DAY 23 - Thurso to John O'Groats

It is cloudy but not raining as we set off for the modest 20 mile ride to our final destination – John O’Groats. With the exception of the beautiful wide sandy beach at Castletown, the ride is quite uninteresting and most of the houses are dressed in grey pebble dash. The 20 miles seems interminable. We have destination fixation.

We look south and the weather looks threatening and the wind is getting up again and we are reminded we would still need to cycle another 17 miles south into the wind to Wick for our last evening in Scotland later.

Eventually we see the left turn sign to John O’Groats –just another ¼ of a mile down to the sea. There is little to see save a coffee shop, a deserted castle like building, signposts and a small kiosk.

A fellow is standing there hopefully wanting to charge for photos. We dismount and take our own. We have made it! 

We have covered some 1050 miles most in wind and rain since the Cheshire border, but  it has been a fantastic experience.  As we register our efforts at the café over yet another hot bowl of soup, the enormity of how far we have pedalled sinks in.

I receive a text from my best man and good friend Mark Allen in NZ who suggests it is “time to put that cigar out of its misery”!

We celebrate with the few remaining drops of Bruichladdich.

Footnote:  I will not describe the next 17 miles. They were horrendous for wind and rain. Why would we have it any other way?!

DAY 22 - Thurso to the Orkney's (our only rest day)

Saturday May 28^th and no rain. As our train back to Euston from Wick does not leave until Monday, we decide to stay another night and take a day trip to the Orkney Isles. We misread the ferry timetable from the nearby port of Scrabster to Stromness and rise early enough to catch the 08:45. However, we discover it does not operate until June and the next sailing is not until mid-day.  We walk back the 2 miles to Thurso and are afforded a wonderful view to the islands from the cliff walk.

We still decide to make the trip – an hour and a half crossing past the forbidding cliffs of Hoy we see the dramatic “Man of Hoy” column that rises like a jagged spear from the ocean to form a stark silhouette against the sheer cliffs above.

The wind is violent.  As we approach Stromness we see the island is barren of trees and the wind is whipping up the harbour. Although our time is short we catch a bus to Kirkwall for a hot bowl of soup in “The Reel” next to the Cathedral which we visit. An impressive structure with rounded brick columns and gothic arches. The vision and hardiness of its founders in such a bleak environment is a testament to the hardiness of these islanders.

The return crossing is very rough. No doubt we will have rain again on our last short 20 mile leg to John O’Groats in the morning

Living at close quarters with Simon

We have now covered over 1000 miles and, despite expectations to the contrary we have by and large been very compatible. However, the man is slow. Slower than molasses in the morning and with a capacity to kip anywhere at any time, given the opportunity.  I learned very early on in the trip to go first in the shower for his passion for a bath and the associated ritual is like waiting for paint to dry. Enamel that is. I have also never known anyone to possess as many handkerchiefs which have taken priority of place to dry on any radiator in sight.

But, the man is remarkably dogged and resilient and I continue to marvel at his tenacity and good humour despite the conditions that have been thrown against us. I keep reminding him that this was his idea in the first place and, in a few short days we would miss all of this.

DAY 21 - Crask Inn to Thurso

Simon Sez,

Ever north but also east. In the morning, calm and no rain.  The beauty of Sutherland is revealed. This is the most remote and uninhabited of all the counties in Britain.  It is wild and mountainous with a desolate beauty.  Grouse moors, the occasional conifer plantations, rolling mountains and wonderful rivers. 

We cycle 15 miles to the romantic village of Altnaharra and then alongside Loch Naver. If there is a more beautiful place than Loch Naver and its surrounding mountains then I have yet to see it.

We hear several more cuckoos on this beautiful ride.

After Loch Naver we cycle along the river Naver where we bump into a group of aristocrats/landed gentry and watched while one of the fisherman and his ghillie catch, land, tag and weigh a massive 12lb wild salmon and then return it to the river.

