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| Thurso Bay from Pentland Lodge |
Day 1:
Wick to Thurso (+ train Edinburgh to Wick)
Planned cycling mileage: 37.75 miles
Actual mileage: round about 38
Cycling time: approx 2hrs 40mins
A few little lessons learnt from today –
- less than 10 minutes connection time between long distance trains is very efficient, but not over reliable and can lead to stressful moments
- check your cycle computer's batteries work before leaving home
- if taking a camera you want to upload photos to a blog from, it's a good idea to pack the proper cable
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| Vital packing - dry bags, decent panniers and a good waterproof! |
These little things aside (resulting in approximate times/distances and only a couple of evening photos taken with my phone), we've had a good first day. A rather long one admittedly (hence the short post tonight – sorry), but all has worked out very well.
Getting up at 5 o'clock is decidedly unpleasant if you've been up till midnight packing and were tired from a busy & active weekend and Monday anyway. However, it's more than worth the effort when you're off on holiday. Especially when pedalling through Edinburgh at 6 in the morning when the city is starting to wake up and you get beautiful pre sunrise skies to catch your attention.
Safely on the 6:32am train, it felt like mere minutes before we were back on the platform at Stirling to await (all of 9 minutes) our connection to Inverness. Greeted with a friendly shout from across the tracks, we were only slightly surprised to spy Euan's friend Keith (who had fed us lunch on Sunday after the Stirling 10K) waiting for his commuter train into Edinburgh.
Another enjoyable and scenic journey up to Inverness, marred only by a 15 minute wait for the late southbound service to pass at Dunkeld. As we had a theoretical connection time of a mere 9 minutes at Inverness, this induced a touch of stress, although we were reassured by the guard that we should (and did) make the bulk of the time back up further north.
Duly transferred instantly onto our final train (not even sat down when it pulled away from the station) in gorgeous sunshine to begin the long, slow, relaxed journey up to Wick. Neither of us had been on that line before, so it was all a big adventure. We passed through plenty of big scenery and very varied views. Train stopped in loads of places, but was an excellent service. The strangest part was the train reversing to go into Thurso (where we're currently staying), then going back out the 'right' way to complete the final 30 minute leg to Wick.
On alighting at Wick and finally (at 3:15) pedalling off, I instantly discovered that the battery on my cycle computer sensor was flat, so no speeds or official times from us today. Annoying, but we'll rectify it in the morning.
Super speedy pedal in the sunshine on lovely, quiet roads saw us cover the 17 miles to John O'Groats in just under an hour. Neither of us had realised how close to the north coast the Orkney Islands are. They looked incredibly dramatic in a mixture of bright sunlight and occasional very heavy clouds and tempestuous seas crashing off the scary cliffs.
John O'Groats was nicer than we were expecting and we were able to congratulate a CTC group who had just finished their 1050 mile cycle up from Lands End. No time to hang around though, so we took some photos and headed back off again.
Unfortunately, we had a head wind pretty much all the remaining 20 miles to Thurso. It was less bleak and more attractive than we'd expected and the sun was mostly out though. So despite feeling fairly tired we arrived at our B&B just after ten past six. Bikes safely installed in comfy shed, tea drunk and welcome showers had, and we were just about ready to wander down into town to eat.
Found 'Le Bistro' just off the High Street and had tasty and relaxing meal in pleasant surroundings. A little stroll back via the seafront and that's us with our Horlicks, ready for a well deserved and much needed early night.
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