A helpful dot matrix sign on a dual carriageway north of Perth advises road users, in French, to drive on the left. This was a timely reminder, 700 miles into my trip, and a convention I continued to observe.
Perth and Kinross is Britain's biggest raspberry and strawberry growing area, and just north of Rattray I stocked up at a roadside stall where a Dutch coach party were downing soft fruit and beer as if there were no tomorrow. Also in Rattray I visited McDonald's cheese shop, the only place in the UK that imports whole Swiss gruyeres the size of bicycle wheels. When the proprietors heard I was heading for John O'Groats they gave me a vast wedge of cheese that sustained me through some unspeakable mountain torments in the days to come.
Perth is known as the gateway to the Highlands, and for some days the size of the hills had been gradually creeping up towards 2000ft. I rode along the Glenshee Valley, gasping at the imposing peaks on either side of the path and giving thanks that, unlike the Cornish, the Scots had built their roads around and between the mountains rather than over them. At which point, inevitably, the path headed straight up the so-called Devil's Elbow to the Cairnwell ski resort: an endless, grinding, head-throbbing ascent that tested the lower reaches of my gearbox to their full capacity.
This was the start of three agonising days of toil through the barren terrain of the Grampians. For miles on end there is nothing but crag after mountainous crag, and moorland plateaux so bleak that in places even the sheep have fled and the heather has died.
The views are stupendous though, and I had plenty of time to admire them. I hadn't expected to be challenging for the queen of the mountains crown, but it was galling to see the odometer regularly registering a speed of 0 mph as I crawled uphill.
Happily, what goes up must come down, and the climbs were rewarded with several hurtling, teeth-clattering descents. And talking of teeth-clattering, the Grampians experience was a chilly one, with driving headwinds (an unwritten law of cycling dictates that you'll never get blown up a hill) and, on occasion, horizontal hail.
My ride up Britain's highest main road, the A93, took me to the Lecht ski resort at 2090ft. The temperature at the top of the chairlift was a nippy -8C with wind chill, which was not much fun in a pair of Lycra tights. Then, on what should have been a swooshing 1000ft descent into Tomintoul, the highest village in the Highlands, the headwind was so vicious that I had to pedal full tilt to keep moving. Funnily enough I didn't see many other cyclists on this section, but passing motorists gave encouraging waves and smiles in the way that only those in warm, dry cars can.
My B&B host in Tomintoul was a larger than life kilted Highlander called Mr Cameron, who has on display in his kitchen the sword one of his ancestors carried at Culloden. Unsurprisingly, he's never had a guest leave without paying. Tomintoul is in the Glenlivet estate in the heart of malt whisky country, and I felt better after an evening in the pub thawing out with a few wee drams.
In the midst of this mountain wilderness is Balmoral, the Queen's favourite summer holiday destination, on a lush river setting just east of Braemar. I popped in to say hello, but Her Maj wasn't expected until August and the tawdry little exhibition of frocks and photos in the ballroom - the only part of the castle open to the public - left me wishing I hadn't bothered.
The steep climbs ended and the whisky distilleries continued at Grantown on Spey, where I watched locally fished salmon being smoked, briefly glimpsed the sun and saw my first red deer - one of the estimated 350,000 that roam Scotland's forests and hills.
However, nature still had one little surprise in store for me: a 20-mile slog in a freezing hurricane across exposed moorland stretched flat as a pancake as far as the rain-lashed eye can see. The intermittent Wimbledon coverage I picked up on my miniature radio, meanwhile, waxed lyrical about the heatwave England was enjoying. Pah. Attempting to look on the bright side as I ate a soggy picnic in the frankly inadequate shelter of a yellow shrub, I reminded myself that wearing every stitch of clothing I'd packed did make my panniers somewhat lighter.
Kirkton of Barevan, which I'd picked at random as a suitable overnight stop, turned out to be a single (non B&B) house rather than the bustling village I'd envisaged, so I spent the night in Cawdor, laying my personal Grampian ghosts to rest a stone's throw from the haunted castle of Macbeth fame.