Onwards to Bettyhill on the north coast.  It has a lovely yellow sand beach. We turn east towards John O-Groats. The north coast of Scotland is not a pretty sight – bleak, desolate and forbidding.  We cycle for a quite ghastly 32 miles in driving rain and wind to Thurso. On the way we went past the doomed and gloomy Douneray nuclear power station.


The Pentland Hotel in Thurso is large, warm, comfortable and more or less deserted.,  We stay for two nights in some comfort. Next to the hotel is the huge church of St. Andrew and a little further on there are two fish n’ chip shops, Robbin’s and Angela’s, exactly facing each other across the street. Weird.

Thurso is a bleak little town but we liked it.  In a  little old bookshop I buy for £2 a battered version of the “The Prince in the Heather by Eric Linklater, a fascinating story of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s escape after Culloden.

I could murder a cigar.

.

DAY 20 - Alness to Crask Inn

Despite an early start our departure is delayed by finalising our train bookings while we still have wifi connection. We knew this would likely be the last opportunity as we headed off into the wilds of Sutherland.

Rhododendrons. Hundreds of them greet us up the long valley from Alness to join our route north. Simon is quiet this morning. No mention of any birds is the giveaway to a  blacker mood. The continued rain, greyness and hills are taking their toll. At the junction to our route I look around and he is nowhere in sight. I cycle back and discover he has turned right on a dead end track and is heading up another hill towards a gate that is shut!

Eventually we are rewarded with a long run down to the town of Ardgay. Two cups of coffee and a bowl of soup later things are looking up. We meet Reay, a fellow New Zealander, originally from Nelson, who lives further down the valley. She and her Scottish husband breed Hanoverian horses.  We agree on the remarkable similarity of the Highlands to the High Country of NZ’s south island. No wonder the Scots felt at home in such a wilderness.

We continue onwards to Lairg and stop by the loch to thaw out again with a cup of tea before taking the single track road ever upwards towards Altnaharra. It is getting late and the prospects of finding a place to stay are looking bleak.

 I will leave it to Simon below to describe the welcome sight of the Crask Inn – a wonderful oasis of shelter in the most barren, desolate but incredibly beautiful part of Sutherland. This will prove to be one of the highlights of our entire trip. 

The understated welcome and eccentricity of our hosts and the warmth and cheer of this remarkable Inn and the fellow guests encountered will be unforgettable.  Sadly we did not have time to speak properly with a Dutch couple, Erika & Dennis, until after breakfast the next morning. They were both photographer and artist and we saw a brief publication of their work of Altnaharra, Loch Naver, and the surrounding landscape.
(http://www.gidz.net/aboutus)       
It was not hard to see why they kept returning to capture such breathtaking scenery and why the Crask Inn was their chosen base.

On of the owner's dogs takes a shine for Simon's old blue plimsoles,pouncing at his feet given any opportunity.They evidently needed replacing!

Simon Sez,

Ever north is our cry as we spring to our saddles.

A pretty awful day starting with light rain, leading to heavy rain. We get somewhat lost out of Alness when I go up a blind alley. Basically the day is spent climbing up and up and up. Cycling in the rain is awful. To be perfectly frank the whole business of cycling can be a little monotonous – the repetitive nature of the basic movement, pedals up and down – boring.

We cycle along the Moray Firth and up and up and eventually, in the driving rain, have a wonderful grey view over the Kyle of Sutherland towards Bonar Bridge.
 

 
In the little village of Ardgay two drowned rats are revived with hot soup and lots of coffee in a very nice clothes shop with café run by the delightful Annie. We then climb again to the grey town of Lairg. Out of Lairg I think I see a golden eagle. We certainly see lots of meadow pippets.  We hear and see curlews and plover. I think I see several twites.

About 5pm one is beginning to get very pissed off indeed.  Cold and soaking wet and ever climbing northwards, this time into a real wilderness – the Northern Highlands.  A single track road from nowhere to nowhere. There are charming road signs eg Icing on Road which don’t seem so charkming at the time.

