West coast tour: Day 6

Wild fire damage on Liathach

Dundonnel - Sheildaig.  More sun, and lots of hills!  After tea of fish and chips in Ullapool, I pushed on to camp at Dundonnel to try and reduce the amount of miles I needed to do to get to Torridon.  Arriving at Dundonnel late I ended up just camping by a lay-by, enjoying the last of the evening sun and heading to the local hotel for a couple of beers.

The ride round the coast to Altbea, Poolewe, and Gairloch was very scenic and really enjoyable, but hard work with lots of climbs and fast desents.  Lunch at Gairloch was large!  I'm having to put away a huge amount of food which is nice to eat, butmeans i'm continually thinking what I'll eat next and where I'll get it from.  Also getting a mix of carbs, protein, and avoiding too much sugary crap is tricky.  Eating apples and cakey bars whilst riding topped up with Lucozade and water keeps me going, but a big lunch of rolls, cheese, spinach, oatcakes, sundried tomatoes, bananas etc is also required.  Generally I just stop at shops and top up the supply of stuff I have on the bike.

Dinner at night is also large. I've been sticking to rice or pasta with veg, meat and sauce.  Rehydrated mushrooms have been good as they're tasty, lightweight, don't go off and add good flavour and texture to the meal.  Precooked chicken works well as you can fling it in with whatever and its got the protein needed.  Frozen prawns also worked well as I can buy them at lunch time and they'll be defrosted ready to eat at tea time.  I took a supply of boil in the bag rice and some pasta with me, as well as a selection of sachet sauces, so my evening meals have been pretty healthy, filling and nutritious.  Also particularly enjoying sundryed tomatoes with cheese!  Salty tomatoes go down a treat!  Today it was 3 rolls with ham, spinach and relish, a pack of oatcakes with cheese and tomatoes, an apple, and cakey bar for lunch!  The more I eat the less weight is in the bike!!

Breakfast is pretty good, although I've been having the same thing every day and getting a wee bit sick of it tbh!  It's been porridge with dried fruit mixed through it washed down with a black coffee.  A good kick start for the day and keeps me going till mid morning when I top up with more snacks!  The sachet porridge with dried skimmed milk has worked well and its tastey and good to get something hot, but I do like cereal with yoghurt in the morning, so have been missing that.  I've also found myself yearning for bacon rolls, but not given in yet.

After lunch at Gairloch there was a nice climb over to Loch Maree then a long push along to Linlochewe where I stopped for cake and coffee.  It was proper hot by this stage, and its easy to see why the area has had a lot of wild fires recently.  It it soo dry just now, and there is so much dead wood and heather lying about.  When I got down to Torridon the scale of the wild fire on the south west side of Liathach was amazing.  It must have been an amazing sight.  From the valey floor to almost right up to the summit for several miles has been burnt  -pic above.  I didnt stop in Torridon after all, but instead pushed on to Sheildaig for the night, as I'm considering riding up the Bealach-na-Ba tomorrow morning if the weathers good.

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