We enter the Highlands

Last night at the Milton Inn was a bit dismal.  Although dinner was great, the room was unbearably hot (yes, even for me) but our room looked out onto the kitchen extractor vent.  So we had a choice of closing the windows and being suffocatingly hot, or opening them and putting up with an overpowering smell of gasoline and stale food.  We picked the latter - and it was still pretty hot.  So unsurprisingly, we didn't sleep well.

Any bad temperedness as a result was immediately dispersed by the improbably cheerful staff who greeted us at breakfast with absolute exuberance.  That was the weird thing about the place, despite being an absolute dump, the staff were fantastic.  Despite that, I was not sorry to leave.

Sean and I took exactly the same route today, as there is basically only one road between Dumbarton and Fort William which is the A82.  It was comforting driving along knowing that he would later be following me.  However today's driving took me waaaay outside my comfort zone as it was narrow winding roads.  I found this hard going and coupled with the lack of sleep, after about an hour and a half I had a banging headache.  I pulled off at Glen Coe Mountain Cafe, which promised spectacular views, and did indeed deliver these.  It was the break from driving I really needed though, and that coupled with an espresso did the trick and I set off again fully refreshed.

I had to laugh at myself after a while, as the views really were spectacular and it was completely wasted on me.  I kept waiting for that feeling people go on about but... no.  I'm just not an outdoorsy/scenery kind of person.  Well we all knew that already, didn't we.

As I reached Fort William it began to rain, as forecast, and continued to do so, heavily, for the rest of the day.  It was a relief that the weather wasn't so hot any more, but I felt for Sean knowing that he was undoubtedly getting very wet and cold.  Nothing a hot bath and hot tea on arrival wouldn't fix, though.

Our hotel, Lime Tree House, was absolutely lovely and made up for the travails of Dumbarton.  It has an art gallery attached so I spent a little while looking around there (much better than looking at scenery!) before retiring to my room for my usual routine of resting, pilates, qi gong and reading.  It was a short day for Sean so he arrived around 4:30, which was a treat as we get to spend a bit more of a leisurely evening together.

Two milestones from today - we set the mileometer on the car to zero when we left, and today it passed 1000 miles.  And this is officially the furthest north I've ever been, the previous record being Dunblane.