By about 6pm I’ve had more than enough of this whole stupid malarkey. However, it is difficult to pack it in on a single track road in the middle of nowhere. There are no houses, no vehicles, no people and no hope. Nothing apart from mountains, moorlands and rivers. Ever northwards, ahead of me the solitary figure of John some distance ahead in the gloom.

Eventually, and precisely in the middle of nowhere we reach The Crask Inn. An unremarkable building built in the year of Waterloo revealing a wonderful internal character – bar, lounges, dining rooms, bedrooms furnished in simple and heavy oak.

 

We fall in with an unlikely pair of brown trout fishermen, an architect from the east coast and a joiner who were on a long weekend’s fishing trip on the river Tirry. There are some 8 guests for dinner.  We assemble in the littler bar. We wait until our host and his wife have cooked our supper and then we are ushered into the dining room.  We have an excellent four course dinner including venison washed down with a bottle of Chilean Merlot. In the bar afterwards tales of the trout fishermen grow more uproarious.  I drink French brandy and John drinks “The Spirit That Dares Not Breathe Its Name”

I could murder a cigar!

DAY 19 - Fort Augustus to Alness

No rain. What a shocker!

We had thought to take the quieter single track road that runs along the south side of Loch Ness and avoid the very busy A82 which we had been warned about and which had been one of the principal reasons for our abortive diversion to the west coast isles.

However, in the bar the night before we had chilled off this idea when we heard there was a 4 mile steep climb to reach it out of Fort Augustus. Also tales of the Beast of Boleskin’s spooky residence along the route put us off further. We prolong our choice of route by watching the locks open and a stream of boats move up into Loch Ness. We had better get moving.

The A road is surprisingly quiet…no trucks, no midgies and no tourists looking for the monster.  We reach Urquhart Castle, an imposing ruin on a promontory on the edge of Loch Ness. The bright yellow gorse that seems to permeate the whole of the Highlands is a wonderful contrast that frames an otherwise sombre landscape. Loch Ness has an underlying malevolence to it. We turn left into Drumnadrochit, the small town with a name like a throat infection.

 Once above the “mother of all hills”, described by Simon below, we reach a plateau of wilderness with isolated lakes, brown heather and more bright yellow gorse -brighter than Colmans mustard on a crisp white shirt.

We are rewarded with a long descent to Beauly where we stop for the usual bowl of lentil soup. We stop to get some cash from an ATM and as we pull away from the kerb my goggles fly off the back of my bike into the road and break into two pieces.

On further beyond the Beauly Firth through the Muir of Ord, Conon Bridge and to Dingwall on the Cromarty. Our route should take us on a quieter B road running adjacent to the very busy A862. Simon ignores the left turn on the edge of town (despite protestations) and we miss it. Must have been the hill that put him off!  We then have a 12 mile ride on a truck ridden road at rush hour to Alness and our first encounter with the  midgies. So far it has been too cold, too wet and too windy for them to appear.

We stay at a rambling, rather run down  B&B, The Morven House Hotel. A family with a fleet of kids. They are very relaxed and pleasant.  Their internet connection actually works and we are able, after a lot of voice mail jail, to connect with East Coast and Scot Rail and secure our train tickets back to London from Wick via Inverness -but not until Monday 30^th.  Getting bodies and bikes on the same train in the UK is not a trivial task.  However, at least this has given us and extra day or two to complete our journey.



Simon Sez,

After witnessing the wonders of the 5 stepped locks joining the Caledonian canal to Loch Ness, a drop of 18 metres, we cycle along Loch Ness to Drumnadrochit.  Here there is a feared and faned hill, probably one of the steepest in the British Isles, rather worse I fear than the Penpillick in Cornwall. Needless to say John cycles straight up it.  Sometimes I wonder about his state of mind.

