Day 21 - Melvich to John O' Groats (37 miles)

Monday, June 13, 2011
Triumphed over rain-filled shoes and a headwind which took my breath away to arrive at JOG at 3.30pm. Job done.


You have to pay to get the signs put on the post!


Postscriptum: Les has sworn to throw me out of the car in Perth tomorrow to finish the 26-mile stretch I missed out previously.
Post postscriptum: She really did it and I finished the last stretch at 3.30pm on June 14. It was easy peasy, sunny with a following wind and my house at the end of it. Top Banana!

Day 20 - Beyond Lairg to Melvich (53 miles)

Sunday, June 12, 2011
For one crazy hour today I actually intended to go all the way to John O Groats, a mere bagatelle at 90 miles. The idea gradually faded over the next few miles. The single track road was amazingly busy. Some cars waited in passing places, causing you to pedal like hamster, and others, the Bicycle Deniers, passed at 60mph within two feet of my bike. Terrifying. The cattle grids were also teeth-chippingly juddery!
It was about 12 miles to Altnaharra, where I got coffee in the hotel then six along the edge of Loch Naver. At the end of Loch Naver, the River Naver was born. It was a really powerful thing to see, the overspill from the loch running off as a river. Then the road followed every inch of the river until it reached the sea at Bettyhill. The Strathnaver communities all fell victim to the Highland Clearances and their is a quite moving themed trail throughout its length.

Highland Clearances Memorial

I passed a few groups setting off from JOG, mostly Londoners who didn’t fancy a long trip home at the end, and all were cheerful. Hah! Let’s see them at the other end!
I was planning to have hot food in Bettyhill and so were the three other hungry end-to-enders with their noses pressed up against the locked café door.

The River Naver meets the sea at Bettyhill.

There was no food to be had before Strathy, 12 miles away. Luckily, Les had bought me a flask for just such an eventuality and I had tea and sandwiches instead.
I had been fighting a headwind all day and now I was out on the north coast road it was just silly. I can’t really complain though. This is my first really proper headwind and I finish tomorrow. I decided to stop at Melvich, leaving 36 miles for tomorrow. Les had been out kayaking in the neighbourhood, as she did every time an unexplored water body was close by, and she loaded me and Bikey up for the second last time.

Day 19 - Inverness to beyond Lairg (56 miles)

Saturday, June 11, 2011
What a beautiful, beautiful day I have just had. Easily the best for scenery so far and lots of variety in the terrain too. I started going over the wee hills of Munlochy into the Black Isle proper and my comment on the digital recorder is “It’s been worth coming 900 and odd miles just for this view”. I didn't photograph it of course. There were the trees and fields then the Beauly Firth then the mountains, all as they should be. And I was about to cycle through them! After the lanes of Munlochy and Culbokie I had to make a rabbit-dash across the Cromarty causeway with the A9 traffic. A lot of end-to-enders get as far as the Black Isle and see the “John O Groats 109 miles” road sign and just decide to get it over with by staying on the A9 all the way . What a shame; they’re missing the best bit.
I discovered cyclists’ miracle food at the Storehouse of Foulis restaurant. If you eat a big bowl of leek, potato and chorizo soup, a cheese scone, a meringue the size of a human head and a cup of strong coffee, it keeps you going for hours.

Struie view

After lunch I went parallel to the A9 and up into the hills. The climbing (it was raining by now) was made positively pleasant by listening to Les’s IPod on shuffle mode. I got Christmas carols, Elvis, Neil Diamond, U2, Amy McDonald. It was great! Carol Parker and I talked about IPods back at the start of this ride. Carol was undecided as to the merits but to me, when you are cycling alone you have no distraction from your pains, the distance, the weather etc. Music takes all that away, especially random music.
At the top of the hill was a beautiful muir. On Struie Hill I stopped at the viewpoint and just marvelled. Bonar Bridge was only 5 miles away and Lairg was another 11 after that.
Soon after I witnessed the Luck of the Mole. A small mole-let was scurrying across the road as a car approached. The car went over the mole but the wheels missed it. The draught birled it over a few times then it found its feet again and made for the verge where it swam into the earth just after I took its picture.

A mole with a story to tell

A Lairg sheep. Doesn't eat much.

Lairg was my intended end point but any extra mileage would make the last day shorter so I sped on into single-track territory with a huge empty muir stretching out before me and Altnaharra 19 miles away. A bit gallus really. By 5.55pm Les had not appeared and I couldn’t stop pedalling because the midgies were waiting for me. A phone signal materialised and we established contact. I wasn’t going to be picked to the bone by midgie-piranhas after all and ten minutes later I was in the car heading for the tent-house.

Base camp

Les, the former Highland Chef of the Year, prepared salmon with new potatoes and Caesar salad in the camping kitchen and all is well.
Only trouble with tenting is it doesn’t get dark and it is a little chilly at night even in June. Both problems are solved by sleeping with the North Ronaldsay woolly helmet pulled down over your eyes, Calimero fashion. I’ll leave you with that image.

Day 18 - Dufftown to Inverness (56 miles)

Friday, June 10, 2011
PHOTOS TO FOLLOW; INTERNET TOO SLOW!!!!
I set off from Dufftown full of enthusiasm ‘cos I knew there was a lot of “down” for the first few miles. I soared off down the road under a bright sun and screeched to a halt 30 seconds later. It was Baltic! I put on the trackies and jersey and tried again. Better. I was on the Whisky Trail and it smelled great. First sign was the Speyside Cooperage with its mountains of barrels and little barrel houses in the grounds. Then Glenfiddich, Glen Grant, the Macallan, Glenlivet, Cardhu, Dallas Dhu. And of course, the River Spey, which provides the water. The roads got smaller until I turned right from Knockando and headed over a bleak muir. I felt pathetic, weak as a kitten, because it was so hard to pedal and not steep but it was deceptively steep and it took a very long time to come back down to Forres. I hadn’t seen the sea since the Camel Estuary but in Forres, dinghies could be seen in people’s gardens; the sea was close again.
After Forres, I decided to take the A96, a busy, fast road, just to crunch some miles quickly. It was 25 miles to Inverness and I really went for it with gritted teeth, literally. Sometimes there was a narrow, hard shoulder, or “cycle path” as I liked to think of it. But when it ran out I just had to take my place on the road and hold it. The traffic was really well behaved with just the odd camper van coming a bit close. After nine miles, Les caught up with me at Nairn and we had a wee chat about the evening. After 15 miles I had a wee lie down in a bus shelter then after 25 miles I was on the Kessock Bridge having a chat with a cyclist who is starting the end to end next month with some friends. He’s doing it in 11 days. Swot.
Anyway, I exceeded my intended mileage and finished early so it was a good day. Hope your’s was too.

Day 17 - Banchory to Dufftown (56 miles)

Thursday, June 9, 2011
Today Lesley and I set off for the last leg of this journey with Lesley’s car looking like it was heading off for a triathlon. We drove to Banchory where I was unleashed to cycle to Dufftown and Lesley headed to Grantown on Spey to set up our camp for the next two nights.

Action Car!

The cycling was slow and uphill in the morning and the nearest town to lunchtime was Alford, where I had to look pretty hard for a muncherie. When I came out, it was raining heavily, so I set off with the baseball cap pulled down to keep my specs dry and the MP3 player to distract me from an unpleasant reality of still having 38 miles to go. Happily, the road from Alford was a dream road, flat and pleasantly winding, following the course of the river Don. And it stayed that way for the next 20 miles. At Rhynie I had to decide whether to take the shorter high level route or add five miles and keep to the flat. It was windy and very rainy and rather than risk exposure (!) I went the long way. There were NO teashops between Alford and Huntly, no matter how hard I clicked the ruby red slippers and wished for one, and it was a tired me that stumbled into a Huntly café for tea.
Conscious that Les was coming to look for me at 5.30ish I didn’t stay long. I asked a man with a dog where the road to Dufftown was and he said: “Oh, the road to Dufftown is like that! And he pointed to the sky. It was pretty much up for six miles and down for six miles. Les was waiting for me near the top and didn’t mind that I wanted to finish at Dufftown. It was another hour before I pulled in, dead beat.
We put the bike on the car and headed for tent-home in Grantown. I had never seen the tent before and was thrilled to find it had an office, for blogging, a double room all for me and a fitted carpet. I think we will be very happy here!

Day 16 - Glamis to Banchory (46 miles)

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
I really enjoyed today’s trip around my own backyard. I left from home at 9am reflecting that up and down the length of Britain, literally, other end-to-enders were pushing their bikes out on to the street for their next leg. Some get up at five to miss the traffic. Some go at 11am and think they’re early. Some are doing it in 100-mile days, some with no map at all. One man I met lost five stone and planned it for a year. Three New Zealanders I met in Penzance were doing it with no luggage because their wives had it all in their car.
All of the initial joy I felt in the beginning, and which has dissipated as the mileage has grown, came back with the excellent news that my sister Lesley is going to come with me for the last five days, bringing her good company, luxury tent and considerable culinary talent.
Also, apologies to all the people that told me I was mental to go from South to North because it was all uphill; you were right. I told them the prevailing wind would blow me north like a galleon under full sail. Wrong again. Headwind today.
The first 12 miles flew by and at Aberlemno I stopped to look at the standing stones for which it is famous. One of them has a Pictish bicycle on it (pictured).

Pictish bicycle stone

After a tea stop in Brechin I carried on to Edzell then Fettercairn, all the time looking for the gap in the mountains in front of me that I would be cycling through. Blowed if I could see one! It wasn’t there. I had to go right over the top, up to 450m then whizzing down the other side into Aberdeenshire. I don’t know how far you can see from the top of the Cairn O Mount but it is very far indeed. Three men were flying huge, elegant model planes which looked like birds of prey until they became silhouetted against the sun.

A view with a room

The last few miles to Banchory were through thick, scented pine forest and I didn’t have to pedal much at all, which is how I like my cycling.

Day 15 - Edinburgh Park to Perth (43 miles)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011
I got the train back to Edinburgh this morning and was cycling away from Edinburgh Park by 9.45am. Along the A8, I had a close encounter of the furred kind when a grey squirrel almost dived through my spokes.
From there to the bridge is all familiar territory to me and I was soon gazing down at a bright blue sail on the River Forth.

Breezy bliss

 “Hello,” said somebody, breaking my dwam. It was another end-to-ender, four panniers, top bag, pained expression, the whole package. We were both following the same CTC route as it happens but he was doing the occasional 100 mile day to get it over with more quickly. “To tell you the truth,” he said, I’m getting really tired and sore and I just want to finish now,”. I was so pleased to hear this as I thought I was the only traitor on the trail. I cycled with him to Inverkeithing but when he stood up on his pedals to go up the hill, I let him go ahead, feigning a desperate need for a cup of tea.
The hills up to Cowdenbeath were uninspiring but the flight down to Kinross was great. I was now off-piste, making up my own route which was more direct than the CTC one, on a day which would be 70 miles at least. I lunched in a Kinross café where the waitress tried many ways of telling a French family there were no baked potatoes then had a really lovely ride over the hills to Glenfarg and Bridge of Earn. It had rained by now but not too seriously. And the traffic was building as I arrived in Perth at 4.15pm and had a pot of tea at the Giraffe Café to fortify myself for the last 26 miles to home.
My phone rang. It was Paul. He was just approaching Perth on his way home from Glasgow; where was I? Did I want a lift?
Soooooo…. What did I do?
I TOOK THE LIFT! AAARRRGGGHHH!
In the interest of self-preservation I was driven along the last stage. I wasn’t due to get home until at least 7.30pm, it was pouring rain and the traffic was getting bad. Now I’ll have to come back and do the Perth to Glamis bit when I finish the main trip but it was worth it and I’d do it again. Bikey has had a wash, polish and oil and so have I and we are all set for tomorrow’s jaunt to Banchory.

Bikey takes a lift