This morning’s 57° seemed more than two degrees warmer in sunshine versus the rain of yesterday.  For five miles we biked up the River Tay.  Golf courses and flowers surrounded us.Though the trail looked flat, the gears on the bike said we were climbing.  The climbing became more aggressive and the course a combination of dirt, gravel, trails and occasionally the road, but all spectacularly gorgeous.Though we continued to follow the river, we zigzagged up and occasionally down,the foothills of the Cairngorms National Park Hills bent dramatically down to the river’s edge.  The sun danced on the greensas the clouds passed.  We finally dropped back to the river on a rugged trail, but it led us to our meeting of Herbert and Iris from Germany.They were on the last day of their bike holiday.  As we continued, the course led us quickly uphill again along the rivers’ edge.  The scenery continued to be amazing,the surfaces we traveled …. “creative”.We began to doubt the course as it was taking us further up and away from the river, but at 1:30 we finally reached the fork in the road

that would send us further or have us stay for the evening.  With only 34 miles done, we felt we should go on, even though our last four had been a lot of climbing 15%+ grades.  As we travel farther north, accommodations will become more difficult, so we needed to be judicious on our stops for the night.  Most importantly, the town of Pitlochry had more tourists than flowers.  Once rested and fed, the memory of the earlier climbing faded, we felt energized and decided to go on…..plus, it was an incredibly brilliant day!   Our last 12 miles was on a straight road, while not flat, it had much milder climbs than that which we had already experienced.  A midway stop for more liquid, led us to meeting Haakan, Mret and Lisa from Norway.Lisa is on a quest (she will surely complete) to be the youngest person to complete the North Sea Cycle Route (6500k); her 14th birthday is Monday, Amazing!

 Our stop for the night was a darling B & B in the middle of nowhere; but they had a bar and a restaurant, so it was perfect.The 48 miles today had been tough and we were more than ready to stop; didn’t we say that about yesterday?