The toll of fevers was beginning to reduce my stamina and my 4pm fatigues increasingly sapping. I decided to get the 08.00 bus to Drumrunie and cycled the bike to its place of folding...a plastic bus shelter that would have been more at home in Slough.than overlooking the Summer Isles. A buckaroo journey took me through the mountains of Coigach and Cul Beag...15 miles for £2. I believe it's £0.80p per stop in Slough. The driver helped me off with my panniers but wouldn't accept a penny more. Drumrunie to Knockan Cliffs National Nature Reserve was all uphill but I needed to see the Moine Thrust. In reality it was disappointing but Scottish Natural Heritage has done a fantastic OTT job of dramatising it in one of the most exhuberant public information displays I have ever seen. Well worth a visit beyond the turf roofed toilet block.. A freewheel to Elphin then a long cycle down Strath Oykel. Had another puncture just ahead of the Oykel Bridge Hotel so decided on lunch first then repair. Frequented by fisherfolk from the Home Counties who seemed to have a bad luck story for everyday of the week. Nobody seemed to have caught any fish... predictably so in the case of the chap who confessed after a while that he hadn't even bothered to go down to his mark. "What's the point without any rain to bring the fish to the surface?" When it was announced that 4 good fish had indeed been taken that morning the mood at the bar deepened in sulky intensity. It was a relief to go outside to mend a puncture. Indeed two punctures. More chanterelle and cep picking in the delightful woods around Rosehall and picked up some solid venison sausages at Invercassley PO. Dinner sorted it was just a case of grinding out the miles to Carbisdale Castle before fatigue overtook me. Got there and crashed out in the now familiar fever and rigors despite the busload of Italian schoolchildren having a door banging and animal noises competition in the corridors. Showered at 8pm and had dinnertime chat with a Californian speech therapy teacher who took off from her beach house on the last day of term and just travelled around the world until school started. She was on her way to Dunrobin Castle, the seat of the Sutherlands, when rain deposited her at Carbisdale. The story of the feudings of the former Sutherland family is an interesting one. Allegations of Will fixing dropped the Duchess in jail after the death of the 3rd Duke but in a vicious financial settlement she was banished from the county of Sutherland by the other rellies although allowed to build her own 'house'. In response the deposed Duchess built Carbisdale Castle to her own spec. stipulating that it should have one more room than Dunrobin Castle and that the clock tower should have no face....in the direction of Sutherland. It was also to be built inconveniently close to the Caledonian Railway so that the heirs and successors of the line of Sutherland travelling in their private steam train to Dunrobin Castle from the south would have it in sight all the way up the valley. The Sutherlands in return gave orders for the blinds on the train to be drawn whenever the castle came in sight. Huge wealth did not beget huge happiness. The castle passed to the SYHA from the Salvesen shipping family after WW2 and is probably the most remarkable hostel in the country...with a resident ghost too.