After a good rest following yesterdays heroics we said goodbye to our talkative & genial b&b host Robert who not only has built boats, house extensions and set "taties", but is also a bit of a Shetland Country & Western music identity with his own cd and claim to fame of being a member of Billy Connelly's first ever band !
As it was we timed our exit beautifully to ride straight into a teeming downpour and after only 5 minutes we were not only wet but also having our first road rage event for the day when a following truck demonstrated to us that he knew how to use his horn ! We signalled to him politely that we were impressed by his knowledge by raising our middle fingers in praise !
The wind on the exposed high speed main road was incredible. Some corners required you to lean your bike into the wind while some uphill sections were just too dangerous to ride as the wind at our slow speed caused our bikes to lift and veer towards traffic - not an ideal situation with quite a few drivers doing their own Lewis Hamilton F1 impersonations in the wet conditions.
While we had only 30 kms to cover and 5 hours to reach Lerwick and our ferry, an early assessment indicated that at the pace we were going we weren't going to cover the distance in time!
Thankfully the wind gusts became less frequent although the rain downpours did not with the significant wind chill causing our end bits to really start to feel the cold !
With our heads down and some good ol Aussie persistence we eventually covered the 30 kms in 3 hours with the final few hills into Lerwick being real testers !
In town we headed straight to the Co-op supermarket partly because we were famished and partly because it was heated allowing us to shop and eat our lunch inside while restoring some badly needed body heat.
Joining the ferry's embarkation a kindly NZ company officer allowed us to board our bikes early so we could secure our seats, dry out and relax after a really tough short days ride
On board we met a fellow cyclist who we'd bumped into near Voe who had decided that after 10 days of battling headwinds and rain in Shetland he was heading home to enjoy (tongue in cheek) the sunny Newcastle UK weather !
The 5 hour ferry trip to Kirkwall on Orkney passed pretty quickly for me although it was a tad too long for Monika who spent most of it trying to avoid throwing up because of the heaving swells that caused the ship to steeply pitch. Getting a seat for Dinner was easy as it appears that drinking is the number 1 past time for Scots with food only an after thought !
We disembarked at 10.30 p.m. and yes there was just enough light to cycle our way into town some 3 kms away to be well received by the St Ola pub !
Tomorrow is a rest day with a wander around Kirkwall on the agenda and some time to allow those Shetland wind related nightmares to disappear !
What an amazing effort
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