2012 Summer Tour, Day 4 - Maraig to Shader (31st May)

This turned out to be a day of two halves - and both suffered from strong head winds. We completed our stay at the Lochedge B&B with an excellent breakfast, and selected our packed lunch. This armed, we set out for the next arranged B&B - up on the west coast of Lewis. First, however, we had to scale the absurdly steep road from Maraig to the road across Clisham. We accomplished this with some style, and set off on the main cycling out of Harris and into Lewis. The weather at this point was rather overcast and cool. We quickly realised this was not going to be easy cycling, as we had a nagging head wind. After about 20 miles, we made a left turn to Garynahine. For eight miles we had anice tail wind! We paused to eat our packed lunches (ham and mustard & salmon and cucumber sandwiches) in the sunshine - by now, the sunny spells were longer and more frequent. Unfortunately, from Garynahine, things got a lot harder as the head wind ad begun to swing and become more northerly. We cycled past the famous Callanish stone circle (and Callanish III, a secondary circle nearby) and pressed on to Carloway. At Carloway, there's a great view of the famous broch from the road. Once again we decided not to stop, since we'd visited the broch before. A little further on, we made a short detour to the Gearannon black house museum, but only because we knew they had a good tearoom, and by this time we desperately needed a pit stop. Tea and scones fortified us as we rejoined battle against the wind, with 15 miles or so to go before reaching the B&B. The cycling remained really tough as the head wind strengthened, and we were getting a bit fractious in the last few miles. Once in the B&B we showered, and pretty much collapsed! Plans to go out for a walk fell by the wayside as we decided to just take it easy.Fortunately, tomorrow should be an easy day - according to Google, we will have a mere 15.1 miles to cycle, and this should have a stiff tail wind. The ferry to Ullapool leaves in the early afternoon. We still need to plan how we return to Oban in detail.