John O'Groats to Lands End

Road closures, back tracking, hills, 57 miles…92 km.  Pooped.

You’ll always have a part of us – all the bits the midges bit off.

Day 12: Last day in Scotland.  Total miles: 484   (779 km)

Thoughts on leaving:

• Cycling in Scotland is totally amazing.
• Scottish water tastes fantastic.
• Scotland is stunningly beautiful.  Wild and so varied.
• In 12 days, it rained every day…a lot.  Also sleet.  Also hail.  In June.
• Midges are really annoying
• People are very friendly and 99% of vehicle drivers are cycle savvy.  The other 1% drive honking big lorries that nearly suck you underneath as they go by.  (FYI – every Tesco lorry was notably considerate).
• We’re really really really glad we didn’t camp.
• We would definitely come back!

We’re in Abington at a motorway service inn.  Incongruous cyclists among long distance lorry drivers.    We’re now closer to Chippenham than to John O’Groats, which is odd since we’re still 50 miles north of the England border.

We stayed in an odd hotel in East Kilbride last night.  As we left this morning there was woman in the underground parking trying to find her way out.    Perhaps Scotland’s Hotel California.

There can be sun in Scotland!

Day 10:  Total 398 miles (640 km)

It was a full day with rain, sun, headwinds, a ferry trip from Dunoon to Gourock, west of Glasgow, and a zoom along the old Greenock and Ayrshire railway line to Paisley.  It was a bit sad to leave behind the Highlands and the long wide stretches of wilderness.  We’ve been told that we can open our window tonight without having to be on midge alert.   Two more days in Scotland.

Which was spectacular, notwithstanding scudding clouds, strong winds and some short sharp rain showers.   And now we’re in Dunoon, not far from the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

We decided to shed some equipment and send it home by post.   After hauling stuff up some steep hills you begin to appreciate that there’s much you can do without. So with dawning realization that the invitation for a weekend at Balmoral would not be forthcoming, out went the taffeta ball gown, the dinner jacket, Harris tweeds, and deer stalker.  We still seem to have twice as much stuff as everyone else we meet.   But Margaret has a well stocked first aid kit comprehensive enough for appendectomies, C-sections etc, and I carry enough bike supplies to build another complete bike should we need one.

As well as sheep, Scotland is well supplied with rhododendrons, which grow with wild abandon wherever you look.   Rhododendrons are native to the Himalayas.   So, with a climate similar to Mt Everest base camp (only with more rain), it’s easy to see why Scotland is a favoured habitat.

Day 8:   Total:  305 miles (491km)

The cycle from North Connel to Kilmichael Glassary was up and down all the way.  Both hills and weather!  Our cumulative elevation was 2300 feet.  It was actually our most taxing day physically but the pouring rain kept us moving.  We even had sleet at the top of one of the hills.   For the longer hills I got out my bike speakers that connect to the music on my phone.  Stan Rogers, Natalie McMaster, and a Charlie Parker jazz set!  What a difference it makes as we glance up to see that we still can’t see the top of the hill yet!  Tony can hear it too as long as he doesn’t get too far ahead.   Makes the tough bits a bit easier. Had to put a shower cap on it to keep it dry…ish.

Our bikes are in a dry shed…our hand washed clothes were taken to be tumble dried over night…and the evening has been spent planning out the rest of our route.

It was recommended that we don’t open our window tonight as ‘the midgies are bad!’ (almost affectionate name for midges).  As with all biting insects, you can almost hear their happy little shouts as Tony comes near.  His legs are covered in little red dots.

Tomorrow’s  forecast? Hmmm…cloudy with a chance of…yup…rain.   Still having a great time!

 

 

Day 7:  Total distance = 264 miles  (425 km)

We saw our shadows today.  In fact, we were in sunshine for about 30 minutes.   Apparently that hasn’t happened in Scotland since 1934.   Tomorrow promises the usual driving rain and wind.  Nice to have some certainty in life.

We’re just outside Oban.   Yesterday was a long day (though not as long as Theresa May’s, I suspect – ha ha) because we were on a forestry road for quite a while, which was slow going.   We were also attacked by Loch Ness monsters in the form of midges – swarms of small biting flies.

Today though we zoomed along NCR 78, which followed the disused Ballachulish railway line.  We like disused railway trails because they have gentle grades and no cars.

“We don’t get much call for sunscreen around here”, said the man in the Foyers Store when Tony asked for some lip balm containing sunscreen.   Plenty of midge spray though.

Tried taking a photo of the panorama of Loch Ness, but some weird creature in the foreground photo bombed the picture, which totally spoiled it so had to delete it.

Day 5:  Total miles-177.  We have now come off Cycle Route 1 and have joined Route 78.

The B&B where we are staying has a Wee Whisky Bar that boasts 100 different kinds of whisky.  Just had a taster of Mackinchie.  It was in row #3 at £5.50.   The 4th and last row didn’t have prices!  We currently look out over the middle of Loch Ness.  It’s raining…we’re warm and dry.  Life is good.

We are settling in to a routine now and having new scenery every day makes the miles melt away. The bikes are behaving themselves and apart from losing a shoe cleat screw, we have not had any problems.  We are still able to ‘get in the saddle’ every morning.  The old knees are a bit tender but they were before so we’re not counting that.   The wind has continued to follow us which has made the difference between a very pleasant ride and a nightmare.

Stopping, stretching and eating/ drinking every hour, whether we are hungry or not seems to be the best plan.  We went too long today and suddenly you realize that the tank is near empty.

We passed through Inverness again today.  An old boy asked “Where are ye from if ya don’t mind me askin’?”  He was 87 and was delighted that we were from Canada. He fought alongside Canadians in Korea and said ‘they took great care’of him.  It would have been so nice to chat longer but (once again) we were freezing and had to get going.

Our B&B experience has been very good.  We met more campers today. The weather has not been their friend. We are still respectfully declining the black pudding and haggis for breakfast!

It’s the first time we’d seen this flag.  The unicorn has been a symbol in Scottish history for over 1000 years.  On the UK and Scottish coats of arms it has a chain around its neck.  Scotland see the chain as a form of subjugation.  Find out more on the Unchain the Unicorn web page.

 

We’re in Conon Bridge, a small village 10 miles from Inverness.   Yesterday was quite the ride.  We were out in a big wind and rain storm for 7 hours as we came up and over the highlands.   Fortunately the wind was behind us the whole time or we would not have made it.  That’s when we discovered that our pannier covers are water resistant, but not waterproof.   However, today was dry and most of our damp stuff has dried out.

The b&bs seem to be populated with fat blokes on motorcycles or retired fat blokes and their wives doing the grand tour by car.   That doesn’t stop them providing gratuitous armchair advice – this is the route you should take, this is how long the journey should take, this is what you should wear.   Thanks mate.  Just don’t run us over while you’re fiddling with your in-car climate control.

Our first real day.   42 miles to Armadale west of Thurso.    And we zoomed along almost effortlessly.   All our diligent pre-trip training was clearly paying off.  Until we realised it was a strong tailwind pushing us along.   An arthritic granny on a penny-farthing could have gone as fast.    No matter – we’re here now and steeling ourselves for our longest ride of the trip tomorrow.   We go to Lairg over a tiny highland road, made all the more exciting by forecasts of heavy rain and gale force winds throughout the day.   A dour Scotswoman warned us of possibly terrible consequences if we proceed.   It was like something out of Macbeth.

There are a lot of sheep and lambs in Scotland.   Pass the mint sauce.   (Comment not approved Margaret 🙂