Eventually we get to the town of Alness – best forgotten although distinguished by having two separate distilleries, Dalmore and Teaninich. We stay in a distinctly average B&B, a good mile out of town and the Indian restaurant where we eat.  We watch a little of the Scotland v Wales football match in the perfectly dreadful Railway Hotel. Later, after curry, we try some Dalmore in the Commercial Hotel. It is excellent, rich, powerful and reviving. The town is drab and grey and dull.

I could murder a cigar.

DAY 18 - Strontian to Fort Augustus

At breakfast the clouds clear, momentarily, and reveal the most beautiful scene from our hotel looking back up Loch Sunart. The overnight storm had swept the head of the loch clean and the light that rose off the water and the rust coloured vegetation in the foreground was pungent. There is still a powerful wind and the skies look ever threatening.

As we leave the hotel my back tire looks flat. I pump it up but within 2-3 miles it expires. In a break in the showers that had developed I fit the tube I had previously patched. We continue down the valley towards the Corran ferry. There are squally showers but fortunately the wind is still behind us. With six miles to go there is a loud “pop” and I look down at a dead flat back tire that is now starting to wobble.  With no spare tube left we have a problem. The only option is for Simon to carry on to the ferry and I would try and get a lift. But, there are precious few cars, and none with space for a bike and two panniers.

Eventually a covered 4x4 is turning left at the junction where we had stopped. A young joiner, Rory Corrigan, is going to meet an architect and is late.  It is now hailing. However, he kindly throws the bike in the back and turns back towards the ferry. I am hugely indebted to this kind young fellow for going out of his way to get me out of my predicament. I would not have wanted to push a bike with a flat tire 6oo yds let alone 6 miles!  We pass Simon halfway sheltering under a tree from the hail and wind. Simon arrives at Corran and we manage to convince another fellow who has an open topped “ute” to take us on another 8 miles on the other side to Fort William. He is a quality control manager from a salmon fish farm.

We discover the casing on my back tire has split and there is a broken spoke and the wheel needs realigning. I get a new, more heavy duty, tire fitted with new tube while we have a bowl of soup. There is fresh snow on Ben Nevis.

We decide to get off the busy A road going north and pick up the Caledonian canal on the other side of the Loch as far as Spean Bridge. A dramatic view looking back across the valley as we pass a monument of 3 bereted commandos. They are looking back towards the mountains and the loch below - a stark silhouette against a black sky. We rejoin the busy A82 to Fort Augustus and continue through intermittent showers up Lochs Lochy & Oich through Invergarry

We arrive with the sun coming out in Fort Augustus  on the hill above the locks. We get a room in the lovely Caledonian Hotel – by far our best accommodation of the trip. Our host Christopher is most welcoming, even offering to dry our sodden clothing. The bedroom room is large and there are several reception rooms and a cosy bar. There is a comfortable elegance and charm about the place and their wifi actually works. The service and food is excellent. A great value B&B for just £40 each for a twin room.

Simon Sez,

Out of Strontian it was raining as usual. We were flying down a mountain towards the beautiful Loch Linnhe at real speed. When I got to the bottom and joined the Loch John was nowhere to be seen.  He eventually appeared half pulling, half carrying his bike. A burst tire and a broken spoke. We were 6 miles from the little Corran ferry so I took off to give John more chance of getting a lift with his bike. After a few miles the hail was so severe I was forced to take shelter under an oak tree on the edge of an oak wood. The hail was smashing into my helmet and bouncing and the noise was quite deafening like a million ping pong balls bouncing up and down. The ground was white with hail and the tree offered very little protection as the leaves were not fully out. I saw a small holly tree growing out of the trunk at head height. John arrives at the Corran ferry with his bike in a truck. We take a lift in another truck for the 8 miles to Fort William.

In Fort William lunch and bike repair.  We cycled about 5 miles alongside the lovely wide Caledonian canal past Ben Nevis covered in fresh snow.  At Fort Augusts we found the excellent Caledonian Hotel. We drank some very decent Stag bitter from Aviemore and renewed our journey through the Scottish Malts. I have tried so many by now they are a bit of a blur.

