Day 14: Kyleakin to Home

We were on the road at 05.17 this morning and here is Tony taking a last look from the Skye Bridge as we crossed over from Kyleakin to Kyle of Lochalsh for the train to Inverness.

Kyle - Duirinish - Plockton - Stromeferry - Strathcarron - Achnashellach - Achnasheen - Achanalt - Lochluichart - Garve - Dingwall - Conon Bridge - Muir of Ord - Beauly - Inverness

Place names which evoke history and tradition and stunning landscape.  This first stage in our journey home passed through areas we know well and love:  wooded islets; rocky coves; lochs and lochan; brilliant yellow gorse; deer and sheep and hares; mountains; lowlands; cottages.

In Inverness we had breakfast and stocked up on books for the next stage of the journey home.  I picked up Graham Norton's first novel and enjoyed it very much.

It has been a very long day, fourteen hours before Jen and Pete met us at Bingley Station to drive our panniers home - since we awoke in Saucy Mary's this morning.  Tony remarked that we had got half way to New Zealand in the same time.

Jen and Pete asked us about our holiday.  We agreed the Outer Hebrides are very beautiful and the islands all have their individual landscapes, some more appealing to us than others.  We wished we had spent a bit more time staying in one place to explore, for example, Barra and Vatersay further.  The weather had not been brilliant but we had set the bar low knowing the unpredictabilities of island weather.  We wish it was easier to take your bikes on the train (and that the food onboard was better!)  

We are glad to be home.  The neighbours have done an excellent job of keeping our plants alive and they have painted our shed!

I will not be setting the alarm tomorrow!

Here are the two of us earlier in the week.