The trail from Aviemore north to Boat of Garten is probably the most enjoyable section of the whole trip. The trail winds its way through a forest of old Scots Pines and heather and couldn’t be a better place to cycle.

Boat of Garten is followed by Carrbridge with its very picturesque old pack horse bridge. From here the road rises gradually towards Slochd Summit at 400 metres above sea level. I was caught in a fierce downpour just before the summit and the temperature was about 5 degrees despite being in the middle of summer. The ride down to Tomatin provided a bit of respite and I had a hot chocolate and a Kit Kat from the local store to replace some energy. I ate it at the seats outside with two foreign lady cyclists with very fancy bikes and not a lot of conversation – but then they probably said the same about me. This reminded me that my Dutch chums hadn’t been seen today.

I carried on fortified, and made it to the site of the Culloden battlefield. The location of the last great unpleasantness between Scotland and England has now got a very fancy visitor centre and is less than 5 miles from Inverness where I met up with my support team, back on duty again, for lunch.

From Inverness it was a 12 mile ride over the Kessock Bridge to Dingwall to finish for the day. The distance travelled was 57 miles and the height climbed was 2,400 feet.

Tomorrow I’m going to be cycling with my friend Jim Kellas and he and his wife, Sylvia, called round to the hotel to make arrangements for the next day. It’s great that Jim has made the effort to join me – he was Best Man to Helen and me at our wedding a million years ago and he is a proper, proper cyclist. As a measure of what I mean, he cycled LEJOG in the 1990’s in 6 days - yes that was 6 days or 150 miles a day. Jim expressed surprise that I don’t have stabilisers on my bike to keep it upright at the pace that takes 23 days to complete. He is going to cycle with his brakes on tomorrow.