chalk and cheese

What a difference a day makes...
yesterday, rain, broken bikes, mountain bike trials and the worst B&B/pub of the trip - The Station inn at Alness, dont think i'll give them a good rating on trip advisor. Bless the 2 old dears who served us breakfast though. the guys were ok as they had the standard english breakfast, however i threw non standard order at them "poached eggs and beans on toast please". they came back to the table 4 times to confirm my order and it took the best part of half an hour to serve. Did I mention they wrote the order down when they first took the order. Rob has a working theory that she couldn't actually write and just doodled on the pad as we asked for our orders!
On to day 10: Alness to Melvich, about 90 miles. the sun was shining, the wind was favourable for most of the day and the roads were possible the best I have ever riden on. miles and miles of smooth tarmac and the most amazing views of forests, hills, lochs. Yesterday I hated Scotland, today it was an amazing place. We had our first glimse of the Atlantic ocean on the far North coast and with that we knew we were nearly home. The place was Bettyhill and the views of the beach were wonderful. We then had a hard final 10ish mile slog to Melvich, but it was worth it. We are staying at the Melvich hotel, certainly the poshed place on the stay - i think it's well deserved for our last night of the trip. Just a 40 mile ride in the morning to the coast and then thats it, job done.