Day 3. Beauly to Fort William. 65 miserable miles

How do I begin to describe today? In a word, it was a bastard! We left Beauly at 9.45 - later than usual as the intrepid campers overslept. The day began with a 9 mile climb up. That's right. 9 miles. Actually it wasn't too bad. Generally pretty gradual up to a height of about 250m. then a really steep descent into Drumnadrochit where we stopped for some brunch. Whilst eating, the heavens opened - it rained heavily for the rest of the day. We struck off again and cycled along Loch Ness heading South West. Most people do End to End from Lands End up because of the prevailing wind. After today I understand why! Not only were we contending with the heavy rain, we had a strong wind in our faces for 50 miles today. Unless you cycle, you don't realise what a difference the wind makes to your speed and the amount of effort you have to put in. Anyway, being determined chaps we gritted our teeth and got on with it, heading for Fort William where we are staying the night. For once. the campers decided that a B&B might be a good idea, but guess what? Every hotel, B&B and hostel was full. Saw a campsite on the map and started heading towards it when my eagle eyes spotted a ramshackle old house that had the magic word "Vacancies" outside. I knocked on the door - no answer. I then saw a grey pony-tailed man in the garden who told me he had 2 twin rooms free. I nearly kissed the old bugger. Now looking forward to food and beer, trying to dry out my cycle shoes and a really tough day of massive hills tomorrow. Almost forgot to menton that I fell off the bike today. Just pulling in for a rest, unclipped my left foot then the weight of the panniers took the bike right. Didn't unclip in time so down I went! Nothing too serious other than a hurty knee.