Tour 2011, Day 3

We sat in the B&B breakfast room looking out at the weather blasting in from the sea - howling wind and lashing rain. Having a broken tandem suddenly seemed not so bad... After our excellent breakfast (the best so far on this trip), we set off in the car for Thurso, via Durness. We stopped in Durness to go down and look at Smoo Cave, which turned out to be pretty impressive - the waterfall inside was a raging torrent after all the recent rain and was generating clouds of fine spray. Somewhat damp, we returned to the car and drove on to Thurso. At The Bike Shop, we described the problem (bust freehub), fetched the tandem and set about the repair. This wasn't trivial, as Shimano have changed freehub design. Turned out the bolt that holds the freehub body to the hub had shattered. In the end, one of the bike shop guys sacrificed his own hub. Amazing service. After getting something to eat, we decided to head south (in the car), eventually reaching Helmsdale. Quite how we'll proceed from here is still to be decided! But we probably won't be heading north. We may base ourselves in Pitlochry for a few days.