Day 3 - Bird strike on chocolate box an buffeted to Banff

It would appear that Phil's fitness arrived last night and he was well up for the cycle this morning.

Up at 7am and big breakfast at the Travel Lodge Aberdeen Central. Couldn't fault the food or the price.
Out and on the road for 8.30. First stop Pittodrie some 0.5 miles away. 

The weather has diserted us today. Its a cold one. The gloves and foot covers are on for warmth and there was fog on the coast. 

We didnt hang about and we were soon on the roads to Peterhead for the 2nd and last stadium visit of the day.  

The roads we used were mainly farm roads. Very pleasant but quite hilly. What Phil didn't realise was that the side wind we had would become a big part of discussions later in the day. 

Peterhead was 35 miles in and also seemed to be the best place for lunch. A short stop and we were off and running to Buckie. 50 miles into the wind. 

The Garmin and Live tracking had been right on the money until we hit Longside - Garmin died quickly followed by Live Tracking. Garmin re-booted and we were off again but Live Tracking was stuffed. What became apparent for the rest of the journey is that mobile reception is absolutely mince in this part of the world.

Worse was to follow - bird took aim and jettesoned its poo and scored a direct hit on my front box.

The gusts of wind made made it difficult to get up to any speed and also meant that you had to cycle to get down a hill?! The hills were challenging but were now feeling up for them.

We plugged away and visted some lovely towns on the way, including MacDuff, Banff and finally Buckie. 

When you lose a lot of ground (height) to visit a town on the coast you know there will be follow up pain coming out of the town. Buckie I suspect will be no different tomorrow.

Well pleased to see our destination for the evening, which appears brand new. Very friendly family staff who seeing we were a bit tired got the kettle on plus a juice for the wee boy.

So in the place where fish is the catch of the day where did we go for tea..... yep, the Indian. 

Dingwall tomorrow. Off to bed now.