Evanton to The Crask Inn – 48 miles
From the earliest days of our planning for LEJOG, we’d known that there was a patch of territory in northern Scotland, between Inverness and the north coast, where accommodation was almost non-existent. Initially, with gung-ho innocence, I’d entered ‘wild camping’ next to this empty quarter in my accommodation spreadsheet. But that was always mere fantasy: the cold or the rain or the midges or our clinging attachment to comfort would have dissuaded us in the end. In any case, the moment we decided to jettison our camping gear in Bristol, the choice no longer existed. We had to find somewhere to stay.
It was Jools who discovered the Crask Inn. Situated about fifteen miles north of Lairg, it’s reputedly one of the most isolated pubs in Britain, in one of its coldest regions. He got in touch and found out that they were already full. But, when informed about the purpose of our trip, Douglas, the manager, relented and said that we could sleep in the summer house. That seemed better than a night out on a gale-swept moor, so we readily accepted.
Some weeks later, Douglas rang and told Jools that the summer house only had room for two people. The other two would have to camp. This was bad news. The idea of carrying a tent, sleeping mats and all the attendant paraphernalia with us all the way to northern Scotland for one night was too absurd and painful to contemplate. Jools scoured the internet for alternatives, but the famous Altnaharra Hotel, about five miles further up the road, was also fully booked, as was Altnaharra’s only B&B. Something about the way in which Douglas had conveyed the news lead us to suspect that his wife was behind his change of heart. We imagined various tricky scenarios between the two – Douglas happy-go-lucky and laissez faire, his wife a stickler for the rules. Or perhaps a no-nonsense realist. Still, we had to accept. What else could we do?
How to solve the problem of the Crask Inn was a hot topic of conversation in the weeks leading up to our departure from Lands End, and for several weeks after that. There was talk of sending a tent up to the inn in advance, by courier. Or buying a cheap tent in Inverness and ditching it after only one night of use. Or missing Crask altogether and cycling all the way to Tongue on the north coast–a ride of more than 70 miles from Evanton. None of these options seemed feasible or attractive. Then Douglas called a third time. A room had become available in the inn. Did we want it? I received the news with immense gratitude and relief. Two in the room, two in the summer house, sorted.
We woke up at the Black Rock Caravan Park, excited to be heading for this eccentric place that had doused our imaginations and taxed our patience for so long. Jules and Tim cooked something close to a full English breakfast in the bunkhouse kitchen. The sausages that had been grilled the night before (for our ‘alternative’ dinner) were saved for the road. The infirmities of my bike were preying on my mind. The prospect of riding all the way to John O’Groats, with challenging climbs along the way, on a bike with a defective rear cassette and erratic chain was dispiriting. It would be possible, but not comfortable. I didn’t want to be worrying every time I changed gear. We considered riding back to Dingwall, about six miles away, where, according to Google, there was a bike repair shop. But that would add 12 miles to our journey, and start us off in the wrong direction. Then Phil looked up from his phone…’Hang about chaps…it says here that there’s a place in Alness. LC24…just up by the school.’ Alness was only a few miles up the road. He rang the number. Yes, they were open. No problem, just pop over. The news had an exhilarating effect and I left with a zing in my calves.
We stopped in Alness town centre to buy coffee and cake at a Harry Gow bakery, the Scottish equivalent of Gregg’s. As we drank and grazed, an older gent approached us and asked if we were headed for John O’Groats. He’d just completed the journey, with his wife driving the family campervan in support. Though he was our age, he’d managed to complete it in about fourteen days. When we told him about our leisurely schedule, he was clearly envious. ‘Next time, I’ll do it that way,’ he said.
