I think we’re even more excited about competing the trip today than we were yesterday! Yesterday was a bit of a flurry with getting to JOG, dropping the bikes off, taxiing to Wick, etc., today there is a more relaxed feeling of accomplishment! So happy to have done it!!!
The pedalling is done, but the trip anctually isn’t over until we get home! Today we take the train from Wick to Inverness. It’s the only train today and there’s flooding all over Scotland so I think we’ll get there early so we don’t miss it (and 🤞🤞🤞 that it runs!)! Besides there’s not an over abundance of things to do in Wick - we walked back to the B&B last night (Saturday night) and didn’t see a soul!l
We’re staying at the Royal Highland Hotel in Inverness tonight, right next to the train station. Train station hotels have been an ongoing joke throughout our marriage since Steve booked one early on and we admired the view…of the tracks 😂. Actually hotels next to train stations have proved to be quite good over the years as they’re almost always a short walk to the Old Town restaurants wherever we are visiting. We’ll see how this one is.
Wick to Inverness
To get there, a mere 104 miles, we have a 4.5 hour train journey with 22 stops! We will, however, be going much faster than our recent average of 8-9mph!
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| Heading to Inverness from Wick |
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| Before we realised that due to covid, alcohol is banned on Scotsrail trains |
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| Today’s farm, best view we could get |
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| One of the clearest views we had today 😂 |
It is spectacularly miserable out and I am so glad we’re not pedalling in it! Getting a glimpse into what Scotland is like in the winter when it never really gets light. Nice when we got to Inverness though.
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| Lovely to arrive here! |
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| Even with a train station view |
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| A real old style hotel |
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| Found a new brewery |
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| We pedalled over the Black Isle so had to stop here for drinks! |
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| The beers list |
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| Black Isle IPA and a Black Isle Porter were had |
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| Spanish tonight |
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| Tapas |
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| Inverness at night |
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| Royal Highland Hotel |
Great to be back in Inverness, this may be our new favourite small city! Everything w/in walking distance, great foo, a very European vibe - loved it!
Some statistics from the trip:
1158.2 miles pedalled
57,750 feet climbed
??? pictures taken (still counting)
35 blog posts
37 hills pushed up
27mph highest speed noted
11.5 highest average speed
7.6 lowest average speed
3 bikes ridden
3 flights of stairs carrying bikes
29 hotels
28 great, good or okay hotels
2 tumbles off bikes
(Thousands) of farms, cows and sheep seen
(Est 120) pints of beer
(Classified) glasses of wine
3 points where we thought about giving up (Cornwall, broke tandem, Tongue to Thurso windiest day)
2 vans hired
1 train ride
1 tandem wheel broken
1 number of takeaways
0 punctures
0 cheats (transport other than bicycles taken)
0 harsh words spoken
Would we do LEJOG again? Spoke about this earlier and the answer still stands. No, not because it wasn’t fabulous and one of the best trips we’ve ever done, but because we liked it so much, we’d like to do more!
Steve’s Letters From…
Hello avid LFA’s and welcome to this week’s edition which is the last one from Scotland for a while. Most will have been following events on the Blog, expertly and diligently maintained by Katherine.
So the big news is we finished LEJOG. No records were broken and by many standards it was a leisurely wander up through the UK, but for two 60 something year olds it was a pretty big deal and we are pleased and blessed that we are fit enough to do it.
The last section has in many ways been the most challenging and the most rewarding. The tandem breaking on the run from Aviemore to Inverness was a bad break, but that could have been worse. We took a brake block off the back rim brakes and limped into Inverness which was probably the last place big enough to have a bike shop and access to rental bikes so we were able to craft a solution to the problem.
The weather has been the other obvious challenge. Not much you can do about that, just “keep on keeping on”. On the upside, the scenery is spectacular. It’s hard to grasp the remoteness of it all until you ride all day without passing through any villages and with so few amenities. North of Lairg even the A roads are single track with passing places. In places electricity is provided by generators most noticeable on communication tower installations. After you pass a few with generators running, you realise these aren’t “standby generators”, that’s how the telephone network is provided!!
Looking forward into next week. First challenge is to get home. There are weather warnings in place for heavy rain in Scotland, the rivers are already in flood in some places so that might not be straightforward.
Going to be strange not going back to work and a million emails!!
Once we are back then it’s time to prepare for the “migration” to warmer climes for the winter. We leave from home on the 16th October for Florida and we have been “on the road” for the past five weeks.
There is also the small matter of UK Thanksgiving. This will be the first one since before COVID and I think I am the only “Kitchen Slave” in attendance so there are a few potatoes to be peeled!! 😳. Looking forward to it though.
Well, that’s it for this week, have a great week.
Steve & Katherine.
