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.
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?!
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