Today's ride involved our last participation in the North Coast 500. We were to ride from Torridon to Pitlochry, and would not be following the 'ofishal' route back towards Inverness.

It was to be a 170 mile ride through lochs and glens with views to remember, was it not for the rain!!

The rain was steady when we left Torridon towards Lochcarron, but as we climbed higher the cloud seemed to get lower, accompanied by a blustery wind.

We arrived in Lochcarron to find the fuel pumps not functioning correctly. No problem I thought the next fuel station is only 23 miles further along the route at Inverinate, a little south east of Eilean Donan castle. We rode on from Lochcarron, skirting around the loch towards Stromeferry, before climbing over the hills to Auchtertyre, the heading east towards Eilean Donan with only occasional breaks in the rain. 

We arrived at Inverinate filling station to find it closed, with a handwritten sign saying it was shut on Sundays until further notice. 

No problem there's a petrol station a few miles further on near Shiel Bridge, until you get there and find the station looks permanently closed. 

Some calculations showed the next fuel station was at Glengarry, 32 miles further along the route. I hoped we had enough petrol, I hadn't been monitoring our use very thoroughly, simply filling up once a day where available. Was I going to have to embarrassingly call on the RAC for running out of fuel. 

To our surprise we came upon a fuel station we had not known about at The Cluanie Inn. The petrol was a little overpriced, but we were relieved. We were also surprised to find we could only get 10 litres each in our tanks. I later calculated that our sensible riding had been extracting over 65 mpg from our bikes. 

We carried on to the Commando memorial near Spean Bridge. I always visit when I pass this way, after first visiting it as an 11 year old when engaged in scouting activities in the area.

We rode towards Newtonmore, stopping at the ever reliable transport cafe, for some hot soup, before heading south on the increasingly blustery A9 until we arrived tired in Pitlochry.

Route from Torridon to Pitlochry