Journey to the east

I should have mentioned that in Glen Nevis I met Decliffe. Although it has the feel of an anagram, Decliffe is a name. He's an Aussie on a bike with a tent, a stove and a large jar of chocolate spread. He's made his way from Germany, through Holland, Belgium and France, then over to Dover and along to Land's End. From there, he went up the west country, then around the Welsh coast to Holyhead, taking the ferry to Ireland and heading up to Belfast. Then he was back over to Stranraer and up Scotland's west coast. He'll continue up the coast (he's a coastal kind of guy) to John o'Groats, then go down the east coast and back to Germany. If Decliffe's feat does nothing more than raise your eyebrow, then drop your jaw now when I tell you that two years ago he cycled around the coast of Australia, towing his camping equipment on a trailer, and that he's in his fifties, and a vegetarian. Remember Decliffe, the name of a cycling hero, or maybe an anagram for one. (His is not the only undecipherable name up here - there are many strange-sounding place names, too, which I've been trying to guess the English equivalents for as you'll see.)
The thing is with cycling is that after a meal and a good night's sleep, it's possible to ride another day as if the last never happened, as long as you're eating enough of the right stuff and nothing cataclysmically bad happens. It gets easier the more you do, to a point where it's almost as easy as driving, albeit slower. It's also more enjoyable than careering about in a car, not least because the big hills bring out the endorphins on the way up and the songs on the way down.
Leaving the hostel yesterday (Saturday), the weather put on a show. Great rainclouds were hanging low over the valleys and clinging to the mountainsides. The sun shone through wispy cloud edges, turning them bright white and patching the verdant valley floor with soft yellow. Clouds collapsed into sudden showers, veiling the landscape with grey murk and chilling the air. The stiff breeze - finally, the prevailing wind from the south-west - bent the roadside trees and carried me along.
Between Fort William and Inverness is the Great Glen, a line of lochs, rivers and canals running from south-west to north-east, cutting Scotland in half. There's an ugly trunk road all the way along, but with a bike it's possible to avoid it using off-road routes and single-track roads. The first section runs along the Caledonian Canal, built in 1822 and beginning with Neptune's Staircase - the staircase of locks at Fort William - and running initially to Loch Lochy (English: Lakey Lake?). I soon reached an old swing bridge, in the middle of nowhere, with a man sitting in a hut next to it. It turns out that his job is to open the bridge each time a boat comes along, which is about once every couple of hours, and close it again so that the farmer, if he should need to, can visit his sheep in the field opposite. The bridgekeeper's other responsibilities are to paint something every now and again and mow the grass after he's watched it grow a bit. Now that's a job. He's proud of his bridge - he said it's the original from when the canal was built, making it 185 years old, and the only hand-operated mechanism on the waterway. He could leave the bridge open if he wanted to, he said, because the farmer's away, 'but then I'd be really bored.' He took a minute out of his day to take my photo by his bridge.
From there the route takes a single track road through ancient birch forest on the steep north bank of the loch. The trees' bark is broken and peeling off with age and old blue-green lichens reach into space from every inch of branch, like small corals. The road, marked as an 18 mile dead-end on the road map, peters out to a forest track, which follows the lochside, sometimes high above the water, sometimes with the waves lapping at Raquel's wheels. At the end of the smaller Loch Oich (Eng: Oik Lake?) another canal path runs as far as Fort Augustus. Here the canal lowers boats into massive Loch Ness - almost at sea level - via another set of staircase locks, which run right down the village's High Street, cutting it in half. By then the showers had gone and the day was sunny and still windy. On the lockside by the top lock, two pipe bands were playing together: one local and one from Switzerland, called the Swiss Midland Pipe Band. I boggled that the prospect of playing Scottish highland music would appeal to anyone other than Scottish highlanders, but evidently it does. I wonder whether there's a Scottish Yodelling Ensemble that visits Switzerland from time to time: with God, all things are possible. Occasionally, the bands played separately, and I couldn't tell them apart for musicianship - both were superb. All the players were immaculate, too - kilts, cream socks, garters, hats, tunics - and each played with their feet together, which I assumed was part of the discipline, despite the strong wind. Whenever I heard pipe buskers in Edinburgh, I developed a nasty rash, but I'd never heard bagpipes played like this - I've rarely heard music sound so alive and joyous and free. The bagpipes are a really weird instrument but with it these guys made loud magic. When the bands stopped, a woman led one of the pipers to a seat - he was completely blind. Then their marquee blew over.
