Day 13 "

Another Early start, we had a lot of miles to cover today! Being in Inverness we started the day by heading over to the Autoglass Branch in Inverness to see Ian and his team! A wonderful reception and a great cup of coffee! Thanks Ian. Time seemed to fly and soon it was 11:00 and we hadn't left the branch!! Time to play catch up! We left Inverness on the A9 and over the longest bridge I had ever seen. Weather was dry and we had to press on!
We arranged to meet Barry at Alness, which meant we had to cross 2 bridges! They were a mile long each! and windy. We covered this relatively quickly, while we were doing this, we sent Barry to get a new battery for his new camera (he hasn't taken out the box for 8 months!) There was no wind to contend with and by 13:00 we were at Alness. We soon filled up on bananas, jelly babies and last night pizza!
Next we met Barry at Evelix, again a beautiful ride along the lochs, and lots of bridges to contend with, but we now began to deal with some hills again! They where coming thick and fast! A quick pit stop and we were off!
We wanted to try and cover some off tomorrows miles today, so we can head off from John O'Groats and try to miss the traffic, we arrived in Helmsdale (where we were due to stop) at 18:15 and decided to press on and cover a few more miles! WOW what a mistake! As soon as we left Helmsdale the big mountains started, the first couple of mile were all uphill, with the shortest of downhill sections at the end, then another long uphill section. To be honest after a few miles, we tried to ring Yoda to ask him to pick us up, but we had no reception, so we had to carry on! Thighs were burning, feet were cold, but we had to carry on, eventually after 2 more big hills we saw the marvelous sight of Yoda and his van! within minutes we were loaded and ready to leave. It was at this point the 2nd good samaritan deed took place. 2 days ago as we went from Glasgow to Fort William, we met a young lad on a bike who's chain had got caught in his cogs, Frank helped him remove his chain, and then we lent him our spanner should it happen again, but today a car had overheated so we sacrificed our own water to get their car going again!!
By doing this we hope that the hills people talk about between here and John O'Groats will vanish over night! Unlikely, either way tomorrow is our last day! A good nights sleep tonight and we should be finished by lunch time tomorrow!!