Barbarian Odyssey

This should be the final post of our Le Jog Adventure in May 2011.  Since we finished the bike ride the tandem has still been resident in Scrabster 20 miles down the road from John O’Groats at our Sister in Laws fathers friends house!!.  We did intend to head up north again to pick it up ourselves and head over to the Orkney Islands.  Time was not good to us but thankfully Bernard and Donella were heading up north and said they would bring it home to us.  They arrived at 9.30 last Saturday night on their way home, and is now resident in our shed.  We now have to think about riding it again….

We have just posted some more photos on our web album.  They can be viewed by following this link Photo Album

Although finished the LeJog we still had to get home.  This was the challenge of today.  First was getting up at 7.00 to cycle 20 miles to Scrabster.  The weather forecast for the area which we saw last night was horrendous so we wanted a good start.  Reality was totally different and we has quite a pleasant ride, and quicker than we expected.

Why Scrabster, our sister in law, Donella’s father lives there and he said he would look after the bike until we were able to get back for it.  A very pleasant hour or so of Caithness hospitality (now we know where you get in from Donella!!!!) before we got on the X99 Scrabster to Inverness Bus. From inverness we had 3 1/2 hours on the bus to Edinburgh where we were picked up by Susan who cooked us a beautiful lasagne before driving home.

On the way home we were taking bets on the Gazebo after the wind that we had at the beginning of the week. Of course it had blown down but a big thanks to Richard and Peter of the fishing club for tidying it up for us.

All that was left to do this evening was to have a couple of wee drams to reflect on the 1021 miles which we have cycled during this adventure.  We did good!!!!!

Today we completed our journey to John o’groats. A 58 mile day to make our total cycling so far on this trip just over 1000 miles. I say so far as we have another 20 to go tomorrow so we can catch our bus home. That is tomorrow though, back to today.

We started once again in out shorts and t shirts. We could have done with our coats bit we knew the road climbed out of helmsdale. It was our type of hill, long and not too steep a gradient. Then we went very sharply down at a place called berrydale braies (not sure of spelling going too quick to see!) we got to the bottom and the road went straight up and around a hairpin. We did not let this one beat us:)

the road progressivly got less undulating and we made good time pushed on by a strengthening wind. At one point today we reached 45mph!

Lunch was a sandwich from tesco in wick. At this point it was too cold to sit for too long. We kept on meeting up with our tandem friends from yesterday so were able to share more experiences.

The last 8 miles were hard. It was cold. There were squalley showers. We were tired and all we wanted to do was get to John O’Groats.

Our arrival was a bit of an anticlimax. It was more relief and this sentiment was shared by others of the hords who were completing the journey. We think that it will sink in over the next few days and we will apreciate our achievement more. A wee dram started this process with a promise of more to come when we get home tomorrow night.

We had a nice meal at the sea view hotel before the yobs came in! And then made our way to the hostel, a further 2 miles fighting against the wind and rain. Felt a lot better after a hot shower

the blog will continue over the next week with our journey home and some of the highs and lows.

A better youth hostle night last night at inverness. We left in the sun and very quickly took out coats off. It was great to cycle in just t shirt and shorts and not be cold. We knew the forecast though and knew it would not last, it came again this afternoon!.

Our route took us over the black isle, which was beautiful especially as it took us away from the A9 for a little bit. It also gave us a ferry crossing on the nigg ferry from cromaty. It had just started again last week with a new 4 car ferry. They had great fun landing in cromaty with the wind and tide.

We were soon back on the A9 heading towards helmsdale. After diverting to tain for lunch we meet another tandem pair again on their way to j o’g. They had built in the 3 peaks (snowden, scar fell & ben nevis) to add to the agony. We met up with them for a drink tonight, and probably will again tomorrow in j o’g!

The ride (70 miles today) was swift on good roads and our efforts to get off the main road where possible gave us sight of some seals. Not quite making up for not seeing dolfins whales in the moray and cromaty firths!

Our meal tonight was the biggest plate of fish & chips you could imagine in Le Mirage in helmsdale.

50 miles to John O’Groats tomorrow…