Despite being surrounded by mountains in Scotland, I'd not gone up any serious hill since the English Pennines, travelling as I have been along valleys. After Fort Augustus came the first challenging climb, however, because the little road leaves the lochside and climbs over the tops, rising nearly 1,000ft in a mile and a half, then another 400ft after that, less steep. I was suprised that my legs managed it, but riding day after day has made me much stronger. Even so, I was reduced to a sweaty, sticky pink ball of flesh by the time I reached the top, and my attempt to punch the air in triumph was more of a camp flap of the hand. Then followed what cyclists dream of every night: a long, slow, straight descent with a strong, warm following wind. (I dream that dream between the one with the bookcase that falls over on Carol Vorderman and the one with the chickens stuck in my best friend's hair that I'm trying to remove with a nit comb). As I zoomed down this hill at 30 miles an hour, I saw a couple riding up the other way, faces scrunched up with pain and despair. I waved cheerily and wished them good day but I don't think that's what they wanted.
There was then more ancient, seemingly untouched birch forest, mixed this time with Scots Pine. The River Foyers tumbled down the hillside among the trees, before falling over a gigantic, sheer cliff, several hundred feet into an enclosed lagoon like something straight out of the Garden of Eden. These are the Falls of Foyer - go see! From there the road, all single track, rejoined the shore of the great Loch Ness. The sun was shining down its length, turning it silver and silhouetting the peaks to the south-west. I tried taking a photo but the universe refused to shrink into the camera.
With the wind blowing me along at 20 miles an hour, it wasn't long before I arrived in Inverness, which has a beautiful riverside park and a busy campsite nearby. I put up the tent, had a shower and wandered along the river into town. The city's well-to-do were doing the same, on their way to a fancy restaurant or wine bar, but I don't know where they went because the city centre is dominated by a rough-edged collection of pubs and clubs with a predictable, small-town feel. The city felt altogether like somewhere at the end of a line - half-forgotten by the rest of the world - but its streets are wide and there are great views of the skies, so it feels open and spacious. It's unusual in having almost no cafes at all - this morning I could only find a Costa Coffee, just like the ones in London (in fact, they send up the sandwiches overnight from Buckinghamshire - I asked). Inverness also has a church on every street corner: many looking fresh and bearing names I'd not heard of before like the Reformed Baptists; and many older,more familiar ones, like those of the Church of Scotland, looking neglected.
This morning I did my laundry and then set off out of the city, over the suspension bridge on cycle paths to the Black Isle, so called because the soil is blacker than a hard-fried morning roll (ie a bread roll fried until it's burnt - a Scottish delicacy. Look it up if you don't believe me.) I rode over the rolling hills of the isle via Munlochy (Eng: I'm Unlucky?) to Cromerty, a weeny village made famous by the Shipping Forecast. A tiny, rusting two-car ferry called Cromerty Rose took me (and three other cyclists bound for John o'Groats) about three quarters of a mile to a thin strip of the mainland to the north, where there's a peculiar cafe, that feels like someone's living room, and nothing else for miles. I rode the last few miles to Dornoch Firth (Eng: Fourth Doorknock?) campsite. The midges launched a full-scale assault within seconds. I was reminded of the improbable 70s movie, Swarm. There were so many midges that I felt sure that I must be losing blood at a dangerous rate, maybe a pint a minute. I told myself that they were God's creatures just trying to get along but it was no good, I felt no mercy and wiped hundreds out with each heavy blow to my face; thousands more fell as I rubbed my legs, their little black carcasses sticking to my rain-drenched skin. I climbed into the tent, leaving the hordes to bash their tiny heads into its mesh wall - without siege equipment, there was nothing they could do.