col and Karyn nearly there to Bettyhill
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- Estuary Bettyhill
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- View from our hotel down to the estuary at Bettyhill
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- Cut peat stack in Bettyhill
