Day Twelve

Bettyhill to John o'Groats

Awoke at 7 to the beeping of an incoming text from North Scotland's Mobile Bicycle Repair Man: "Sorry, can't help you: I'm on holiday".

To add insult to injury that dastardly woman from 'Misery' appeared to have broken into our room in the night and taken a hammer to our legs.

We hobbled around the hamlet of Bettyhill in the early morning mist assessing our situation. Our situation appeared to be thus:

1. The nearest bike shop is 30 miles away in Thurso and apparently they're very unlikely to leave the shop and come out to us.

2. Bettyhill consists of The Bettyhill Hotel, a shop, a post office and a couple of houses. Everyone seemed genuinely concerned about our predicament with lots of teeth sucking, but generally were pretty unhelpful.

3. The people in the shop said that Hamish (no joke) across the road is a real whizz with bikes... but unfortunately he's in hospital.

4. The post office said there is a newspaper taxi that comes from Thurso 'some time this morning', which could take Em (but not her & her bike) back to Thurso, so she'd have to get the spare part, somehow get back here and hope we could fix the bike ourselves with no tools.

5. There is a bus once a day to Thurso, every day except Thursday. We've lost track of what day it is but according to the law of Sod we deduced it must be Thursday.

6. The hotel manager can take Em + bike to Thurso but not until 3pm, making Em's ETA in JoG sometime after dark.

It seemed our only option was to attempt to cycle the bike in top gear for 30 miles to Thurso - not an attractive option given the monster hills ahead of us and the state of our inflamed tendons!!

The situation was finally resolved by Em sweet talking the guy at the bike shop in Thurso to leave his shop & drive 60 miles to fix the bike - result!! We are astounded by just how remote it is up here in the north of Scotland & how unprepared they seem to be for End2End cyclists!

So at 11am we set off along the Northern coast of Scotland (unbelievably again into strong headwinds) to complete the final 50 mile leg of our journey. We were on a real high with the thought of finishing (or maybe it was just the combination of painkillers?) and, with glorious sunshine & breathtaking scenery along the rugged coast, it was a fantastic day to end on. We rolled into John o'Groats in the late afternoon, hardly able to comprehend what we had achieved. What an incredible feeling to actually finish this - at times we really didn't think we'd make it.















Thank you to everyone for your constant support and encouragement - can't wait to see you all and tell you the stories we didn't have room for on the blog!

Vital Stats:

Total miles cycled: 996 (some clever navigation kept it sub 1k)
Total hours in the Saddle: 85
Max speed: 46mph
Calories burnt: c.150,000 (=calories consumed!)
TTT:5.5
Low point: Climbing for 3 hours on the morning of day 7 in driving rain and agony as it dawned on us that not making it was a real possibility.
High point: Setting off from Bettyhill today in glorious sunshine, bike fixed - knowing we would make it.
Total raised for Save the Children: £1,325 (and counting...!)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Bridge St,Wick,United Kingdom

Day Eleven

Inverness to Bettyhill

TTT= 5.5

Disaster strikes! If you thought our efforts up until now were heroic, read on!

Longest day today, meant to be around 120 miles although the B&B owner in Inverness (the first hero of the day) helped us cut out 20 miles by showing us a more direct (but slightly hillier) route.

Of course this meant not following the Garmin route, and we are useless without a computer, so we spent a fun hour in Inverness doing U-turns.

Emily was in a world of trouble with her strained Achilles and was wincing and yelping with every turn of the pedals, so continuously getting lost wasn't her favourite game.

Ollie, in the second act of heroism of the day, took most of the weight from Em's panniers to take the pressure off her tendon.

This still didn't stop Emily taking a nasty fall on the A9 on some sharp gravel - broken and exhausted, she was such a forlorn sight at the side of the road that 2 different motorists stopped and asked if we needed a lift anywhere! It took a lot of effort to decline!

We had a fast journey through some very remote countryside towards Bettyhill - fast because we couldn't stop for fear of being eaten alive by midgies! Attempting to eat a club sandwich while hurtling down a single track road at 30mph was pretty exciting!

We stopped briefly at Shin Falls to watch the Atlantic salmon leaping for their little lives - ahh.

And now for the disaster. 10 miles from Bettyhill, just after passing "The Remotest Hotel in Britain" (don't get me started on the grammar), Emily's rear gear cable snapped. Ollie attempted to mend it but we couldn't bear the midgies and it had started to rain (of course), so we found a nearby village hall to shelter in, turned on the disco lights, and pondered on our dire situation. The nearest bike shop is 40 miles away in Thurso and it's already 6.30pm. Ollie steps up again and offers to ride Emily's bike the last 10 miles, stuck in top gear, up some very big hills. So, riding each others' bikes we finally arrived in Bettyhill at 8pm, with all our injuries now beyond repair but thankfully 5 minutes before last orders for dinner at the only place in 'town' that does food.

No idea how we're going to get to JoG tomorrow, but we're going to do everything in our power to finish this!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Thurso,United Kingdom