LEJOG Day 34 - Thurso to John O’Groats

And it’s the very last day!  Thurso to John O’Groats, 21 miles, a whopping 775 feet of climbing.  We’ll be reflecting on the whole experience over the next few days, but in a nutshell it’s been one of the hardest and best experiences of both our lives.

We’re having a leisurely get up and breakfast at a decadent 8:00.  There’s a lot of sore muscles (that has never stopped on the whole trip) and bruised bits (a recent development) this morning. Didn’t do any laundry last night - more decadence!  Going to be a headwind from the east, but 10-15mph - that will be a VERY nice change from yesterday!  Cold, 47 / 8 degrees and rainy.  

We left Thurso in the cold, grey and rainy mid morning and pedalled uphill out of town.  Had to go over a narrow bridge first, over the river, dodging people as we went.  The day’s route was mainly long, long, slow climbs.  It looked like Roman roads, straight for miles into the distance, but Steve tells me the Romans didn’t come this far north (and why would you if you were an Italian?).  Mainly open fields, a few farms, lots of cows and many sheep along a single lane road with passing places for cars and us to get by.  I managed to stay on the bike today.  Very cold and wet out there, so glad we put all those clothes on!

Cows by the sea.  Fences were all lined with these big flagstones

Dressed the part today!

Long straight slow climb roads today

A sheep picture for Madge

Although as soon as they noticed us, they all ran away

Empty and quiet

Castletown’s tiny harbour, the seas in this area are supposed to be treacherous 

The flagstones used to be made here in Castletown, but now many houses are empty

Wonderful beaches along here

Farm of the day

Quick stop, too cold to linger!

Steve counted down the miles as we went, woohoo’s from the back after each announcement.  Finally, finally, finally, after almost 1200 miles, we dropped into John O’Groats!  Had our picture taken at the sign to commemorate the completion of this trip!

After the photo shoot, we went to cafe there for heat and food - seafood chowder, just the ticket!  After that, headed back up the hill to the Seaview Hotel to drop off the bikes, have a restorative beverage and get our taxi.  I fondly said goodbye to my solo bike 😂 as we headed off to Wick.

John O’Groats

The harbour at John O’Groats, there’s a ferry from here during the summer season

Beer picture for Brian - Steve’s celebratory pint, Oatmeal Stout

There will be a proper reflection once we’ve calmed down a bit, but after all the adventures, the gorgeous scenery, the long and winding roads, we’ve made it - we cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats!  Think we’ll be having a little celebration tonight!

Wick, by the river

They may have thought we’d be bothered in an empty room by ourselves, but I love it when Steve reserves the whole restaurant for just us!

The beginning of the end of tour celebration

Best fish n’ chips he’s ever had

Orkney scallops

Walk back by the river

It was a good day today and so exciting to get to the end of the tour.  There were a few times along the way when I thought we wouldn’t make it (Cornwall heat wave, when the tandem broke, and the day of winds), but so glad we pushed on and did it!  It’s been a long time coming as Steve said at 60 he wanted to do this trip.  We would have missed so much if we’d given up and gone home…

LEJOG Day 33 - Tongue to Thurso

The penultimate day, the second to last one!  The winds are howling out there, 20 mph with gusts in the 40s, but it’s supposed to be warmer 59 / 13.  It’s going to be a hilly one today, Cornwall hilly.  We have 11 hills to climb, all between 450 to 700 feet.

Kyle of Tongue

Breakfast views of Castle Varrich and the Kyle of Tongue…and the wind!

Climbing out of Tongue, the Kyle

Looking out to sea as we climbed

Across the Kyle

As we climbed up on top 

Beautiful windy looking back

Reedy waters

Whoops, it’s windy!

Beautiful in the sunshine

Quiet and lovely

Cattle grid - bumpy on the bike!

Heading up into the windy, windy hills

Even the trees are blown sideways!

Midway cafe stop

Thank goodness 

Last Scottish county

First time we’ve seen a path up here

The penultimate day - completo!  43 miles.  Today was the hardest and at 3075 the highest day of the entire trip. 

It was like Cornwall all over again, but higher and windier!

11 hills, which we were good with, after 30 days we can climb hills!.  But, then throw gale force winds on top of that. We climbed out of Tongue, which was supposed to be the hard part, and after that there was supposed to be a tailwind.  Nope, the winds really started, from all the directions.  We’d done our first hill and were climbing out of that and it got so windy, we had to get off.  And there began the windying and walking part of the tour.  We didn’t walk all the way to Thurso, but at times it felt like we were going to (and I wanted to!).  Winds gusting 40-50 mph, blowing so hard they either blew us uphill with a tall wind (first time either of us have used brakes going uphill!), blew us across to the other lane with a sidewind (yep, into oncoming traffic) or stopped us completely with a headwind.

