Lands End to John O'Groats


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Day 16
Crianlarich to Fort William - 42 miles

We had porridge and a fry-up for breakfast at The Ben More Lodge and got ready to hit the highlands. The Falcon’s tyre was flat. After taking the innertube out, it appeared to be fine, so it was pumped up and we set off.
We continued along the A82 which we were very bored of, having followed it for days. Navigating in Scotland was very easy; there only seemed to be one road.
It was a bank holiday weekend, and the place was crawling with motorbikes treating the road like Brands Hatch. We met a bagpipe player called Sandy who didn’t do much to lift our spirits. “Every dee, somebody dies on these rooods” he said, in his thick Scottish accent. “Make sure you don’t go home in a body bag.” We thanked him and went on our way.
The scenery was spectacular, but it was difficult to appreciate it fully in torrential rain, with traffic whizzing by at light speed. We came across some roadworks where the mountain road was down to one lane for a mile. The visibility was so bad that the workman radioed the other end of the roadworks, and they waited until we were safely through before allowing the traffic through again.
We were very wet and very hungry, but there was no sign of civilisation anywhere. We then came across the Visitor Centre in Glencoe and Paul, the custodian, kindly heated our Londis Lasagnes and gave us 2 delicious hot chocolates with marshmallows. We sat there for an hour enjoying the warmth, as the rain poured down outside.
We couldn’t put it off any longer, so got back on our bikes and rode the last 15 miles to Fort William where we planned to stay. We managed to get a room at a hostel in exchange for us cleaning out the drying room downstairs, and picking up some cigarette butts from the street. We got a Fish Supper from down the road, and Ben made his own scrabble set.

Day 17
Fort William to Beauly - 63 miles

We had porridge for breakfast and microwaved tuna pasta bake. We then cycled to the Nevis Range, Scotland 's highest ski area for some site-seeing. We took a trip up the gondola and checked out the fantastic views. The staff gave us a Ski Scotland t-shirt which became our new Sunday best.
A few hours later we arrived at Loch Ness and followed it for most of the day. We saw no sign of the monster. We arrived in the small town of Drumnadrochit at the far end of the loch and visited the Loch Ness 2000 museum. It was rubbish.
We arrived in the town of Beauly as it was getting dark and looked for somewhere to stay. We almost persuaded a coach driver to let us sleep in his coach, but boring old health and safety laws meant we couldn't. We then called into the Caledonian Inn, and met Cathy and Iain. The bar was hidden away upstairs and it was like walking into their sitting room. The place was full of old sofas and Cathy was sitting watching TV with her dog. We explained the situation and they kindly offered us a room for the night.
We had steak pie and chips from the hotel up the road who had earlier denied us a room as they were full, but offered us dinner instead.
We then returned to the Caledonian, where we chatted to Cathy, Iain and the locals for several hours and drank pints of Best.

Day 18
Beauly to Berriedale - 79 miles

Iain cooked us up a huge bowl of porridge for breakfast and we filled up on toast. A few miles after leaving Beauly we passed our first signpost to John O'Groats and it brought with it a real feeling of excitement.
The sky was thick black over to our left and we could see the heavy rain in the distance. For a couple of hours we skirted alongside it, and it and the rain hardly touched us. With a generous tail wind, we made good progress.
To celebrate, we stopped at the Glenmorangie distillery where we did a lunchtime tasting. We then had an interesting tour of the distillery, followed by another tasting. The staff kindly presented us with a rare bottle of Glenmorangie, which we will auction for charity - although it was very tempting to take the rest of the day off and sit by the roadside and drink the lot.
We still had alot of cycling to do that day, and with a empty stomach and a light head we set off. The Dornoch Bridge was a real test of strength as we had to fight against a 1000 mph side wind so that it didn't push us under the wheels of the passing trucks. The A9 is a surprisingly busy road, considering it doesn't lead anywhere. We had soup and a sandwich at a truck stop on the other side of the bridge and then cycled another 30 miles after lunch and ended up in the village of Berriedale.
It was our last night, and we decided to try and find somewhere extravagent to stay. We followed the driveway to Langwell House, which extended for over a mile into a magnificant valley. The road clung to the valley edge with a river far below. It was some of the most spectacular scenery we had ever seen, and this was someone's driveway. We hadn't even seen the house, before we were apprehended by the gamekeeper, with a big dog and a big gun. We explained we were hoping to stay the night, and he told us there was no chance and sent us back where we came from.
It was getting dark and there was no answer at the other houses we tried. We continued along the A9 and came across the Llama Farm B&B a few miles later.
Brian and Mary were closed to guests while they had some building work done, but offered us a room anyway. We felt very guilty about putting them out, so insisted on sleeping on the hay in there Poly-tunnel. Brian and Mary were a lovely couple, and had seen plenty of end-to-enders over the years and told us some great stories.
They heated up our quiche that we'd aquired in Beauly and we settled down on the hay for our last night.

Day 19
Berriedale to John O'Groats - 43 miles

It rained all night, despite Brian telling us it would be dry, but the poly-tunnel didn't leak too much and we'd slept really well. We were ready to face the last few miles to John O'Groats.
After breakfast, we helped feed the llamas and parrots and then Brian gave us a tour of cold war bunker that was discovered on some land that he'd just bought.
The rest of the morning was relatively uneventful. We hardly stopped at all on the final 40 miles to John O'Groats. We passed several End-to-enders heading the other way on the first leg of their trip and it was great to exchange cheers of good luck and congratulations.
The ride ends on a nice downhill (obviously, because John O'Groats is on the coast) and we arrived at the famous sign at about 1.30pm. John, the John O'Groats photographer, kindly gave us our last freebie by taking our picture under the sign.
The journey was over. It was an incredbile experience that neither of us will ever forget - 1000 miles, 5 bikes, 60ish free meals, 18 nights accommodation, £1000 raised for charity, 2 sore bums, 1 puncture and hundreds of amazingly fantastic people.