Just rolling

It’s been a running joke that whatever time we aim to leave, we always take an hour longer. So now someone will say, “we’ll aim to leave at 9”, and everyone will snort derisively.

Things have slowly been improving in this respect, however. Today we arrived in Glen Nevis (in the shadow of mist-shrouded Ben Nevis) at 5:30pm, a full two hours earlier than usual. We owe this to our speedy 25-minute picnic lunch (encouraged by a drizzly gale on Rannoch Moor) and perhaps a little to the 30mph tailwind that accompanied us from Glencoe to Fort William.

That wind was against us for our descent through the actual valley of Glen Coe though, which made it quite difficult to dawdle and take in the dramatic scenery—all sheer rock walls and babbling burns and windswept scrubland.

Still, spirits are very high this evening, as we managed to get the laundry on, shower and book our whole onward journey before 7pm, leaving us for the first time with the chance to relax in the evening.

Tomorrow we ride the 40 miles to the Alltsigh hostel on the infamous shores of Loch Ness. We’ll keep you informed of any monster sightings!

Sophie and I have finished packing. We have all the train and airline tickets we need. In the morning we head off to Paddington with our unrecognisably heavy bikes. We’re ready.

If only I could find the little wire thing for my bike’s headlights….

Well, that was a hassle. I’ve booked us a B&B for the first night.

Treyarnon Bay. Night 1, however, is proving a trickier proposition.

I’ve just received the London – Penzance tickets—the first physical evidence of our journey.

I’ve booked the outward tickets (London—Penzance).

Well, apparently there is planned engineering work on the line between Edinburgh and Newcastle on the weekend we’re returning from John O’Groats. The upshot is that we’ll have to catch the 6:23am train from Wick, and the journey includes a replacement bus service from Edinburgh to Newcastle. But can we get four bikes on the Wick-Inverness train? And will the replacement bus service take bikes at all?

I have actually considered booking EasyJet tickets back to London from Inverness, but they require bikes to be packaged in bike boxes or bags. I’m not confident that we be able to buy them in Inverness on a Saturday morning. This is quite apart from the fact that they cost £80 each.