Day 26 - Thurso to John O'Groats


Day 26 Thurso to John O'Groats

The last day. A simple breakfast in the shared kitchen of Sandra's BandB. It is just 33 km ahead and not lots of climb.  It is cool to start but not cold. Heading out of Thurso we miss the first turn off the main road and realise quickly and so double back 5 minutes later.

 Heading off on a back road this is what this trip is about compared with a more direct route.  Bigger distances, more climbs, but beautiful quiet roads and paths.
We cycle by the sea and then back inland. There are little man made protective harbours on the coastline.
  At one point we follow the markers. I check the map 10 minutes later and we have gone the wrong way.  We ask a local.
We go back to the last junction.  The marker actually points the wrong way. What can you do!


A few more villages and hills and we ride past the Seaview hotel were we will drop the bikes when the ride is finished.   We ride down to the John O'Groats road end. Touristy.  Big tourist  buses. Many islands about off shore. The Shetlands.  We have our photos taken beside the sign post.
Journeys end - Shetland Islands in distance
We ride back up to the hotel to organise out bikes for a courier back to where we have hired them from at Lands End. We  leave the bikes in the garage at the back of the hotel to be picked up later. We get changed and organised. We walk back to the road end with all our personal gear in saddle bags and back packs to have lunch. Then catch the bus . It takes 25 minutes to get to Wick. It is nice to be here. Wick is a  bit tired and run down.  The bus will take us to Edinburgh tomorrow. From our room on the 4th floor we get a nice view out over the harbour.
Our bus leaves at 6:50 am but we have a 5 hour stopover in Inverness so we'll have time to explore this interesting attractive and well looked after city.


We spend 2 days in Edinburgh staying at a B&B but really with a family before getting the plane back to Luton Airport in London. We take the city train and get off at the first station  where we pick up our camping gear from Tina. It is so nice to see her and we are very grateful that she has looked after our gear for us.  And then get back on the train into London.
 The next morning we get the train down to Dover, the ferry across to Calais and pick up our rental car, well actually not rental car but rather lease car which is much cheaper. It is  exactly the same model as our own car in New Zealand - a  Peugeot 208 - but slightly newer. It is brand new.  We will have it for  4 and  1/2 weeks.  We will head off through France, Amsterdam, Northern Germany then south to Zitas home in the Allgau in the South of Germany.  We will see family and friends and spend time enjoying walking in the mountains and getting some decent clothes - especially for Mike who really needs them. In Germany the  clothes are a better quality and cheaper than in other places (or so I am told).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sustrans Guide

Image
The Sustrans Guide In September 2019 we road from Lands End to John O'Groats in the UK. It rained most of the day today! This is the guide we used: The guide we used for this trip is published by Sustrans - meaning sustainable transport. Sustrans is a government organization established to encourage better transport options in the UK and especially the use of bikes for commuting and recreation. They help to administer many cycle routes through out the UK. Each route has a National Cycle Route number. The Sustrans route from Lands End to John O'Groats joins up many of these routes to make a continuous route from the south to the north of the UK. Each of the routes has a number and so we would generally be following one numbered route for several days before changing to another numbered route. It appears these routes are established and maintained by volunteers. The plus about this is that we were riding routes that only locals with lots of local experien...
Read more

Day 7 - Glastonbury to Bristol

Image
Day 7 – Glastonbury to Bristol A straight forward day today (we hope).   Our BandB host makes us very nice breakfast. We are off by 9 and take the back way to Wells, the smallest city in the UK.  It is famous for its cathedral complex and also it has a residential street from the 14th century in great (more or less original)  condition. It is supposed to be the oldest of its kind in Europe. We also go to a bike shop here and buy 2 new tubes and a seat spongy cover for Zita. She had been experiencing discomfort. But she takes a lot of convincing to get this extra seat support. It ends up making a big positive difference for her. We have our first Cornish (vege) pasties for lunch here.  While in Wells there is a major downpour but this has cleared by the time we start cycling again.   It is a steep climb out of Wells up onto the Mendip Hills with great views back over the Somerset Levels. We cycle across the relatively level upper...
Read more

Day 1 - Lands End to Redruth

Image
Day 1- Lands End to Redruth. We leave St Ives by the smaller local 10.15 train for Saint Erth - where we had come from 2 days previous.. Waiting for train from St. Ives Our train connection to Penzance and our hire bike pickups is supposed to be at 11:00 AM. But the train is delayed by 30 minutes. The official reason it is delayed we are told is   - “it was late coming out of the station”. Really!!  At 11:30 we board the train to Penzance.   Then to get to the cycle hire shop we're told it's a 20 minute walk. But it looks much longer with our heavy panniers etc. So we wait for the 12:05 bus to take us along in the right direction. Then we have another ½ mike walk. Peter Rivett, who we are hiring the bikes from, gives us a friendly welcome. However he had forgotten that we would bring our special Jones handlebars from New Zealand so we proceed to work together on getting the old hand grips off the normal bars so we can take the brake and gear levers off and re...
Read more