Day 15. Kingussie to Inverness. 50 miles. Another day of rain. Actually alternating rain and sun, but mostly rain.
Kind of getting used to it.

Just outside of town we came upon the ruins of some old barracks. As I sat there another rider came up behind me--also doing the End to End.
She said, "You're carrying an awful lot of gear. Are you camping?" I told her, no, we just carry a lot of luxuries.
So far I have used everything I am carrying except for my cold-weather tights. I haven't worn them because I've been wearing my rain pants--since, you know,
it rains every day. Maybe these other minimalist riders don't need to express every thought on the internet or something. I don't know.
 

After a miserable, muddy section of trail we came to a town called Boat of Garten. We stopped at the store there and complained about things to
each other. Then we continued on to Carrbridge, where we found this bridge--called Carr-Bridge. We had a snack that served as lunch.

This was my snack--crisps and Lucozade. There are only about eight flavors of Lucozade--there are untold variations of
potato chip flavors in the UK.

The sharp-eyed will notice the black fungus on the trees that indicates the presence of a distillery.

It worked out really well. The tour started about 5 minutes after we arrived, and it included tastings of three whiskys.
People who were driving were allowed only two tastes, and got to take the third with them. This was not a problem for us since
we were not "driving."

Oh yeah. It was the Tomatin Distillery. The guide said it was the second highest elevation of any distillery in Scotland.
The highest is Dalwhinnie--the one that was closed yesterday.

So, we had our tastes and headed down the road. Subsequent events had nothing to do with the tasting.
That path was really slippery, and I would have crashed whether or not my judgment had been impaired by delicious Scotch whisky.


  So, obviously I slipped on the mud.  Would have happened no matter what. No matter what.

The rest of the way into Inverness was mostly downhill, but there were several more rain showers, including an
unusually hard rain that really helped clean the mud off my bike.

The final descent into Inverness.

We were lucky to get into a really good steakhouse for dinner. This was our appetizer: Haggis Bon Bons.
Tomorrow we climb back into the hills to Lairg.