The sat nav guided us to a very trim and modern suburb on the edge of town, with that denuded look common to all newly built housing estates. We had to ask directions from a lone dog-walker, who had recently had her bike serviced at LC24. Eventually a young, solid looking man with close cropped hair and an easy welcoming smile appeared in the doorway of a brochure-neat house. ‘Hello boys,’ he hailed, ‘Hold on there a moment, I’ll let you in through the side door.’ The others stayed out front while I wheeled my bike through into the garden. Donny opened the door to his garage / workshop. For a non-cyclist the interior might have appeared merely decorative. For a cyclist it was a cave of wonders. All four walls were laden with every type of tool and gizmo imaginable (Park Tools, the best), as well as spare parts (Shimano), accessories and other gear. So many spare parts, all boxed and shiny. No rusty old wheels or frame parts piled in a corner, like you’d see in so many repair workshops. Donny’s man-shed was one of the best appointed and best equipped bike repair facilities I’d ever seen.
‘So, what appears to be the problem?’ Donny asked. I talked about the mashed-up cog and slipping chain while he listened carefully and nodded, emitting the occasional ‘aha’ to emphasise his concern. ‘I think you’re in luck,’ he said, eyes scouring the boxes on his shelf, ‘ah yes, here it is…Shimano Claris ten speed rear cassette. That’ll do it.’ Within minutes, he had the new cassette fitted on my rear wheel. While he worked, we chatted. Donny had a full time job as a traffic cop, covering a beat that stretched from Inverness westward to Ullapool and north as far as the coast. A huge area. Bike repairing was a hobby that had become a part-time job. You could see the his passion for the trade. He worked briskly, approaching every problem with energy and concentrated intent while his baby son cried out for attention from the pram parked just outside the shed, and his dog, a large and lively German Shepherd cross, roamed in and out of our legs. At times, the little boy cried so insistently that Donny had to scoop him up into his arms and soothe him while he carried on working.
The slipping chain proved to be a harder problem to solve. On Donny’s bike-stand it behaved perfectly, moving between the front three cogs with a smooth gliding motion. But as soon as I took the bike for a ride around the streets of the estate, empty and hush in the morning sunshine, the problem reasserted itself. Donny tried various solutions, readjusting the limiter screws, tightening the gear cable until finally, on the third or fourth test ride, the cable didn’t slip once. ‘You’re a genius Donny,’ I said when I got back to the workshop. There were smiles of relief all round. While I was on one of my test rides, Donny had also fixed a problem with Tim’s rear disc brakes. His efficiency and attentive friendliness were so impressive, I asked to take a photo, and promised to post copious praise on various LEJOG forums. When we left, I felt like a man reborn.
From Alness, there were two alternatives: straight up and over the mountains on the B-road, or round the coast on the cycle path that ran alongside the A9. Donny advised us to take the B-road. ‘It’s more direct and you get to see the million dollar view, which you shouldn’t miss,’ he said. We overrode our hill-avoidance instinct and followed his advice. Just before the summit we stopped to admire the view eastwards along the Dornoch Firth, with the sea in the distance. Next stop Norway. A group of motor bikers were admiring the same view at the other end of the lay-by, talking shop about A roads, B roads. After they’d pulled away, I reflected on the discomfort of all that leather armour that bikers wear. It must feel suffocating on warm days like this. The million dollar viewpoint was further along the road, over the pass, looking northeast. The name was apposite. An entire region was laid out before us, the valley below furry with trees and hedges, the mountains beyond marching bare and purple to an impossibly distant horizon. We ate our lunches and bathed in the vista, happy that it all lay ahead of us. Then we glided down to the valley floor, Phil taking it at high speed, as is his wont, me applying the brakes, as is mine. The road followed the course of the river as far as Ardgay, just opposite Bonar Bridge, where we stopped to buy cigarettes and wine gums. It began to rain. More motor bikers came into the car park, engines chugging and spluttering loudly. Most of the bikers we saw in that part of Scotland were old men like us. This was easy riding country, with its fabulous vistas and relatively quiet roads–a good place to fulfil delayed fantasies of freedom. But I was glad we were doing it the old way, analog and slow, without the leather armour.
