UPDATE: Day 7-8
Sorry for not posting an update yesterday, it's been a crazy couple of days. We had very little signal last night (if any at all) to send a text or call, let along post a blog update. We were staying in a valley in little wooden lodges, see picture below:
Day 7 we started in Edinburgh (South Queensferry) and finished just outside of Ballater. I'm pretty sure we saw some royals too near Balmoral, there was a vintage Rolls-Royce which sat in-between two identical Range Rovers, one placed behind and one placed in front! Day 8 (today) we started just outside of Ballater and finished in Easter Fearn.
The elevation over the last couple of days has been insane, we've climbed up and over two ski resorts in the last two days! Our bodies don't quite know what's happened to them, mine a little bit too much, to the point where yesterday I thought I was close to calling it quits - I managed to pull a muscle or ligament in my right leg (upper). I didn't know If I would make it back to the wooden huts for our stopover last night, but with a concoction of paracetamol and ibuprofen, along with rubbing Voltarol in every few hours, I managed to nurse my leg back to our huts in the end. I've been on the pain killer concoction since yesterday and so far it's been helping, still very sore though.
Because of the elevation profile and the injury, today was an extremely long day in the saddle, just under 9 hours. The weather has also been quite varied today too, one minute we were in short sleeves, the next minute we were at the top of a mountain at the ski resort getting rained on, we were literally freezing and had to change into long sleeves, gillet and jacket just to stay warm!
It's been a pretty stressful couple of days, but we're now ready to tackle the last day tomorrow, 9 days after we started and we are really excited to be crossing that finish line at John O'Groats. It's been an amazing experience and we're so happy to have shared this with you. Thanks for all the overwhelming support you've given us through this and for donating to such a special charity, we really do help it will improve lives for loved ones.
We look forward to posting our final update tomorrow, but in the mean time please see some photos and Strava summaries below from the last couple of days:
Strava summary day 7:
Strava summary day 8:
Forth Road Bridge (Queensferry):
Top of the ski resort on day 7:
Have a little rest stop by the river in the middle of nowhere:
Random rock with writing on, not quite sure what it means:
At the top of the second ski resort on day 8, this time with pcitures of what we look like for the camera versus what we actually feel like:
Nairn Viaduct:
Viewpoint of Dornoch Firth:
View from the house on day 8: