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

Day 14 - Samye Ling to Edinburgh (67 miles)

Monday, June 6, 2011
How low can you go? I know how low I can go; I was there for most of today. Just because this trip is self-inflicted, don’t expect me to scoot along like Debbie Reynolds all the time.
I have decided that Samye Ling doesn’t really suit me. I had a dorm to myself and it was comfy but I found a lot of the residents to be bad-tempered, which isn’t very Buddhist, and unsmiling. I think they are missing the point.
As for the cycling, how would you like it? The first forty miles I didn’t see another soul except sheep and they ran away from me. I covered the hills of Eskdalemuir at 3.5mph, in hamster-wheel gear, with a head wind and it was so cold I had the full weather gear on - woolly helmet, trousers, jersey. And no coffee stops for 40 miles. What kind of a country is this? I want to go back to England.

Goodbye Eskdalemuir.

Hello Ettrick Valley.

I finally got some hot soup at Innerleithen then it was on to Peebles Spar for a slap up sandwich then the long road to Embra.
To pass these dull miles, I listened to Frank Sinatra on the MP3 player and sometimes joined in, so that horses three fields away looked over at me and rolled their eyes.
Part of the problem today was that I was not looking forward to spending the night in Embra Yoof Hostel. I had too many nights in cheap B&Bs in Embra during the SEPA years and am now mentally scarred.
However, I had plenty of time to think of an alternative as I slogged along. I decided to cycle to an Edinburgh railway station , catch the train to Dundee and sleep at home then go back to the same station in the morning and seamlessly resume my journey. Les said she would pick me up in Dundee and take me back to the train in the morning. This thought was immensely cheering for me and so I survived the ignominy of getting lost in Embra and having to follow the canal until I was back on familiar ground.
Me and Bikey, or should I say Bikey and I, are now warm on the train. We have had a cup of tea and are looking forward to getting home for the first time in 16 days.

Day 13 - Penrith to Samye Ling (54 miles)

Sunday, June 5, 2011
Fellfoot Independent Hostel in Penrith was the perfect place for a rest and I was on the road by 8.15am not quite believing that I was once again raring to go after the depleted state I had got in after Friday’s lumpy invasion of Cumbria. Two good things had happened to improve my chances of success. Firstly, Alistair, of Fellfoot had shown me the flat way out of Cumbria, which involved taking a lane which ran alongside the M6 then went straight through the middle of Carlisle and out on to the A7. It was every bit as good as he said it was and I was pleased to share it with two other end-to-enders heading north like me that I met by the air pump in a service station.
The other good thing was finding a cycling book in Fellfoot which talked a bit about cadence i.e. how fast your legs go up and down. It suggested that you should pedal as fast as is comfortable in a gear in which you don’t feel strain in your knees. I tried it and did my miles in record time, arriving at Samye Ling by 3.45pm. And I didn’t get lost once.
Carlisle is nice on Sunday morning, real church bells pealing over it and people just starting to emerge into the central square. The next highlight was a road sign saying Welcome to Scotland and words cannot express etc (see?). Well, one word can; yeehaa.

Words fail me.

Then it was A7, A7, A7 to Langholm but the orchids growing along the side of the road were cheerful.
I had a roast dinner in the Crown Hotel in Langholm and thought about the last Crown I was in, the wonky one in Nantwich, a long way south. Then I tackled the undulating stretch of 15 miles to Samye Ling.

Bikey gets Buddhist

Now I am here. I have sat in on a silent meditation hour where I nodded off a few times (hope I didn’t snore) and done my chores. I seem to have a six-bed dorm to myself again, which makes me Audrey “Jammy” Lees and tomorrow I head for Edinburgh, Embra, the Big Smoke.
I feel I have been travelling through England in another century, one where the pace of life was slow and where people wore lanes across the land as they walked from one parish to the next. Even today, all through England, historic inns still serve food at important crossroads and the lanes are often called the name of the place they lead to. In short, I think I have gained an understanding of how life used to be and what was important then. I also know where Shropshire is!

Day 12 - Ingleton to Penrith (46 miles)

Friday, June 3, 2011
I wasn’t really supposed to come to Penrith today but all the accommodation along my route was booked because of the Appleby Horse Fair and Penrith was as close as I could get. I had thought of leaving my bike somewhere like Langwathby and getting a taxi to and from Penrith but I found myself eight miles from Penrith on a nice road and I grabbed the opportunity.
Tired and stiff, I set off earlier than usual from Ingleton this morning to avoid such a late finish again and the first six miles to Kirkby Lonsdale on the busy A65 went quickly. I had breakfast with the crowds buying tea and rolls from a van then headed off towards Sedbergh on a quieter road. It was a pleasant nine miles but I was surrounded by big hills, the ones you see from the M6 at Shap, and I knew I would have to go through them soon… I developed a coping strategy for extreme gradient which was 100 pedals, stop, take a breather, another 100 pedals and that did very well for a while. I went under the M6 and five miles before Tebay I was bushed and had to put out the picnic blanket for a seat and a Scooby snack of nuts etc. An hour later - that’s how hilly everything was - I got to Tebay and was the only customer in the Barnaby Rudge pub where one dog barked at me and the other wanted to bite me but was chained up out of reach. A really good lunch was produced out of the gloomy interior and I got on my way which involved some major pushing up idiotic switchbacks.

Cumbria

After this I was due to go on to a lane. When I got to it, it was blocked by a Road Closed sign. Having no energy to follow a diversion, I took the lane anyway; everybody knows that one way systems, traffic lights and Road Closed signs don’t apply to bikes . Joy of joys I swept downhill for a couple of miles then followed a very flat road, all the time wondering if I could somehow sneak round the blockage, whatever it was. If they tried to send me back I decided to lie down and cry and beat my fists on the tar. LUCKILY there was a pedestrian rat-run around major resurfacing works and my happy progress continued until I found the Penrith road.
I am in a wonderful independent hostel tonight. It’s called Fellfoot and I am sharing the whole house with one other person called Mary. My next cycle is due to be huge, about 65 miles with lots of hills to walk up and I know for sure I will not be able to do it tomorrow. I have therefore decided to have a rest day in Penrith . I will find a café and an Independent and that’s the extent of my ambition. Nighty night.

Day 11 - Chorley to Ingleton (60 miles)

Thursday, June 2, 2011
Today has been a great day. It has been a day of grand views from the tops of hills seen while listening to lambs bleating, a day of canals and larks and grass. It is also the official half way point of the journey, the 500^th mile of a 1000 mile odyssey through Britain. I seem to be doing 20% extra though, whether through being lost or staying in accommodation off the beaten track.
Today I left Chorley to go to Wheelton. Didn’t there used to be a children’s programme called Chorley and the Wheeltons? I used Navigation by Local, asking the way every ten feet, and I was soon out in the countryside again. Wheelton is a major canal venue with locks, hire boats and boat sales.

Wheelton lock

A man was opening the lock gate for his wife to drive the boat in. “It’s ‘ard work with just two,” he said. I have this idea of doing a canal boat odyssey when I retire (next time) but I never thought it would be ’ard work. There was no weather today; no wind, no sun and no rain, and I had baby moorhens and hedges instead of the lorries of yesterday.
It was hilly though and I had time to spot all the hawthorn trimmings on the road. I once lost three inner tubes to a single thorn hiding in my tyre so they made me nervous. Next came miles of holly hedges along Goosefoot Lane, the first ones I’ve seen.
I passed Alum Scar lane and stopped at the Nab’s Head for tea, plenty of names and origins to ponder. What’s a nab? I finally left the hills with their marvellous views behind for the flat of the Ribble Valley. Lazy Legs Lees likes valleys.
This is a holiday week in England and there were plenty of people out for a day in the car. Two dumpy ladies passed and their old car was filled with their smiles.
Everywhere tall, lush grass has been newly cut to make hay and in one field there was a lapwing in every dreel.
I know I have sounded pretty relaxed about today so far but I was way behind schedule and on course for another late finish. I continue to find new ways to get lost and today I got lost by reading the map from north to south instead of south to north for a short while (I know, I shouldn’t really be allowed out of Glamis!). This caused me to ride the same bit of road three times, losing about 45 minutes. At Slaidburn I still had 15 miles to go and it was 6pm. Twelve of those miles were on a “quiet lane” at the edge of a supposed forest. What actually transpired was a very steep bare hillside which I had to push my bike up for most of six miles. Exhausted and not a little bit concerned, I stopped at the halfway point and at some nuts and chocolate and pondered my futures. There were two. In the good future, I was near the top and would freewheel six miles down the other side and arrive at the youth hostel before dark. In the bad future, I had another six miles of pushing which I didn’t think I could manage and I would arrive at the hostel some time on Sunday. Can you guess what happened?

Picnic spot on a quiet lane!

I got lucky and hauled in to Ingleton YHA at 9pm, thoroughly depleted, with all the usual chores still to do. I also had to share a room with two ladies who were already in their beds. I finally got to bed at 11pm, not sure how I was going to get up and do it again tomorrow…

Day 10 - Nantwich to Chorley (60 miles)

Wednesday, June 1, 2011 (60 miles)
Today I experienced four English counties namely Shropshire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester (yuk!) and at this moment Lancashire. You can keep Greater Manchester. It threatened to suck me into its vortex of lorries and other crap metal things but I escaped. Hah!
As usual I got lost trying to leave the town I slept in, in this case Nantwich. But if you want to know the way, ask a postie. I sped along a busy A road to Middlewich where I had a cup of tea and watched a hilarious wee boy who had been dumped with his stiff old granny for the Whitsun holiday. She’d kept him too long at the café where she met her old chums and he kept saying ”Come on then Gran, it’s time to go now,” and trying to pull her to her feet.
I headed out of Middlewich in the wrong direction then came back and went on through the land of service stations - Knutsford, Sandbach, Congleton - criss-crossing the M6.
At Knutsford I lunched in the Red Cow pub because they had Wifi and I needed to post the last two blogs (no Wifi in Nantwich) then got lost trying to leave and had to walk round the one way system in the wrong direction. Do you see a theme emerging here?
Just after Warburton I came across a toll road which charged 12p to cross the Manchester Ship Canal, which is twice as wide as normal canals. The toll is imposed by the Manchester Ship Company to look after the bridge but it doesn’t seem to be enough. Bikes don’t have to pay.

12p to cross - a bargain!

I had traffic with me almost all day today. About 4pm I needed another cup of tea but there was none to be had; I have left the land where every other building is a tea shop run by a couple from London far behind.
The last 15 miles dragged. The roads were busy and I was travelling through straggly suburbs. I arrived at my “boutique hotel” about 7.30pm and I have a really comfortable room so I’ll finish now and begin regenerating for tomorrow…

Dual carriageway flowers; what you do at traffic lights.

Day 9 - Coalport to Nantwich (49 miles)

Tuesday, May 31, 2011
I am writing this in the Crown Hotel, Nantwich. When I entered it for the first time at 6pm I staggered across the floor and had to lean against the wall. The stairs are crooked and the walls all slope. The chandelier appears to hang at 30° from true. I had to duck my head to enter my room and I couldn’t find my way back to the reception when the girl left me. I would photograph the room but there has been some kind of pannier explosion in here and it’s too embarrassing.
The hotel is 450 years old and completely charming.

The Crown - not a right angle in the place!

Today was cycle-touring as she meant to be do; no pushing, very little rain and better speed across the agricultural plains of Shropshire. A highlight was coming across a cluster of people staring at a rocky ledge and when a lady leant me her binoculars I saw the four peregrine falcon chicks trying out their wings and due to fledge in two weeks or so. They’re in the photo but even I can’t even see them and I know they’re there!

Peregrine chicks - honest

Day 8 Fownhope to Coalport (63 miles)

Monday, May 30, 2011 (63 miles)
I am getting more tired as this journey goes on instead of fitter, probably because there is little time for recovery in between the stages. I was not really looking forward to today’s ride and dragged myself down to breakfast in Ann and Tony’s house quite despondently. They soon cheered me up. They run an exemplary B&B and make you feel like a visiting family member instead of a paying stranger. They have really given up doing B&B but decided to take me in as they knew I would not got anything else in the area. Anyway, I left their house in high spirits at 9.20am with best wishes and a hunk of Ann’s simnel cake.
It was raining heavily. By 11am I was soaked to the skin and seriously cold and I still had hours to go. In Leominster I had a hot lunch then vanished into the Ladies to put all my other cycling clothes on top and the woolly helmet from North Ronaldsay. This did the trick and I kept warm until the rain stopped at 2.30pm. It was a truly terrible day though and I had to resort to the MP3 player to distract myself. I was cycling through the Shropshire hills and the road rolled just enough to make it annoyingly hard to keep a constant speed up. The scenery was just like Angus too. I was staying at the Coalport YH and on arriving at nearby Ironbridge I was enthused enough to get out the camera for the first time that day when I came across four massive chimneys. I asked a man about them and he kind of said: “What chimneys?” because they have been there almost as long as him. They won an award for being well-blended into the landscape. See what you think.

Can you spot them?

The oldest iron bridge in Iron Bridge and the world.

I also cycled past the oldest iron bridge in the world, now a World Heritage Site and serious tourist town. The YH had hot food and a washing machine and drier so I was able to resurrect all my wet gear. I got a room all to myself and had a really good night there.

Day 7 - Thornbury to Fownhope (50 miles)

Sunday, May 29, 2011 (50 miles)
Even the Tour de France riders have rest days. Anybody know where I can get a hold of some EPO? Well I am back in the saddle and it may feel like I’ve got thistles in my shorts and rubber legs but I do appreciate how lucky I am to be able to do this trip.
Today has been an amazing ride; Thornbury, Severn Bridge, Chepstow, Tintern Abbey, English Bicknor, Wye Valley, the lanes, and to finish with, picture perfect Fownhope. Another amazing thing is how I can amuse myself for hours listening to the monologue running through my head (luckily). For example, as I approached the Severn Bridge I remembered the last time I crossed the Severn. It was 1993 and a huge bumble bee hit the windscreen of my Citroen Dyane and came into the car through the open roof. It squirmed on my lap all the way across as I weaved over both lanes trying to get it off without being stung.
IF England was a land of perfect country cottages, South Wales is a land of ancient cars that came too close to my pannier. It was raining and misty when I crossed the Severn and rode into Chepstow. I parked the bike there and had a quick look round and a cup of tea then headed a few miles along the road to Tintern Abbey before turning up the lanes into the hills above the Wye Valley. The River Wye is a very popular canoeing place - take note, Les - because it is shallow and it meanders and is very pretty. My lanes followed it closely which meant nice gradients with plenty to look at. Even when I couldn’t see the water I could hear the canoeists chatting quietly to each other; everyone seemed to be having a nice day today. With three miles to go before my B&B at Fownhope, an old Vauxhall truck came up behind me. I stopped to let it past. It did then it stopped right in front of me, causing me to stop too. A shaggy-haired old man got out and asked where Foy was. I showed him on the map and asked if he was going there. “No,” he said, “Do you know that MP, that Mandelson? Well I reckon he’s got a place there ‘cos he calls himself Lord Mandelson of Foy,” then he got in his truck and drove away.
Today’s B&B is top banana and I’ve had a great chat with Tony about EVERYTHING. FYI Mandelson doesn’t have a place there, he just uses the name.

A stormy Severn Bridge

Good thing to do with straw bales

I am now in the Green Man pub eating asparagus soup and pasta with artichokes. It’s almost like being on holiday.

Rest Day, Thornbury (6 miles)

After finishing late last night and doing a long 72 miles I asked my B&B lady if I could stay here in Thornbury an extra day and get rested and organised again. I posted a half-pannier of extra kit I didn't use home (Carol would be proud), booked a few accommodation venues in advance and did some washing etc. I even got my bike power-washed at Tesco and it looks braw again. Nighty night.

Day 6 - Bridgwater to Thornbury

Friday, May 27, 2011 (72 miles, seven of them “lost“ miles)
Sometimes it all goes pear shaped. Take today for example. Daily chores after a ride are to wash out cycling kit, have a shower, eat tea, find accommodation for the next day, tidy the panniers, buy food for the next ride, label the photos, write up the log and post it and check emails if there is an internet connection. If you finish cycling late or have a very chatty B&B host, time is very tight in the evenings and I haven’t made it into bed before 11.30pm one single time. I have been getting progressively more disorganised for the last couple of days and this morning I didn’t get out of Bridgwater until 10.20am. I usually start at 9am but 8.30am would be preferable.
The first 20 miles passed flatly at a good speed and before I knew it I was at the bottom of Cheddar Gorge with all the other grockels. I cycled slowly through the busy retail village where tickets to the caves could be bought and started to climb up through it. I could hear ghostly echoes of rock climbers encouraging each other up the walls of the gorge. At Compton Martin I failed to get to the pub in time for lunch and instead, picnicked by the village pond, sharing my cheese roll with a duck the size of a Fiat 500.
It was nice to see water again at Chew Lake and I had the road to myself until I got to the “Chews“, Chew Stoke and Chew Magna, where the school traffic choked up all the streets at 4pm. I headed back into the lanes after this. These are good because there is very little traffic and they undulate so the riding is more interesting, even if you have to push a bit. I emerged from the maze of lanes at Saltford where I joined the cycle path between Bristol and Bath. I got lost getting off the cycle path (I know!)


Cheesy Cheddar



the gorge



It was getting late now though. The route I am following is a Cyclists Touring Club one which requires micro-navigation on a map which is almost too small-scale to do this. I have to stop at every junction to double check the route as back-tracking is soul destroying. So it was 7pm when I went in to a pub for tea and I still had 20 miles to go, all on lanes. There was quite a bit of pushing in these lanes and it was getting dark by the time I got seriously lost in tiny Nibley. I had been phoning the B&B lady to keep her in the loop and it was with great relief that her torch and mine finally locked beams at 9.30pm.

Rest day tomorrow….

Day 5 - South Molton to Bridgewater

Thursday, May 26, 2011 (50 miles)
I left South Molton in heavy rain and strong SW winds. I felt like a fledgling leaving a nest. Mr and Mrs Colman had been great hosts in a lovely house, even putting my water bottles in the fridge and drying my rinsed out cycling clothes. Mr Colman told me not to go the way I was going “because they used it for the King of the Mountains competition in the Tour de France”.
It took an one hour and 20 minutes to do the first six miles. Normally I would do about 14 miles on a flat surface. Then I got on to Exmoor. I passed sign at a cattle grid saying “Slow down, Exmoor ponies” but I didn’t see any. The wind was howling though and I imagined the ponies barrelling across the moor, head over heels, in front of it. Crossing Exmoor was dramatic in this weather but there was a hedge which stopped the worst of the wind. It ran out with three miles to go so I put on my woolly hat from North Ronaldsay and my jumper and went for it. Near the end the rain stopped and a single ray of sun burst through. The larks immediately threw themselves into the sky and sang their heads off; I may have looked like Kenneth More in The 39 Steps but this was fantastic. I was still cold though and looked forward to a cup of tea at Withypool. The teashop was shut. As I sat at its outside table, two gamekeepers in green tweed pulled up in an ancient Land Rover. They looked like they had just driven in from the 19^th century and were just as unsmiling as the Glamis lot. I did get coffee (and scones with clotted cream and jam) in Winsford 4 miles further on though. It had thatched cottages, a real ford and Ernest Bevin was born there.
Next came the Summerway Hare Path which was another huge push. After that, things were a littler easier to Raleigh Cross Inn where I had a proper hot lunch. I passed a straggled out group of walkers doing five marathons in five days to raise money for injured soldiers coming home from Afghanistan.
I made it into my top gear for the first time after this but soon after Bishop’s Lydeard I started climbing up into the Quantocks. There were a few isolated farms but not as we know them. These were all from the 17^th century and had been restored to mint condition, an affluent place indeed. I was following lanes too narrow for anything more than a car and the canopy overhead made them tunnels. The wind was whipping the branches back and forward and the sun dappling on the road was quite hypnotic. I had time to notice these things ’cos the hill was so steep I could barely move my bike up it. After an hour and a half of this I got to the top, completely knackered.

Exmoor. Brrrr.

A Quantocks farm

The bike found it’s own way to Bridgewater and my B&B, luckily, my first big town, with flats and Asda and everything.

Day 4 Middle of Nowhere to South Molton

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 (42miles)
Carol and I stuck together until we left Cornwall and entered Devon then we parted at a fork in the road, her to carry on with her plans and me to resume mine, which would take me north more quickly. I was sad to see her go because she told great stories in a great accent and was good company. Now it was just me and me again I could pay more attention to my surroundings. On the A388, I came up a 16% gradient to a view with no towns at all in it. Then it got silly. I went down a 25% gradient. I mean, one of the steepest roads in the UK is only 5% steeper at 30%! I mean, I thought I was going over the handlebars every second and I was practically sitting on the rear mudguard and managed to stretch my arms to two metres long to reach the handlebars! OMG!!!! And did I mention the 20% hill to climb up on the other side?
Now I am in South Molton. I arrived in a similar state to John Mills in Ice Cold in Alex but an ace B&B has cheered me up. It has an ensuite Jack Russell!

Day 3 - Newquay to the Middle of Nowhere

Tuesday, May 24, 2011 (57miles)
Newquay hindered my blog because a small part of it went on fire which caused much of the town centre to be closed and evacuated last night. Nonetheless, better late etc.
Carol and I left Newquay at 9am, up a hill. Cycling in Cornwall is like sledging in Dundee. The long trudge up is rewarded by a wee thrill down. The hills got progressively more ridiculous over the 12 miles to Padstow but this was Cornwall as you would imagine it; a string of surfing beaches in deep coves around which picturesque villages had grown like roses.
Padstow is the home of the National Lobster Hatchery. Oh yeah, and Rick Stein’s got a chippie there. It was mobbed. People are such lemmings. Television is so powerful. Carol and I ate Cornish ice cream at the harbour where yachts jostled for space. It is indeed bonny. Then we left the sea for the last time and turned inland to follow the camel river trail for 18 miles, stopping to admire the Archimedes screw at the Padstow sewage treatment plant.
The trail was very busy with families out cycling and, unusually, mobility scooterists. Even under the darkest tree lined stretches, bike renters would come thundering along. I prefer to have sky above me but the trail certainly smoothed things out for a while. We bought food in the Wadebridge Lidl to avoid an afternoon bonk (it’s a cycling term; look it up!) but I bonked anyway and had to consume some emergency sandwiches and wait for them to work their magic. The trail ended at Camelford and we climbed again, this time right up on to Bodmin Moor where we cycled over a WWII airfield so atmospheric we expected Spitfires to land on the road.

Padstow

Carol Parker, ace bike companion

It’s all a bit of a blur after that. We swooped and plunged in the narrow lanes until 7.30pm until we found our farm house B&B in a very remote location, possibly the same one Terry Waite was held in for five years, where the conversation-starved hostess kept us chatting almost until bedtime.

Day 1 - Penzance to Penzance

Sunday, May 22, 2011

I left the hostel at 9am and cycled to Land’s End (yay!) via Newlyn and Mousehole and came back via St Buryan. At Newquay all the people had been abducted by aliens. Except the joggers. The aliens left the joggers. There’s a lesson for us all there. St Michael’s Mount was visible through a slight haze and a single fishing boat, very neat, was leaving the harbour.
There were no mice at all at Mousehole, just a lot of people hanging around the paper shop. On my way out of Mousehole a fox dropped out of the long grass on the verge and crossed the road in front of me without a single sound then vanished into the potato shaws on the other side.
Just after Mousehole I passed through a place called Paul.
The lanes are absolutely beautiful. Many of the dykes had pink daisies growing out of them. All the flowers are out - white hawthorn that looked like it was heavy on the branches, pink campion, purple vetch and yellow gorse. And the smell of wild garlic all the way; plenty for Lydia’s excellent soup. The birds were shouting to be heard above the wind.
Arriving at the three mile marker from Land’s End I was pleased to note there was a giant saltire in the sky above it. It had been drawn by the jet planes and made me feel quite welcome.
The lanes are lovely but suddenly plunge away round hairpin bends. I had to make an emergency stop for a chubby grey squirrel that couldn’t decide how to get out of the way quickly enough. It’s hard to enjoy the downhills ‘cos you know there is a price to be paid. Some Good Things About Uphills are: you get to have a good look at your knees. When did you last do that eh? You get to have a good look at the flowers. You get to have a good look at the road kill. The most interesting road kill is in Sicily (dogs, possums, snakes) but Land’s End offered a snakey thing and a lizardy thing.
When I got to Land’s End there was a sign. It said “Private Property. This is a private road. Please park in the designated car park only.” None of your Land Reform Act nonsense here. See, this is why Scotland needs to keep voting SNP. The designated car park cost £4 of course but bikes were able to go through the tollbooth for free. Land’s End has a shopping village. I don’t know what it sells as I wasn’t tempted into any shops except for a cup of tea (and maybe a Cornish pasty). There were plenty of people here although the wind was blasting away at force 47 on the Beaufort scale and some people’s hair appeared to have been blown clean off. The sea was amazingly wild and walkers were gamely setting off along the coastal path.
The Famous Sign is behind a fence which keeps the public 10 feet away from it. Honest. If you want your picture taken right beside it it’ll cost £7.95 for a 7x5 print. The couple next to me were telling their wee dog to “Stay” so they could snap him in front of the sign but every time the man framed his shot the dog took a few fairy steps towards him and spoiled it. They kindly snapped me there too. On the wall close to the sign there are two plaques to cyclists killed while doing the End to End. One was on his 12^th when it happened.
I made a short detour to Sennen on the way back to Penzance but only found the churchyard, the dead centre as Angela would say, worth photographing.


A saltire in the sky

What an athlete!

As a shakedown trip, this was a success. I got to try out the bike and half the luggage and made a gentle start to my E2E. Tomorrow is another day.

Mousehole Harbour

Day 0 Dundee to Penzance

Saturday, May 21, 2011.
I have just travelled almost the length of Britain. It took 12 hours and I saw a steady transition of landscapes and experienced a less steady transition in the accents of the train announcers (oo arrr). Why then (stop to look out the window at a lovely wide river which has just appeared) do I feel the need to cycle all the back up again then go past my house, literally, and keep going to John O Groats?
(Oh, here we are at “Plymouth the next stop”.)
Just because I can. I have motive and opportunity and I have wanted to do the end to end as long as I knew there was one.
If I cycle 50 miles a day, which is not too onerous in cycle-touring circles, it will take me three weeks. All I have to do every day for the next three weeks is dander along on my bike and write up my blog. Theoretically. I am not the fittest person in the world (no, honestly) but hopefully by the end you will share my enthusiasm for this….

Day 2 - Penzance to Newquay



Our bikes enjoy the view at Portreath

 Who would have guessed yesterday that by now I would have hooked up with a complete stranger and chucked away my intended route purely on her say so? I’m still going to John O Groats, just not the way my orange highlighter pen thinks I am.
Last night at 10pm I asked a lady in Penzance YHA if I could look at her map (mine’s is just cut up bits of atlas). Turns out she has been cycling round Cornwall for 20 years and knows all the cycle paths and tram roads that make the roller coaster roads a little bit easier. She even said where all the best tea stops, toilets and pasties were so today I followed Carol Parker like a little doggy, brain firmly in neutral.
While Scotland was getting blasted by 100mph gusts we were sailing past St Michael’s Mount with a following wind onto Marazion (toilets), Hayle (pasties), Portreath (tea and surfers), Perranporth (loadsatraffic) and, finally, Newquay (B&B).
You’ll notice the blog is a bit light on detail. That’s what happens when you cycle with a companion. you just gabble and rant for 40 miles and suddenly you are there. We did notice the rain though. It washed all the roads off Carol’s maps (Hah - my atlas pages stayed roadified) and it even washed away quite a lot of the paper, leaving merely holes.
We also noticed the hills. On the downhills your knuckle bones popped out through your skin because you were braking so fiercely and on the ups you could hardly push your bike, such was the absurd verticalness of the gradient. When tractors passed there was barely six inches between us, pressed into the verge, and the big back wheels.
I think I am sticking with Carol for one more day until our paths diverge as she heads of to meet a chum at Bideford and Audrey No Mates just keeps going North.