Friday, May 31, 1996
From Portree to Shiel Bridge
57.4 miles
The first time I woke up on what turned out to be the worst day of my holidays was at 4 o' clock in the morning. Outside was a heavy thunderstorm and the rain was beating heavy against my window. Hoping that it would be better in the morning I fell asleep again. When I got up and went down for breakfast the rain had stopped but the wind had changed to a real storm. The fishermen who came in told me that it had been a horrible night and that they expected the day to become even worse. When I heard that I dropped the plan of cycling around the northern part of Skye. I was really sorry for that but going that way would have meant at least two days on the road and in the tent and that in real bad weather. So I decided to ride back the way I came the day before (I'm glad it was the only time I had to go back the way I had come) as soon as posibble. As the bicycle shop only opened at 10 in the morning I left without a new spare tube, hoping that nothing serious would happen. But anyway I knew that I'd be riding a busy road and that in the case of some unforseen problems I would always find some help.
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Considering the rain this day was really good. I think I only had one or two light showers. But the headwinds I had were merciless and strong. I even couldn't cycle anymore, I had to dismount and push my bike. And more than one time I just stood there pulling the brakes and holding to the handlebar because I just couldn't move any more. This went on for about 9 miles until I reached Sligachan. There the wind swept down from the mountains and for about 5 miles I had a wonderful backwind pushing me along the road. But nonetheless this wind was pretty dangerous because every second you could be hit be a sidewind that would push you about 2 meters into the road, and as I told before there was lots of traffic on that road.
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After passing Loch Ainort I met the two Germans again whom I had met a couple of days before when cycling up Loch Linnhe. We talked for about 15 minutes and then they went on towards Portree and I pushed on towards Kyle. The last miles before I reached the bridge at Kyle of Lochalsh were o.k. because I had a strong backwind then. The view from the bridge was great with the clouds racing the sky and the water beating up on the shores. At a small parking place with a good view I took a break for about half an hour and then went on to reach one of the places I definitely wanted to see: Eilean Donan Castle.
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I stopped for another hour at Eilean Donan just enjoying not to cycle and to walk and after the normal tourist behaviour (oh, let's take a photo) I went on along Loch Duich until I came to Shiel Bridge. Riding that road around Loch Duich was really hard, because the wind was blowing in from the sea so heavily that more than one time I had to dismount and push the bike. In Glen Shiel I stopped at the campig site and put up my tent. As it was still storming I only could hope that my tent would make it through the night. As I lay in my sleeping back writing some postcards the tent was nearly pushed down on me. But at least during the night I had luck, because the tent gave me no problems. There were other people there that night who were not so lucky.
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