A day worth forgetting

Our longest day has also been our coldest, wettest, windiest, highest and
most generally miserable.

After a promising start in pitlochry by 10 we set out towards aberfeldy,
where we needed to pick up the a826 to crieff. We did that 10 miles or so
in reasonable time. When we reached aberfeldy, we headed south towards
crieff hoping for an easy 20 miles before lunch.

We were presented with a 5 mile 7 percent climb which took it out of both
of us - it seemed to go on forever, and we were waiting for the nice long
downhill, but it never really came. Instead we just started going up and
down the terrain, which as it turned out was the top of the mountain range.
None of this would have been that bad if it wasn't for the horizontal rain
and very strong headwinds. The 20 miles to crieff took about 3 and a half
hours.

When we got to crieff we had battered sausage supper (which Dave found out
after a fashion meant all wrapper up together - so we retired to a bench
(with our free drinks from the nice man in the chippy - with the Chinese /
Scottish accent).

We still had 37 miles to go from there and decided to just get on with it,
it was mostly ok, but we arrived in the vicinity tired at about 7 - we then
took about an hour and a half to find the hotel - the only directions we
had involved going on the a80 - basically a motorway without the benefit of
a hard shoulder. So we had to find another route - it took us 2 hours to
cover perhaps 10 miles - not a good average.

Just had time to get changed and go and eat - and now getting to sleep in
preparation for tomorrow - hopefully will be a little brighter tomorrow!