The last day and the omens were good. Despite opting for a longer route, rather than the originally planned more direct A9 route towards John O'Groats (much steeper hills and much more traffic), we were hoping for a good day's cycling for two reasons. Firstly, the weather forecast was favourable, with little or no rain expected and, crucially, following winds for some of the day. Secondly, as we were returning to Golspie that evening we could leave most of our luggage (that's significant in my case) there so we would be travelling much lighter.
However, we expected to be covering over 90 miles in the day, so we went for an early start and were on the road before 8am after consuming large quantities of porridge, courtesy of Graham and Scilla. We rattled off the 20+ miles to Helmsdale, although not before stopping off en route at Carn Liath, the remains of a fortified Pictish building, perhaps a couple of thousand years old - very interesting and very good value, as it was free to get to the site just at the side of the A9.
At Helmsdale we stopped for excellent hot refreshments at Thyme and Plaice, yet another of the cafés where the staff have been more than helpful - offering to fill our water bottles and making sandwiches for us to take with us - stocking up was important for us as we left the A9 here to head north-west and it could be 40+ miles before we would find anywhere to buy refreshments. It was definitely worth a photo credit before we set off:
We then headed off through through easy cycling country, most of it on single track roads with very little traffic and we continued to make really good progress - the smile below reflects amongst other things how much easier riding a bike is without heavy panniers on the back (you don't feel the bumps in the road as much!).
One thing that Martin wanted us to fit in was a fashion shoot to display his new bamboo socks, courtesy of Mike and Pam, with whom we stayed in Bristol (note the 1000+ mile legs).
One thing we came across was a moving memorial to the people from Halladale who lost their lives in the Great War. What was particularly striking was the number of names on the memorial despite the obviously small population in the area today.
After over 60 miles on the road we eventually had our first view of the North Atlantic (if you look very very carefully in the photo below you can just spot it in the distance), which made us feel that at last we really were nearing the end of our expedition.
After a roadside lunch of our purchases from the cafe in Helmsdale, we stopped for a hot drink in another cafe, this time in Thurso, where the lady serving us suggested we might want to do the detour up to Dunnet Head, which is the most northerly point on the mainland. However, when we reached the turning towards it off the main road we discovered that the detour was about 6 miles further than anticipated and we sadly decided we couldn't fit it in and reach John O'Groats on time. However, a further opportunity arrived a few miles further on, when we came across the signs for the Castle of Mey, which had been owned by the Queen Mother and was now open to the public.
Whilst we had missed the opening time, we decided to cycle down to it to see if we could get a view of it, which we indeed could and so excited was Martin that he performed an impromptu jig to celebrate:
The castle also had stunning views towards the Orkneys. It is definitely a must see place when next up here.
We'd been keeping in contact with Roz and Harry, who were travelling up from North Berwick, to make sure they would be in John O'Groats to greet us and at around 5.50pm we eventually reached our destination and to our delight, not only had Roz and Harry come all the way north to greet us, but also Martin Benson, a friend from my Kendal quiz days (if you follow the media link in the blog to the Westmorland Gazette, Martin is in the quiz photo taken in our younger days). Martin had travelled around 175 miles from Ullapool where he was staying with friends and would have to do the return journey after he left us - what a star.
Obligatory photos followed (Martin B refused to be in any, so was official photographer) and here is the evidence that we'd actually reached the end of LEJOG.
So we've actually done it! And, by the way, ignore the 874 miles to Land's End on the signpost in the photos. We'd gone our own way and with 97 miles on the last day, we finished with a total distance of 1161 miles.
It's been a memorable nearly three weeks, but we're not going to try to sum up now what we've experienced. We plan to write a further blog entry in the early part of next week when we've reached our respective homes and have had a chance to reflect on what we've done. So tune in again next week to read more.
But for now, it's back to Graham and Scilla's to celebrate!
P.S. We've just reached 50% of our target donations to Beating Bowel Cancer and now that we've actually achieved what we set out to do on the road, there is even more reason for people to donate and help us towards our charity objective!
