A very slow start to the morning after Rob managed to pull the valve out of his tube whilst blowing it up and then having major problems with his rear axle skewer. Eventually we were on the road by about 10:15 and two quick 200ft climbs saw us across the headland and at the head of Loch Maree at Poolewe. We hugged the coast on waht was a lovely sunny morning and at Aultbea a Fish Eagke flew right over our heads, unfortunately by the time I got the camera out I did manage to take a picture of it but it was about half a mile away.
From Aultbea we had another quick climb over another headland into Gruinard Bay which we followed along a quite lumpy road with significant ups and downs for about 6 miles until we reached the top of the bay opposite Gruinard Island which is famous as the British Governemnet post war released Anthrax on the island during germ warfare trials - the island has been out of bounds since the 1950s although I believe it has recently been declared safe !
From Gruinard we headed along Little Loch Broom and called in for lunch at Badcaul at a Pancake Hut which served an excellent range of coffees, pancakes, omelettes and soup.
Refreshed we now only had one big climb to do to get across to Loch Broom. We passed Dundonnell and then had a 1000ft climb to the top of the pass at which point the weather broke down and a thunderstorm appeared giving us a very wet mainly downhill last 20 miles into Ullapool.