The Pictish Trail

We drove up to Edinburgh and left our car in the airport parking. This is a very cheap way of leaving your car near the city if you are away for multiple days. Then rode into Edinburgh to get the train up to Thurso. I want to make it clear at this point that Scotrail do not allow tandems. I had read the website and it did state this, but I thought I would give them a call as I presumed lots of people would take their tandems in that direction to do rides like the End to End etc. IU was told it would be fine and I booked two bike spaces just to be sure, even though the guy in the call centre said a tandem is just one bike, book one bike space. As I say I booked two. On the ground they do not allow tandems and they were very accommodating and I think because we were not getting the train back, we were cycling they let us continue with our journey. Either way, the first time we got stopped we were halfway, so we would of been stranded if they did not let us on a train in either direction. We got this route from Bikepacking.com

When we got to Thurso it was late evening. We cycled to Dunnet Head so that we did not need to cycle there in the morning to save us some time. We were stopping the night just a mile from the top of Dunnet Head so it made sense to nip up there and get that little bit done to save us some time the nest day. We stopped at http://windhaven.co.uk/. They also rescue seals and we got to see four babies ones that must have got separated from their mums. The people that own the site are very friendly and I would recommend them if you are in the area. You have the option of camping or B&B.

The first few days riding was really hot. The scenery was beautiful forest tracks and country roads. To tell you the truth I am going to start to write a dairy as when I sit down to write these blogs a few weeks later it is difficult to put days in order so I will just tell you about some of the highlights.

On the first day we went up a beautiful forest track and their was a lake so it was only natural to strip of and have a naked swim to cool off. There were many lakes on this stretch and it would be no problem at all do have a dip in a few places.

When we stopped we were not bothered too much by midges. It was mainly bigger flies attracted the the smell of the sweat that were more annoying when you stopped.

However on the first nights wild camping. We must of put up our tent near where some tick eggs must have been laid. There were loads of them, as I am paranoid about them I spotted the smaller ones crawling up my legs and up the sides and the doors of the tent. We did get quite a few inside the tent which I would try to squash, but they are hardly little blighters. If they had been large ones I would have freaked out, but they were tiny ones that had probably not had their first feed, so the chance of a Lymes I presume may be reduced, this is not medical advice, it is just my own thinking.

Anyway, we had just finished cooking and eating and got in our tent. We could here this noise outside that sounded like rain on the tent, but when we got in it was blue sky everywhere. We opened the door and it was black outside with midges!! We just missed them! But when we opened the door for our little look quite a few made a run for it and managed to get in.

In the morning we had a thunderstorm, but by the time we wanted to get up it had passed. We got out of the tent and the midges were gone. We were very lucky on the trip as that was the only time we would of been troubled by them.

The rest of the trip was lovely. We saw more seals in lakes, a stag turned to stare at us and it was just the other side of a fence. You can see it in the video.

The Fungle Road section was hard work pushing the tandem up, but when we got to the top the views and remoteness of the area was stunning. There is a lovely little museum after the decent which is worth a stop if you stick to the road. https://www.gleneskfolkmuseum.org/

As we were on the tandem we did not take little off road sections for the sake of going off road. We take take them if they were for a good length of time like the Fungle Road.

So after the Fungle Road we made our way to the coast. We camped at a beautiful and quiet bay. Lunan Bay. There is one campsite and one shop. It was totally stunning. We had the whole soft sandy beach to ourselves. https://www.facebook.com/lunanfarm/

After this we cycled to the Pillars of Hercules farm shop and campsite. http://www.pillars.co.uk/. Again, a very nice stop.

A top trip that I can highly recommend.