I could murder a cigar.

DAY 17 - Craignure (Mull) to Strontian

Light rain and a very windy start to our ride north from Craignure to the small ferry landing at Fishnish.

The amber alert appears very real. We look across to the mainland. The gale force SW wind that is now developing is causing huge backward plumes of spray from the waterfalls that are running  down off the hills.  There is a miserable fellow with a beard at the kiosk who delights in serving us a coffee just as we are about to board. We later learn that we have caught the last ferry of the day off Mull – the storm has caused the closure of all ferries in the area.  We would not now be able to go on to Mallaig and across to Skye but would need to turn northeast and rejoin our original route up the lochs via Glencoe.

Leaving the ferry at Lochaline the wind plucks us from the ferry and lifts us to the top of the hill. This is followed by an exhilarating, 20 mile ride to Strontian with an 70+ mile an hour wind behind us.  There are no cars, no habitation and we realise we probably have no brains to be cycling in such conditions. But Lochaline is now well behind us. The landscape is sombre, wild and threatening, with falling branches on the narrow road.

Eventually we reach Strontian on the other ride of the Loch.  We are soaked, frozen and blinded by wind and rain but are fortunate to get the last remaining room at the Strontian Hotel. We go around the corner and thaw out in a café selling hot soup. Our bikes are stored in a back shed and, more importantly for Simon, there is a bath!

In the bar we meet George Fox, a very interesting local chap who shares some of the history of Strontian, the town that gave its name to the element Strontium. He very generously buys us a round and donates £10 each to our charities. At dinner there is power cut and we eat by candlelight. We hear that there is a tree down and the road from the Corran ferry is closed. We also learned that the wind had reached 110mph coming up Loch Sunart at some stage during the afternoon.

I ask a young lad at the bar whether it did anything else but rain in Scotland .

“Och Aye, occasionally” was the least reassuring reply.

Simon Sez,

Craignure to Strontian (26 mi)

It was raining when we left  the Isle of Mull Hotel & Spa. Kind of windy too – a gale around 70mph. We took the little ferry over to Lochaline and then had the most hair raising ride imaginable. 20 miles over a peninsula to Loch Sunart.  The wind was howling from the SW and lifted us up the mountain and along the flat. I recorded 24mph without pedalling and 38mph downhill, totally out of control, the brakes scarcely having any effect in the driving rain. This was a single track road with no traffic. Nobody was travelling in the gale except us.

When we got to the other side of the peninsula we turned west towards Strontian into the teeth of the gale, almost impossible to move. We holed up for the afternoon and night in the Strontian Hotel and were revived with a malt or two.


Living with John at very close quarters.

The man is seized with a restless energy and enthusiasm. Pretty ghastly but ok as long as you ignore it. The day starts at 07:00 (it was 6:30am or even 6:00am until I had words with him) when an awful gyrating alarm sets the room shaking and John erupts out of his bed like a volcano.  There’s a lot of crashing about and stuffing things into bags and then he is off with the computer to the nearest wifi point where he starts updating the blog. Wherever we go we are looking for connections – hifi, wifi, skyfi – whatever.

Of course, John is in his element on this trip – 6-8 hrs or so of physical endeavour per day with constant stops to take advantage of “photographic opportunities”

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are punctuated by constant playing with a portable telephone machine which incorporates a computer, camera and typewriter.  Then there is a much larger computer called a Netbook on which John is constantly typing. Then there is another camera, a big thing, a Canon G10 Powershot.  All three devices appear to have other devices and appendages. All very confusing but I suppose you need them if you have 5 separate email addresses as John has.  My own £15 Pay-As-You-Go telephone does the job quite nicely (as long as nobody calls me!)

Jenny has always said that John  is quite exhausting.  I now see what she means!    

I could murder a cigar.