Day 16 - The most, Westerly, Easterly and Northerly

Well our last day.
The view from the bedroom was this,




but the view from the kitchen was much more impressive.




We were up early this morning and on the road at around 8:00.

The road to Thurso was hillier than necessary. With long uphills, but also some fairly fast down hills. I went over a cattle grid at 26mph which is the fastest I've ever gone over one.

There were no really spectacular view but some interesting ones. Here is a sandy beach, which has something for everyone, except warm weather.




and The otters are so common here they are the local road kill ! (WARNING!!, you will also have to look sideways).




Having check last night that we could take our pedals off to get the bikes on the plane (yes we were worried about this). I obviously had not refitted my pedal correctly and it became more and more crooked until I had to check and found that I had damaged the thread in the pedal. So I retightened it as much as I could. The trouble was it was in the side with my good knee, so now I did not want to push with either leg, and my leg was being twisted due to the bent pedal as it went round.

We we're very pleased to see signs for John O'Groats, as it was starting to feel a long way. You may just be able to read the sign in this photo.




It was nice to keep seeing the sea as we went along the coast, but there were very few boats or harbours, until we got to ferry points, and then only 1 or 2 little ones.



It was interesting to see the nuclear power station, and the wind turbines behind it (which you may or may not be able to see in this picture).




We arrived in Thurso at our digs at around 12:30, so we had made good time over the hilly 44 miles.




As you know, and as we had mentally prepared ourselves for, we were to drop off our (my) heavy bags before going on. However, clearly, otherwise I would not be saying we didn't. There was no response from the door nor the telephone. So with a bit of a knock we knew we were going to have to do another at least 44 miles with the panniers.

Before we left though we searched out a very helpful bike shop towards the northern end of Thurso. He managed to temporarily repair my pedal by retapping the threads and carefully refitting the pedal. Rather than me having to sponge off Ray ( remember I've lost my credit card) for a pair of new pedals and crank arm.

We then set off into a strong wind towards John O'Groats.
Ray set off as if after food, and I had to work hard to keep up. Then rather disheartenly I got a puncture in my front tyre, so I was now using my second repaired inner tube. I got a bit worried at this point about whether I would make it (as this is not TV, I will spare you the suspense and tell you that we did).

It was a long 22 miles through not especially interesting, but bleak countryside.




We then arrived at a developing John O'Groats. If you want to book a holiday home later in the summer here talk to the Scottish Tourist Board.

We took the obligatory photos of the first and last shop and "the sign", which was obviously wrong in our case as we did not take the shortest route.








After looking around the shop, and having an Orkney ice scream, and not feeling overly satisfied, we went on to the lighthouse.
At the lighthouse we found a much more satisfactory sign saying that we had reach the most Easterly point in mainland UK.




We now felt we had achieved something, however…

Not far away (relatively) is the most northerly point in mainland UK, at Dunnet Head which was only a 10 mile detour from our way back to Thurso.




So now we really have achieved something.

We finally got back to our digs in Thurso at ten to seven, so it was a long day, and our second longest day travelling at about 95 miles.

After good showers we went out for a curry.

Thank you everyone for all your support, and encouragement it really did keep us going.

I will do a couple more posts during the weekend, about our journey back tomorrow, and giving details of the actual route we took, with comments about the good, bad and what I would do differently.

Thanks again for your support.










Cheers
Paul

Riding the length of the UK so you don't have to ;)
You can sponsor me at
https://www.justgiving.com/Margaret-beattie