Tip of the Day: think about how you want to celebrate your achievement before you get there. We didn’t, but fortunately someone else had an idea on our behalf!
The drizzle and wind greeted us as we packed away my tent and bid farewell to the sheep dog for his friendly welcome. As we headed north in the A99, one thing we noticed repeatedly was the volume of cemetery’s full with the headstones and angles. A hamlet with a mere dozen or so homes would have hundreds of tombs; had the highland clearances seen off this number of inhabitants?
It was still early as we arrived in Wick, and a Sunday to boot. The Weatherspoons here did not open until 10am (perfectly reasonable on a Sunday) but we were not prepared to wait around for a few hours. After putting our heads in a few hotels, we were directed to Mackays Hotel and the manager took pity on us. I dare say not many establishments in these parts will provide avocado on toast, and it was a delight! Simply finding somewhere open and warm had been enough, but when we were presented with two ‘breakfast bars’ each and a small bottle of gin and tonic ‘to toast the end’, we were absolutely made up- hospitality you can’t put a price on! (£30)
Next stop would be the end. Thirty kilometres lay between us and JOG. The odd hill up into Keiss required effort, but it was steady going. We passed some cyclists laden with bulky shoulder bags and exchanged knowing cheers. We lost our coastal views to our right, the end was ever closer, then cresting Wrath Hill the island of Orkney presented itself and a simple downhill few km was all that remained. From nowhere the sun emerged. Photons replaced water. We overtook a West Ham fan who cheered back ‘We’ve do it!’ And we were there, at John O’Grotes. It was 10:15 am.
I felt contented, not joyous- I think that was tempered as we still had a 30 km ride to get to Thurso still to come, but happy that we had made it. We lined up for the signpost photo, but fell into conversation with two ladies about to embark on their own JOGLE adventure. We couldn’t help ourselves… we hit them with all our tips, told them how we had felt, said it would be great… now I was feeling joyous! And to top it off, it was G&T time!
We stayed around for an hour, writing postcard, drinking tea, eating cake, hoping everyone was looking at us and thinking “they must be awesome!” Then it was time to face the wind, get to Thurso, find that almost everywhere is shut, stumble across Y’Not, pitch our tent in the local camping ground and celebrate with too much curry. We had achieved all we wanted, it was time to congratulate ourselves and thank our partner for their persistence, resilience and not getting annoyed with one another-ness.
Our journey home could be a blog post in itself. It must be said, trains are not particularly bike friendly, though to be honest, bikes aren’t overly train friendly either. With no reservations for bikes on any direct routes south, we spent a day going to Inverness, then Aberdeen, then Glasgow. We arrived in the city just before seven. I had foreseen that going out in cycle shorts would definitely draw unwanted attention so had kitted myself in the latest threads in Inverness so we could hit the town! Of course, we ended up having a Chinese and then dessert before heading to bed before our departure to London and home, 56 hours after finishing!
HEMIEXPLORERS 