Further up the river, the cycle track became a narrow path through waist high weeds. We’d been semi-koomoted, but the going was ok and we didn’t have to dismount until we came to a railway bridge over the wide fast-flowing Kyle of Sutherland river. Alongside the bridge ran a metal walkway with metal grills underfoot through which the rushing water below was visible. Access to this walkway was down a set of very steep metal steps. A metal groove for bikes had been thoughtfully included, but no one had considered bikes laden with panniers front and back. It was a precarious descent: I was fearful of losing my grip and seeing my bike crash down the steps and onto the walkway. Once again, Tim looked anxious at the prospect of another bridge adventure, though this one felt 100% solid. I walked ahead of him, intoning what I hoped were comforting words: ‘Don’t look down. Just look at the back of my head.’ At the other end of the walkway, there was another muscle-straining descent down some steps to the road. A woman passed us walking the other way and Phil engaged her in conversation. That’s his genius. She told us that the very imposing castle that stood on a spur over the river ahead of us, looking like the stage set for a period drama full of violence and intrigue, was empty because it was haunted by a female ghost called Betty. Its name is Carbisdale Castle and it had been up for sale since 2016. No one dares to live there. I read that King Haakon VII of Norway and his son, Crown Prince Olav, were given sanctuary there after Norway was invaded by Germany in 1940. I wonder how they got on with Betty.
The road kept climbing up the Kyle of Sutherland, taking us further and further into Scotland’s northern wilderness. Vegetation grew sparser, the hills balder, the skies wider, imparting the sense of an approaching immensity. Lairg is a quiet village at the mouth of Loch Shin, larger than most settlements hereabouts thanks to its position at the crossing of four old roads. But in these parts, ‘large’ just means a petrol station, a local shop, a primary school, a visitor information centre, a handful of houses dotted along the river and up the hill. Google told us that the visitor centre had a café, so we crossed the bridge and headed there, but it was closed on Mondays. That old jinx again. We sat at a wooden picnic table on the large green outside, smoking roll-ups, eating energy bars and drinking the last of our water. In a play area across the green, three kids were riding on a large tyre suspended from zip wire. Their laughter and screams stood out like weightless diamonds against the backdrop of silence that surrounded us.
Soon after Lairg, the road north narrowed to become a single track with passing places. It was still an A-road, and busy at that dusky hour with cars, trucks, mobile homes and huge logging lorries, their cargo contained between U-shaped ‘ribs’ attached to the back loader, that rushed by with a thunderous clatter as we cowered by the side of the road. Other drivers pulled over graciously at the first sight of us, even though we were quite far away. Yes others, working locals no doubt, had obviously reached the limits of their patience with cyclists on this narrow road and gave us little quarter.
But none of this mattered because, in the space of a few miles, the landscape had mutated into a thing of wonder. The hills had drifted away into the distance like huge ships that floated in the softening light. The plains stretched out in every direction, creating an impression of limitless space. The feeling reminded me of travelling through the Sahara, except that the hues were green, blue, grey, rather than the endless shades of brown that you see in the desert. We drank it all in with smiles as broad as the country itself, and soon became gleefully drunk, stopping regularly to take snaps of each other, marvelling at the sea of heather all around us, and the feathery, cottony white grasses that lined the road, filtering the evening sunlight. It made you want to laugh, sing, shout up to the echo-less air. No other leg of our journey could match this one for sheer grandeur. The gods of LEJOG had saved the best for last.
Coming over the lee of a low hill we saw a white dot far in the distance, dwarfed by the immense mountain that rose up beyond it. No other habitation was visible in any direction. ‘Is that the Crask Inn?’ I asked Jools. ‘It has to be,’ he answered. ‘It couldn’t be anything else.’ The uplift evoked by that distant speck made us feel like salts adrift in the Pacific who had just caught sight of a distant island. Land ahoy! Beer, food, warmth, rest. Our bikes threw long shadows on the road and the surrounding tundra as we glided along, warmed by the sun’s last rays. The sky to the west was layered gold, red, yellow, green, blue, dark blue, like some vast cosmic mille-feuille. The air around us was crisp, clear, silent. There it was. The Crask! A modest old house, surrounded by a well-tended lawn and garden that ended in a copse of sheltering pine trees. To the side of the house, there was a one storey extension comprising the dining area and (this is where things get rely weird), a small branch of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. Out front, on the main road, hung a large wooden sign. Beyond it, miles of emptiness.
