Day 5. Ouch

Stats for the day: Miles: 104, Ft Climbed: 3000 Calories: 7000 ( not taking into account of headwind) Group Punctures: 0, Beard Status: Refusing to Thicken. Undercarriage: still baring up.

Hey hey S.B-ettes. This is going to be a quick post as quite frankly I'm totally buggered and we have to get up for a ferry tomorrow in about 5 and a half hours!

So, our last day in Scotland today, and she left us with a sting in the tail.

We were a little late getting away as (after a Little Chef breakfast), but despite the long day we had ahead, we were in pretty good spirits. That all changed when we had got on our route for the day (which was basically one road) as our old friend Senor Wind was back, and this time he was right in our face. A tough day loomed!

At this point, a local bird ( of the avian kind) decide to empty its breakfast, which I presume was square sausage, on our convoy and I definitely took the brunt. So, a 100 miles, a strong head wind and then shat on by a bird. A good start. Zoe and Mark then had a bang of wheels at a junction which resulted in Zoe half stacking it, but no damage done, and we settled in a long hard slog in the proper 'train' formation to save energy. It was dull (there's no pics form me today because of the lack of signal, but also as there really wasn't much to take pics of), and hard but we were just zoning out and turning the miles, bad start behind us.

Then I came off.

I hadn't fallen off a bike since I was about 16. I can confirm it still hurts. One of the hardest things of riding in a train is that you cant see more than a couple of feet in front of you, and I didn't see the rock in the road until it was far to late, it took our my front wheel and according to Andy B who was 2 people back I did a classic high side, and slammed into the road. Boo Hiss. Just for added drama/comedy depending on you disposition, Mark who was right behind me had no where to go, and despite his best bunny hopping efforts, clipped my bike and went over too! Smooth moves. Both riders and bikes got away with cuts and bruises ( Andy B helpfully added pics on facebook within 2 mins) so no harm done, but it's not something I'd like to repeat in the next 5 days; it would be so gutting not to finish now.

After that the day did thankfully lose the drama, but was bloody hard. The wind and the nasty road surface left us struggling to get an average of 13mph, a far cry from our 20 of previous days and by the end, we were all pretty much in bits! A massive effort all round, which we feel for sure now.

But that's another day, and a whole country done. Tomorrow we jump on the big boat over the Irish sea and take out 2 countries in one day- in a 115 mile mega day through Northern and mainland Ireland. We may well need some crack. That is an intentional spelling.

Right, I have to sleep! alarm goes off in 5 hours.

See you Scotland, it's been emotional.