I came off again.  Trying to stop when a wind gust was too strong, got my foot down and the wind just blew me over - into the road.  We had to stop over and over because the wind was too strong - if a  headwind we couldn’t keep going, a tailwind pushed us too fast, and a side wind pushed us over.  It felt like we walked halfway to Thurso today, Steve thinks 10 miles.

Steve was wonderfully patient - helping me up when I fell down and waiting when I was too frightened to get back on the bike.

We have an all new appreciation for gorse…

Really, really nice to get here (although we wondered if we would at many points)!  Best B&B so far and best dinner out of the whole trip - perfect, a treat after today’s adventures!

Evening in reverse order:

A wee dram - Tomatin

Beef

Fish

In-between sorbet

Pork starter

Sea bass starter - this was the biggest piece of fish of the entire trip!

Dark Island

Orkney Gold from the Orkney Islands Brewery, could see those islands from our room

Best room of the trip too!

Pleased to have done it, didn’t think I could, but glad to be done with this day and in a lovely warm room instead of a howling gale.  On to tomorrow and John O’Groats!

LEJOG Day 32 - Lairg to Tongue

It’s Steve’s birthday today!  I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday?  ‘I think we’ll go for a pedal, aye?’

Off to Tongue today, which isn’t quite on the North Coast, but is on the water.  Didn’t see much of Lairg last night, as we were pretty focused on getting here.  Took us till 6:30 to get to Lairg at our new average speed of 8.6, to the Lairg Highland Hotel, so we were starting to worry about it getting dark.  Lots of places we’ve gone through are having trouble getting staff in the pubs, restaurants and hotels, same here.  We had a nice dinner though, venison roast - everything else on the menu was battered!

Started to discuss the difference between riding a tandem and riding a solo bike yesterday.  My wobbling improved over the course of the day and I stopped heading for curbs and ditches quite so frequently - at the beginning where my eyes went, so did the bike!  I can remember being on motorbike trips and talking with women riders (they drove their own motorbikes) and they’d ask me if I was happy being ‘just’ a pillion.  Let me think - I get chauffeured around Europe, watching gorgeous scenery pass by, taking my photographs and don’t have to watch the road - happy as a clam back there!  Similar road focus with the solo bike, spent all my time looking at the road rather than the scenery!  Being able to ride the solo bike better will be a good skill to have, but would rather look at the scenery and take pictures!

No tracks or paths or cow paths (yes, we rode down one of those yesterday!) today will be all road, all day!

Let’s see if we can get that speed up today!

We went to one of the remotest parts of Scotland today, along the A836 from Lairg to Tongue.  A roads* are supposed to be major roads, but not motorways.  The A836 is a major road, I think because it’s the only road, however, it is a single lane road with passing places.  There was traffic, cars, lorries, RVs, but it was infrequent.  There was road hogging bus, who let him on?!  Mostly it was clear and quiet, we even got to ride side-by-side quite often which was nice.

The scenery throughout the day was staggering and desolate.  There was nothing out there, for 37 miles, but us.  We were surrounded by hills, mountains, valleys and the odd loch for as far as you could see.  The views just went on and on and on.  The only humanity was a small hamlet of about 5 houses, a boarded up house and a derelict one.  It was almost eerie it was so empty, but beautiful.

Today’s route

Another favourite photo, love the fall colours!

Still pedalling

More golden

Peat bogs everywhere

The remotest pub in the U.K., they weren’t open

Lunch spot

Loving the colours

So glad we’re not climbing those!

The mountains, the hills, the foliage - autumn

It’s an A road, but not as we know it - one lane!

Birthday boy, enjoying his pedal

Peaks and foliage

Always gotta take a bike picture!

Loch Loyal

Farm of the day - peat farm

Pedalling break by Loch Loyal

Misty mountains in the distance

The valley just before the Kyle, first fields we’ve seen today

The Kyle of Tongue

The Heather is still blooming

Medicinal and shelter from the rain lunch!

Tomantoul

Happy Birthday!

Dropped down into Tongue, which is alongside the Kyle of Tongue.  The view from the top was so good that we made a last stop for photos.  Google cycling maps took us down a track and unfortunately I fell.  Had a ‘medicinal’ lunch, a lovely warm room and another Scottish salmon dinner.  Hoping to be back in pedalling shape tomorrow for a ‘Cornwall day’ in Scotland!

*A-Roads

A road whose number is prefixed with an 'A'. These were originally intended to be the major routes, but because of inconsistent upgrades and policies, an A-road can now vary from a single-track mountain road in Wales to a grade-separated motorway standard eight lane dual carriageway like the A2 in Kent.

B-Roads

A second-class road whose number is prefixed with a 'B'. Less wide-ranging than other classes of road, B-roads tend to be either minor country roads connecting villages, or town and city streets. B-road numbers are only ever three or four digits long. 

C-Road

A road whose number is prefixed with a C. C-roads are not signposted, nor are the road numbers shown on maps: they are reference numbers used by the government bodies that maintain roads. Some also use D-roads and U-roads.