Day 10...After Storm Ali, Helmsdale to Evanton, 58 miles, 2736 feet of climbing.

After our encounter with Storm Ali yesterday, we finally made it to our overnight stop at the Helmsdale hostel, which we discovered we had to ourselves for the evening. Ged indulged us by setting a roaring fire, and in the warm and cosy surroundings of a newly-renovated hostel, over food and a few drinks (obviously required to revive our spirits), we examined what awaited us in the morning. All of the forecasts suggested high chance of rain for much of the day and continued gale force winds, so we steeled ourselves for more of the same.

Except, it didn't quite turn out like that.

The morning brought blue skies and relative calm.....the wind was only around the 25mph mark! The riding was hard work into a constant head wind, and it's not often that you have to pedal to go downhill, but the rain, whilst constantly threatening never quite managed to put in an appearance.

Mike decided to do his own thing and explored every harbour and community along the route, so if anyone wants to know about Helmsdale, Brora, Golspie, Dornoch, Tain or Invergordon, then Mike is your man.

The landscape and scenery along this stretch of coast are much less dramatic than earlier sections of our route, but diversions to Dunrobin Castle, Glenmorangie distillery and the oil rigs lined up in the Cromarty Firth kept us interested.

Much of the NC500 route follows the main A9 trunk road, and as it gets further south the traffic gets much heavier, so south of Golspie we diverged from the main (car) route and followed roads less travelled. An unexpected highlight of the day on these minor roads was watching grey and harbour seals basking in the sun in Loch Fleet...we enjoyed the moment and the reminder of one of the reasons why we all get out on 2 wheels and put up with the Storm Ali's of the world.

We finally arrived in Evanton for the last night of our tour and realised that this was the very first day with no rain...