Both Finn and I dream about his birthday. He dreams he is a ninja and has to fight lots of snakes in our house with his sword, and when he gets them he says ‘heeYAH heeeYAHH!’ And then he gets to eat his cake because he did such a good job. On the other hand, in my dream we’re at the wrong place and nothing is organised and I’m letting everyone down.
To the cemetery on Broadford Bay, we watch a man in gumboots go to spend time with his cows, and I am reminded of my father.
We wander into Broadford to get coffee, groceries, and more sunshine. Broadford Bay is lovely. Possibly less lovely when overcast and raining. Probably all of Scotland is lovely in the current weather.
Looking at the traffic we decide against taking the A road to head further north. It’s just too busy and narrow. Instead we turn south and cycle down Sleat.
A woman and her father are cycling towards us, and recommend the steep way through Tarskavaig. By the time we get there, the weather is looking threatening, and Alex has tired legs. I bow to common sense, and we choose the easy route.
A few kilometres out from Armadale it starts to rain on us. We cut through some gardens and past a castle, accidentally avoiding paying an entry fee.
A black faced sheep with four fat lambs runs ahead of us on the road.
We pull into the Rubha Phoil wild eco forest garden and campground. It rains. We select a camping spot from the camp pads strewn throughout the forest and along the coastline. Set up in the rain, then cook in the cabana.
There, I find a tick on me. Argh! A tick! Panic! We get it off using the fancy new plastic tick remover device we’d bought a few days before. (This was the only time we got to use it, not because there weren’t any more ticks, but because after this Someone was playing with it and it went mysteriously missing, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth)
As it continues raining, Finn and I sit in the tent and eat an entire packet of shortbread, in an act of self defence. #ican’tstopeatingshortbread #somebodystopme #it’sjustsotasty
By then, being 8pm it’s basically late enough to start falling asleep – when out cycle touring apparently we can all easily spend half the day sleeping.
Notable quotes from Finn
“Where are the clouds?”
“Do I like Irn Bru?” (answer is yes apparently… we have our first today, it tastes a bit like creamy soda)
Distance: 33km
Elevation gain: 270m
Location: Ashaig to Armadale (Isle of Skye)