Day 15

Today it rained, almost non-stop. The forecast said that it would clear up in the afternoon but apart from a brief period it rained all day and Skye was covered in cloud. But I started off optimistically, waited for the local shop to open to get some breakfast and just wearing my shorts and rain jacket I set off but by the time I got to Broadford, some 26km, I was soaked and cold. Trying to change my map over to the next photo-copied sheet I reduced the next 3 maps to a ball of ink stained papier-mâché. The garage at Broadford sold everything, so, I bought a new map, had some coffee and stocked up on food. After another 10km the rain was being particularly spiteful and was getting in my eyes so much I had to keep stopping. There was the ferry terminal to the isle of Raasay and I found they had a little waiting room complete with heater which was on. I stopped, put my leggings on and ate some food. Although there were no great views, because of the mist, there were some interesting sights along the way. I stopped to take a picture of a rather splendid cow. "A.Mc.1000b" it said her name was on her ear tag. "That's a catchy name you've got there old girl" I said. "Not so much of the 'old' if you don't mind." She said, "I hate to be reminded of the brevity of bovine mortality." "Sorry," I said. Then changed the subject. "Wet. Isn't it? " "Makes the grass grow and my cream nice and rich for little A.Mc.1000b here." "Well, it's nice to meet an intellectual cow." I said. "Nice, to meet a human that has time to talk to a cow. Oh, here come a party of trippers with their cameras, stick the old horns out, cover my eyes with hair and 'mooooo!"
The next interesting thing was a swallow which darted across in front of me, no talking swallow, just a quick 'tweet, tweet.' Close behind it was a hawk. I thought that the hawk could never catch a swallow but although it swooped and dived the hawk was a match for it and caught it in mid flight. There's one swallow that will not make it back to Africa. Maybe it was a youngster and had not done the journey yet.
I climbed and rolled down hills in the pouring rain slowly and headed off down in the Glen of Glenbrittle. I hitch-hiked to this valley some 42 years ago and walked the last 6 miles over the mountains to the hostel there. It is such a wild and remote valley on the side of the Cuillin Mountains that I fell in love with it and stayed for about 10 days making friends, climbing, walking and making boat trips. I said I'd return and here I am.
Only 8km to go down the single track lane. I was going down a short hill being aware that there was a car behind that might try to squeeze past on the bend, I slowed down because it was a sharp bend and went to change gear, there was a broken road edge but for some reason I did not miss it and the front wheel went down into the hole and I went flying across the road. I knew that I had not hurt anything seriously (years of falling over when I was drunk, trained me how to fall) but I was worried about my bike. The people in the car behind stopped and asked if I was OK, there was a hissing from the front tyre, "I'm fine," I said "but I don't know about my bike." I picked it up quickly and spun the front wheel - it still looked straight. I moved to a wide bit of grass where I could change the inner tube. There was a small dent in the front wheel but it did not look like it would effect the brakes. I changed the tube, pumped it up and then realised that I had trapped the inner tube in the outer tyre. I could hear my Dad over my shoulder saying "Always give a couple of pumps and then check the tube is not trapped." "I did," I said "clear off" So, I did it all again and pumped it up a second time and set off - carefully. All seemed to be ok. So, I think the trip is still on.
I am now at Glenbrittle SHYA which has not changed a great deal. I am warm, dry and well fed. Getting changed, I realised why things had gone wrong today, sure I was not being careful enough on a narrow wet road, whilst going fast down hill and I was tired, wet and cold. But the real reason was - I had been wearing my shirt inside-out all day. - how embarrassing.
75 km today. Did I mention the rain?