It was hard to know what manner of beast we’d stumbled upon: a spiritual hybrid, both in the Godly and the alcoholic sense, part haven (and God knows we were glad to be there), part sinister outpost where no one could hear you scream. The pub itself was small and rustic, with a huge OS map of the area adorning one wall, a fire, four tables, bench seats, chairs and a tiny bar. Behind it was a modest selection of whiskies and two taps dispensing lager and ale. About five other guests were sat at the tables when we walked in. No one seemed to be talking that much. There was no all-hail-well-met camaraderie. Phil ordered our arrival drinks (this role seemed to have become his by default), and repaired to one of the tables outside. The midges gave us about ten minutes before we had go back inside again for the time it took to earn another period of grace. Tim wandered to and fro at the bottom of the garden, talking on his phone, seemingly impervious to those microscopic envoys of the devil.
Douglas’s wife Denise came out to take our preferences for the evening meal. She seemed a little stressed, but cheery nonetheless. We then drew straws, or rather ‘sticks’ of cigarette filters, to decide who should sleep in the main house. As the blogger with need of evening wifi, I thought of pleading special dispensation, but then decided against it. Democracy first. All for one and one for all. Phil and Tim drew the short straws. Jools and I felt a smidgeon of guilt mixed in with our immense relief, and we expressed it by eagerly offering our sleeping bags for extra warmth and cushioning. The summer house looked like it hadn’t been occupied for many summers. Perhaps summers were too fleeting and midge-filled to require the use of a summer house. It was small, just about possible for two to sleep there, impossible for four. Denise had been right all along. Tim rolled out a piece of carpet he found lying about the place on then topped it with my sleeping bag and then his. Phil did the same on the floor. ‘We’ll be fine,’ he said, stalwart from the tip of his shoes to the tip of his nose. ‘Bless him,’ I thought, and headed indoors.
Our room was one of only three on the upper floor of the house. It was tiny, with barely enough space for the two beds, but it had four walls, a roof, a window with view of the darkening hills, and a radiator. Cosy enough, in other words. After we’d stored our bikes in the shed next to the Episcopal ‘chapel’, we squeezed ourselves and our panniers into our room. Jools took a shower, a brief one because there was only one bathroom for everyone, including Douglas and Denise. Meanwhile, Phil was finishing his pint in the pub downstairs when Denise came in and announced that dinner was ready. ‘Great, I’ll just go outside to smoke a ciggie and finish me pint,’ Phil said. ‘No,’ Denise answered, ‘I need you to come to the table because I have a lot of guests to process tonight.’ Phil did as he was told. Wouldn’t you?
We were duly processed with a very modest but filling three course meal. Observing Douglas and Denise in action I got the impression of a couple under some strain, tasked it seems by the Episcopal church with running the establishment more or less on their own (apart from a very cheerful cleaning lady who appeared the next morning to clean the rooms). They received the guests, cooked the food, pulled the pints, did the maintenance, tended the garden and more, day after day through the season, which doesn’t leave much time for a casual dram of whiskey and some friendly banter with the guests at day’s end. The Crask was obviously a relentlessly turning grindstone and they had their noses pressed hard against it. No wonder light-hearted moments of humour and softening expressions of hospitality were infrequently from their mouths. What did we have to complain about? Thanks to their labours, we had warm beds and sheltering summer houses to sleep in, rather than damp bivvy bags out on those endless moors.
Just before we turned our lights out, Denise banged on our door and, without opening it, asked if we were charging our batteries. I said yes and she ordered us to cease and desist. Too much strain on the generator. Jools’s monster eBike battery was at fault. But needs must. No battery equalled no eBike equalled no Jools and we couldn’t be having that.
Andy Morgan.
