Day 5 - the serious sightseeing begins

It's an indication of how strong the winds were yesterday that today we set off in winds of 25mph that would have normally put us off at home. Getting going was hard as we got a strong headwind immediately as we rode out of the hotel which kept us down to about 7mph. After that, whenever we were heading roughly East we were flying along, but any direction of travel with a Westerly component was painfully slow. Other than the wind, the weather has been great, with negligible rainfall, lots of blue skies and pleasant temperatures.

We'd planned lots of sightseeing which turned out to be a bit of a challenge as lots of it wasn't signed at all when we got there. We found most of what we set out to see with the undoubted highlight being the particularly difficult to access large scale camera obscura at Lochmaddy (think pinhole camera from Y7 Physics) from which you can see the picture projected onto the wall below. Interestingly this shows up better in the photo than it did when you saw it live inside the camera obscura.

It's been a pleasant surprise over the past few days to occasionally bump into people that we met on the ferry across on Tuesday. Today we bumped into a couple of young ladies at the local Coop who are staying near us and traveling on the same ferry as us tomorrow. Comparing notes about our impressions they agreed that the Hebrides are the home of the passing places as well as the home of the defibrillator which seem to be. everywhere.

We also chatted to another young lady by herself who amazingly was camping and cycling but managing to do it carrying less with her than we are, don't ask me how!

The answers to the questions we are sure you're asking:

- 3 pairs of underpants/socks are more than enough and we are managing to wash clothes as we go along

- cycle routes are all working perfectly. Where would we be without Garmins?

Balanced scorecard (0-10)

Total miles cycled 96

Wetness level 0

Stress level 0

Tiredness 3/4

Scenery 8

Enjoyment 9

Kite flying 0

Excess calorie intake 5

Sightseeing 9

Midgie count 0