We had a lazy start today as Claire was going swimming early and we only had 20 miles to ride to our final destination, John O’Groats, so we decided to have a bit of a lie in an a later breakfast.
We have become so used to the routine of waking at 7am sharp and leaping into action to get everything ready for the day.
Living out of a suitcase and moving to different accommodation every day. Preparing Energy drinks and nutrition for each day. Charging our lights and navigation devices. Unloading and reloading our stuff from the van. Writing blogs, editing videos and reading the book to learn about where we would be going the next day.
I was not usually the first to be ready so I thought I’d get ahead with breakfast.
Then Carol came in to the kitchen and said the good news that it was not going to rain. We have been so very fortunate with the weather and although there has been rain, wind and cold, it could have been so much worse!
But then Carol shared the bad news, that her front tyre had gone flat overnight! We started breakfast.
Then Claire came back from her swim and delivered a card with a personal message for each of us and a croissant for breakfast. I commented that she really is a softie inside! She has truly been amazing and we quite simply could not have done this without her. Not to mention her endurance in completing a triathlon every day along the way!
Carol managed to replace the inner tube and the tyre seemed good. We are not sure what was wrong with the other one.
We got underway about 9am and the sun was up. We enjoyed a while in the sunshine with sea glimpses as we progressed along the NC500 route along the North coast of Scotland. There was a lot of arable land with large cylindrical straw bails on the golden fields.
In one area there were green fields which we hadn’t seen much of in Scotland, and then green hills along the coast which seemed to be sand dunes covered in grass.
We saw a flock of geese migrating in V formation.
Then the skies greyed and the wind picked up having turned to be in our faces.
Claire had driven to John O’Groats and rode back to meet us. We rode together and then before long at all we saw the signs that John O’Groats was nearing.
I’ve taken videos on the approach and arriving at John O’Groats which was quite an experience, but in fact the experience was the whole journey!
When we arrived we saw Claire and we saw the iconic fingerpost sign pointing back to Land’s End. The sign says 876 miles, but we followed an incredible rural route of just over 1000 miles.
We took the traditional photos holding our bikes aloft and Claire produced a bottle of Prosecco and glasses to celebrate.
What will we do tomorrow? We will drive home to our families who have supported us. Who knows, maybe I’ll get my legs of steel!
Video:
Video of the approach:
Video arriving at the finish:
Claire’s Video:
Our accommodation for the night was the Seaview Hotel.
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