Land's End to John o'Groats; June 2019
The Plan
I was wondering where to go for 2019 when I came up with the idea of doing a Land's End to John o'Groats ride based on a route built around good riding roads and Round Britain Rally (RBR) landmarks. So I came up with a route made up of mostly scenic non-motorway roads and RBR landmarks that I could visit along the way without compromising my riding enjoyment. I determined where I would need accommodation by planning on riding around 250 miles per day. I then pre-booked my accommodation as I had the feeling that more Brits than usual would be holidaying at home than usual because of Brexit. I could have done more miles per day but let's face it, I'm not as young as I used to be and I wanted to have the time to stop and look around if I so wished.
Gallery
False Start
I had first planned a clockwise route of 11 days for a round trip from home to Land's End to John o'Groats and back home again. I would keep west going north and keep east when returning south. Despite the ominous weather forecast for the coming week and with some misgivings I started out Sunday 9th June to get to the Camborne Premier Inn where I stayed that night. The ride down to Camborne wasn't too bad but I did get pelted by several heavy rain showers going across Dartmoor.
Monday morning 10th June at the Camborne Premier Inn, I listened with growing unease to the weather forecast which predicted a deep depression slowly tracking north up through the British Isles. If forecasters had it right then that meant horrendous weather all the way to John o'Groats. Now I've not always had great faith in weather forecasters but it didn't look good so I decided to cancel my accommodation, pop down to Land's End and return home that day. As it was, the weather forecast turned out to be extemely accurate and the weather was really awful that week. Now you may think of me as a wimp but, as I'm now retired, I didn't see the need to waste all that time and money riding in depressing weather for a week or more. I've done it before when I've had to but now I'm retired I can always reschedule.
Home To The Borders
A week and a half later and the June weather was looking distinctly better and on Thursday 20th June I headed north for Lincoln. I had changed my original route a bit by going anticlockwise up the east side of England and Scotland and returning south on the west side of Scotland and England. I planned to be away for 9 days so I booked an Ibis, a Premier Inn and a Travelodge for three stopovers in England and the rest were B&Bs for my one stopover in Northumberland and four stopovers in Scotland. I had fallen into the habit of taking the easy option and booking accommodation with one of the budget commercial hotel chains. There's nothing wrong with them but I must say that I did enjoy the B&Bs where I got a chance to be sociable and breakfast is thrown in to boot!
On the morning of Friday 21st, I made my way up through Lincolnshire and across the Humber bridge to Hull and Yorkshire. After Beverley I followed the Yorkshire coast north before coming back inland to ride north across the North Yorkshire moors to Durham. From Durham, I rode across the Durham and Northumberland moors to my B&B Thornley House just outside Allendale near Hexham. Had a nice walk along the river into Allendale for dinner. The B&B was quiet and comfortable. The lady who runs it has visited many far-flung parts and was very interesting to talk to. I enjoyed the ride through Lincolnshire and the rides across the moors, where there was little traffic, were great. The ride up the Yorkshire coast not so much.
Saturday 22nd started well with a lovely ride across the Northumberland national park to Kielder and then on to Edinburgh across the rugged Scottish borders. Scenic roads free of traffic for the most part. After skirting around Edinburgh I crossed the new Forth bridge into Fife and headed for the Kelpies and the Falkirk Wheel. I had high expectations of these two and I wasn't disapponted.
John O'Groats
The Kelpies were magnificent to see and I was very impressed by the mechanical genius of the Falkirk Wheel. After the Falkirk Wheel it was north across the Stirlingshire Trussocks to Perthshire where I followed Loch Tummel's north shore to my B&B at Pitlochry. My B&B was an Airbnb, Braeside Cottage, on the outskirts of Pitlochry and what a little peach it turned out to be. For very little money, it was very clean and comfortable with a very accommodating and welcoming host. That evening, I dined in Pitlochry on chicken stuffed with haggis (and drank Irn-Bru) at a no-frills eatery recommended by my host. Brilliant stopover.
Sunday 23rd began with a nice ride across the Cairngorms. Another great ride on quiet roads from Pitlochry to Braemar and past the ski slopes to Tomintoul. Then it was through the Highlands capital Inverness and across the Kessock bridge to follow the A9 all the way to Thrumster, just south of Wick. As custom dictates, I stopped off at the Glenmorangie distillery at Tain and bought a couple of whisky tumblers for the 'kids'. As I headed north on the exposed A9, the temperature dipped and with some patches of freezing sea mist rolling in from the sea I stopped to re-attach my thermal lining to my jacket. (I had optimistically removed it earlier.)
My B&B for that night was Thrumster House which looked OK on the web but truth be told, the place is a bit tired. The Old Smiddy Inn was a convenient short walk and I had a curry there. (If you know what a Vesta curry is that was what it was like.) My wife's Mum, whose surname was Bain, was from Caithness and her Dad served at a prisoner of war camp at a place called Watten at the end of WW2. Those were two good reasons to nip over to Watten (which is not far from Thrumster) to pay homage to the memorial in honour of Alexander Bain, the inventor of the electric clock. I bet you didn't know that? (Truth be told, Bain is a very common Caithness name.) Up until Caithness I had had pretty good weather and maybe it had something to do with the weather turning but that part of Caithness does seem a bit of a depressed area.
Monday 24th and I was getting ready to leave Thrumster House when it started raining. It was expected and it rained, heavily at times, all day. But, I really enjoyed that day's ride as the scenery was all the more dramatic for it. Low clouds scudding off mountain tops and a dark foreboding layer of stratus cloud. After leaving Thrumster House I headed north past the house in Keiss where my mother-in-law grew up to John o'Groats where the usual photos were taken. Now my wife Chris has a cousin who lives at John o'Groats. I had called at her house before without success but this time I was in luck as she was at home. After a long catch-up chat and cup of tea I was on my way again.
The Top Road to Durness and onto Ullapool
I always enjoy the ride along the top. As you go west the landscape changes from being very flat to the more interesting mountainous scenery. After Tongue and Durness I stopped at Scourie at a little oasis out of the rain called "The Anchorage" for a cup of tea and a lunch of sausages, chips and beans. From where I sat I could see Scourie Lodge where Chris and I stayed all those years ago when we toured Scotland on the Blackbird. It was just what I needed at the time.
Eventually I arrived at my Ullapool B&B, Tamarin Lodge. It's the third time I've stayed there and it was gratfying to find out that it was still just as good. I was familiar with procedure. I parked up the bike in the garage and via its internal door walked straight to my room with its magnificient view over Loch Broom. A favourite B&B of mine that. The hosts are most welcoming, their place is very nice and it's not much money to stay there.
Poolewe, Applecross and Skye
On Tuesday 25th I headed south to Skye and my B&B just outside Crianlarich. Unfortunately I must have been half asleep when I left Ullapool as I ignored the satnav's directions on the way to Poolewe. You know how it is? I was so intent on passing a barge of the road that I missed the satnav telling me to turn right just as I got past the barge. I guess I didn't want to look like a twit by immediately u-turning back the way I had come. Anyway by the time I looked again the satnav had recalulated a route which allowed me to keep going on the road I was on. Trouble is, the west Highlands of Scotland are not like down south where a recalculation may cost you a few miles because of the numerous possibilities of getting somewhere. The sparsity of roads in those parts meant my trip to Poolwe cost me an extra 50 miles. Never mind, it was great riding on those roads.
Just before Skye I stopped to ride up the Applecross pass to Bealach na Bà viewpoint. I had done it many times before and always enjoyed it but not this time. The place was heaving with tourists. Loads of cars, cyclists and even what must have been a 25 tonne truck going up the pass.
The sign at the bottom tells trucks to take another route but I guess the driver couldn't read it (it was plastered with stickers)? Every switchback was a 10 point turn for the truck. Mega frustrating to be behind. Then, to top it all, some car driver staring at the scenery went off the road with his car finishing some way down on its roof. It was quite spectacular to see the police van and ambulance with "blues and twos" going zig-zagging up the pass. I spoke to the policeman on the way down and luckily nobody was hurt but retrieving the car must have been fun.
After Applecross I crossed the bridge to Skye and took the small turntable ferry from Kylerhea on Skye to Glenelg back on the mainland. Approaching Skye from the north it was quicker to cut across Skye than ride around it to get to Glenelg. I passed by Bealach Ratagain viewpoint which is I remembered it. A very captivating view.
Yorkshire Dales and Peak District
From Bealach Ratagain it was an easy scenic ride to my B&B, Ewich House, near Crianlarich via Fort Augustus, Fort William and Glencoe. Lots of tourists at Fort William and that's where I hit a traffic jam. Ewich House was a comfortable stopover. I went into Crianlarich for a pizza.
My first stop on Wednesday 26th was Inveraray. I had to take the road I crashed on way back in 2007. Brings back memories of a 12 hour recovery to Dorset! Then it was across the Clyde via the Erskine bridge to Ayr and from there I skirted the Galloway Forest to pass through Dumfries. After a brief visit to the Lake District I made my way to the Penrith Travelodge which was okay but after the B&Bs I stayed at a bit soulless. On this trip I rediscovered the benefits of B&Bs where you often meet interesting people and get a good breakfast.
Thursday 27th was a hot June day as I made may way through the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District to my Premier Inn at Telford. The roads were busier than up north but it was a great day's riding especially over the Dales where I did find quiet stretches of road after leaving Penrith. Yorkshire has its nice parts,the Dales and the Moors, but from a riding perspective, the bits of west and south Yorkshire I rode through aren't some of them.
On Friday 28th I had the decision to make as to whether I should ride down to Land's End again or return home. I thought about riding through Devon and Cornwall on what was to be a steamy hot weekend and I had already been to Land's End twice in 2019. It was a no-brainer for me and I returned home via the Midlands and the Costwolds. This meant that my Land's End to John o'Groats trip was punctuated by one and half weeks at home as I waited for the June weather to improve.
A Nice Ride but has the NC500 Made it too Busy?
My trip from home to Land's End was around 450 miles and my trip from home to John o'Groats was around 2350 miles so in total I did about 2,800 miles. That's more miles than it would normally take to do Land's End to John o'Groats and back but I also visited half of the 83 RBR landmarks along the way which added a fair few miles. I would say that my route worked out really well as I rode minimal motorway miles and rode a lot of windy scenic roads of the sort I like. I did use RBR landmarks to help construct the route but where visiting a landmark would involve missing nice roads I chose nice roads and bypassed the landmark. For example, I wanted to ride up to Kielder which meant not visiting one of the Northumberland landmarks. I have been touring on the continent in recent years and I was sceptical about whether I would enjoy a long distance UK ride as much. I shouldn't have worried. The UK still has a lot to offer a rider. I look back on this trip with great affection. On my trip to John o'Groats I had eight dry days out of nine and these were mostly sunny and warm. The one day it rained was when I went from Thrumster to Ullapool along the top but I still enjoyed that day. The only thing I would say is that it was very busy around Skye. Too busy for me. The North Coast 500 (NC500) is a marmite thing for the locals. If your making money out of it you like it. If you want a quite life in the Highlands you don't like it. I've been going to the Highlands long before the NC500 came about. There is no doubt that the NC500 has more people aware of the Highlands. I wish it was still a better kept secret as too many people going there will change its character. There's nothing worse than following a mobile home down a single track road!