8th August - Inverness

At Inverness railway station in the morning the East Coast "Highland Chieftain" service to London Kings Cross sat waiting to start its day long journey, it's a journey I really want to do but haven't had a chance to, the sound of even the upgraded IC125 sets thrashing over Slodh and Drumochter must be impressive (although with the turbo whistle they had prior to the engine upgrades it must have been better).

Unfortunately there was only 1 bike space on this service so James got that to Perth and was told he'd have to chance it up to Arbroath, the next available bike space was early afternoon so I was left with all morning in Inverness to spend. (It was actually the only space left so I could have been cycling to Aberdeen or Aviemore)

Part of the reason for the lack of space was due to a mainland weather problem, while we had only been drenched once in the whole of our journey the mainland had been drookit the whole week and the rains had washed away the line to Aberdeen somewhere near Elgin.

With so much time to spare I decided I'd circle the Moray firth, I headed off up along the Shore Road, and onto the Kessock Bridge before heading inland to Muir of Ord and Beauly and then back along the south of the Firth.

When I got back there was still plenty of time so I put my bags (yeah I was still riding with them!) into left luggage, tied the bike up on the station racks and went for a wander by the river out to the islands near Bught Park and back, I even discovered that the Inverness shopping centre has a clock just like the Wellgate in Dundee has, but I couldn't wait around to see if it did the same things.

I stood in the line for the train (as they do at Inverness) and the conductor approached me, sent me to the front and checked my ticket, "Ha, Bike and Coach B, there's no rack in Coach B, use the one in A as the one in C will be full with luggage."  He then sent me on ahead of everyone else.

I had bought a ticket for Leuchars deliberately, because at Dundee the lift isn't big enough to take a bike up the stairs and there was no way I was going to get 40Kg of bike and luggage up the station stairs at Dundee. The train I was on stopped at Ladybank so I got off there, much to the amusement of the conductor on the Edinburgh to Aberdeen train I got on to get back up to Leuchars!

I didn't bother to point out to him that there was no way my bike was getting up the stairs at Dundee.

Alighting at Leuchars I wheeled the bike up the ramp over the bridge and set off home with what little energy I had left.

GPS Tracks:
Inverness to Beauly
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/347805

Beauly to Inverness
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/347790

Inverness Walk:
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/347810

Leuchars to Home:
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/347799

Photos: