The end!

The hotel in bodmin was fantastic - the barley sheaf - we were provided
with a thoroughly good breakfast, a good discount off the room rate and saw
one of thw biggest dogs I've ever seen:

After leaving bodmin at the very respectable time of 9 and after 3 long
hours found ourselves in Penzance - the book describes this bit of the
journey as 'gently undulating' - we both have a few choice words for the
author!

At this point we were overtaken by the girls (Emily and Emma) who were
driving down to meet us.

10 miles later we arrived at lands end to be greeted by champagne in tiny
lands end glasses.

So after 1 buckled wheel, 3 new tyres, 5 inner tubes (all daves) and 950
miles in 10 days it's been quite an experience and one I don't think either
of us plan on repeating in the near future - but certainly a bit of an
accomplishment and we've raised over 1500 pounds for bowel cancer research
(donations still welcome - www.justgiving.com/Daveandphil ) thanks to
everyone for support, shelter, encouragement and just keeping us
entertained on the Blog comments.

What if the hokey cokey really is what it's all about?

A hard 20 miles from launceston - pretty much all either 8% uphills that
took everything out of you or 8% downhills that you couldn't use properly
because the crosswinds were sending you into the traffic. Arrived at about
6.

I had the hokey cokey going round and round in my head all the way - turns
out it has pretty much the right rhythem for a cadence of 80 - it's
whatever gets you through at this stage.

The hills are alive with the sound of groaning...

Left Taunton at 6:30 to a cold and foggy morning - got on the a38 and just
before we reached tiverton (our first waypoint) Dave had to change what is
rapidly becoming his daily morning puncture - this time he made it through
a continental gatorskin tyre, I think Dave should be their tester.

When we got moving again (after stocking up on tubes) we headed toward
crediton, experiencing some truly comically steep hills. We reached
crediton at about 10 and decided 30 miles was enough to warrant some
breakfast - they didn't have porridge so we settled for the bacon
sandwiches.

As we left crediton the weather became really quite good, the sun was
shining and strong. The road from crediton was nicely paved, quite quiet
and although there were some ups and downs, they were shallow enough to
keep up a decent average. We reached okehampton by about 12:30, where we
had intended to have lunch, but neither of us felt like putting off 45
miles until after we'd eaten, so we made our way on to launceston along the
a30, a terrifying stretch of road where we had to dodge the rocks, nails
and general debris on the side of the road - uncannily Dave didn't get a
puncture here - and the cars were going at 90 mph about 1 foot to the
right.

We passed into Cornwall her and had a little celebration about it being our
last county - I checked the sat nav and realised we were only 4 miles from
launceston - I don't know what our average was but we couldn't have been on
there for much over an hour - we were sat eating lunch by 3 with a
blissfully realistic 20 miles to do after lunch.

Dave, Dave, Dave...

It was nice to wake up this morning with Josh between Emma and I - back to
normality, if only for a few hours.

After checking the route last night and finding Taunton was only 80 miles
away, we had breakfast this morning (again the winning combination of
porridge and bacon sandwiches - good porridge David!) feeling positive
about an early finish.

We did the first 20 miles in good time and then Dave got another puncture!
That's 3 this trip on the same wheel. Upon further inspection the whole
tyre had been punctured and we needed a new one - unfortunately we were
about 10 miles away from the centre on Bristol, so we put a new tube in and
kept it slow. We were told of a bike shop in thornbury (about a mile back)
so we made our way there to find that the guy was in Spain and his shop was
closed. So I'm again afraid to admit we had to get a taxi from there to
filton where the next nearest bike shop was - we got dropped off after
about 5 miles at a bike shop that we found out (after the taxi pulled off)
that they didn't have the right size tyre or type of tube. So it was a mile
or so walk up the road to the next one where they were very friendly and
did have some equipment in stock. The owner was very insistent on showing
me the way through Bristol and on to Taunton - he even drew me a map, I
didn't have the heart to tell him I already knew and had a sat nav anyway.

We were finally on the way again about 2 and a half hours after the tyre
burst - and still with 50 miles to go - we had had a sandwich in thornbury,
so we just cracked on and started eating into the miles. It was slow going
with some large hills out of Bristol, but also some cracking downhills
which got us up to the highest speed so far for the trip (38 with a
headwind).

A fairly uneventful 4 hours later, we arrived in Taunton (so much for the
early finish). We're both wary of tomorrow - the guys on the bike shop to
great pleasure in telling us that Taunton to bodmin would be the hardest
day. So we're off for another early start to try and get to Exeter for
breakfast.

The ankle is now swollen, but other than that we are both intact - off to
try and find an all you can eat Chinese now, I think I might be able to get
good value for money.

Just after breakfast Dave noticed that his spoke was broken so we made our
way to halfords to get it fixed - we got there and had to wait 30 minutes
for the place to open, and then another 45 minutes for the guy to change
the spoke. While we were waiting we met a very nice lady called Anne who
listened as I recounted our journey so far, and promised to make a donation
- thanks Anne!

So we were not on the road again until nearly 10, which felt like a bit of
a waste after getting up so early. We left Stafford and headded toward
wolverhampton taking an hour or so. After all that it was about 11 and I
checked the sat nav to find out we still had 60 miles to go - I suffered a
little depression at this point, the only day I really wanted to get back
early to see em and Josh and at this pace it was going to be our latest
arrival. Annoyed, but using the anger we made it to kiddeminster in about
another hour - I then checked the sat nav again and realised that I'd been
calculating the distance to Gloucester centre, not sally and David's house
- the total remaining for the day now was only 35, considerably more
achievable considering it was only 12 - however before we had time to
celebrate we had to go to halfords again, because Dave's tyre had developed
a kink (a weak spot, not a perversion), so we dumped the bikes and went to
grab some lunch from Sainsbury's.

All that sorted, we left kiddeminster through utterly unremarkable
landscape and just kept going for the rest of the afternoon to arrive at
about 5:30. I kept telling Dave from tewksbury onward that it was only 2
miles or so, it was more like 10 because I'd only ever done it in the car -
I think I started to annoy him...

Unfortunately I had no fiance and son to welcome me with open arms because
they'd had a flat tyre before they left home.

A massive portion of lasgne, a hot shower and an ankle support later we're
both feeling good about the next few days, but still need to work out the
route to Taunton tomorrow.

[no pictures today because there was nothing worth taking pictures of,
every town we went through was full of business parks and chavs]

Breakfast at Stafford

Left at about 6:30 this morning and arrived at Stafford at about 7:40 for
some breakfast.

Bit colder and greyer today and slight headwind.

An early finish

Arrived at the plough hotel in stoke on Trent - definitely the dodgyest
looking place we've stayed at, although actually ok.

We were in a room by 5pm after a reasonable slog from knutsford.

We spent the evening with a few beers and playing pool with some locals -
Dave lost us 2 games by potting the black.

Going to leave early tomorrow, with a view to getting to Gloucester nice
and early so I can spend some time with Josh and em.

Knutsford in good time, more end to enders and Dave's bike upside down again.

Leaving Ben and Vicky's this morning was a bit of a wrench - good food and
good company to be replaced by more A roads...

Breakfast was that of champions - porridge and bacon sandwiches, along with
smoothies, berocca and tea. Fully fuelled we headed off to Preston along
the A6 and managed quite a pace getting to the city entrance in little over
an hour (it's 18 miles from Lancaster) - but then spent the best part of an
hour getting through the city.

Along the way we were passed by a couple more end to enders who started the
same day as us, but expected to finish in 3 days.

With a bit of a tail wind (I'd forgotted what it feels like), we pushed on
through wigan and into warrington - where we had planned to have lunch,
trouble is, it was only 11:45.

We decided to get to knutsford before having lunch but 1 mile away Dave got
another puncture, so we had to take another 15 minutes to sort that out.

It's a mere 25 miles from here to stoke, which we should get out of the way
in. Few hours this afternoon, allowing us a sit down and pint in the sun
this evening.

Ups and downs

A very sunny day meant that my sunburn was getting no better - I couldn't
find any shops open selling suntan lotion, so had to watch my knees getting
redder and redder. We got to carlisle and stopped to get Dave a new tyre.

A short trip to penrith got us there in good time and we decided to plough
on to shap before lunch. We'd heard stories about shap that it was the
hardest climb on the trip, so we set about it. We arrived in shap at about
2:15 and had a good pub lunch. We had each said to each other that the
climb wasn't that bad and we'd had much worse. Talking to the woman at the
bar we discovered that it's actually shap fell that is the highest point -
another 5 miles away, a bit dejected, we trudged on up the a6 up, and up,
and up - back up to about 1400 feet (for the 3rd time this trip) to some
increadible views but absolutely knackered - but then, we got to go down
the other side, which was about 30 minutes of downhill, over 10 miles to
kendal - very fun, apart from the very strong crosswinds which promised to
throw us off the cliff at any moment.

From kendal it was then a loooong 20 miles to Lancaster where we arrived at
about 7 - we kept Ben and Vicky waiting - and were presented with the best
meal of the journey, topped off with a cracking sticky toffee pudding.

A shower that stinged both my sunburn and my cuts livened me up a bit -
Achilles tendon on my left leg is battling my right knee for the most
painful appendage.

Dave just pulled a fast one giving me the option of the airbed (which I
though was the better) but just found out that he now has the big bed. Grr!

Escaping madman Joe and crossing the border

We left ecclefecchan at 8:20 made good progress for the first 10 minutes,
then a car came alongside, the driver shouting 'halt' (who says that?) then
he pulled in front of us and opened his door - I swerved and stopped, Dave
went in to the back of me and we ended in a twisted heap on the floor. It
was Joe from the ecclefeccan inn - apparently we'd forgotted to pay. So we
sorted that out, I regarded by sunburned, strained and now badl scratched
right knee and carried on to gretna.

A little way after we crossed the border - 5 minutes of picture taking and
reflection and we'll be off again.

Glad to be back in England!

The landlord of the ecclefecchan inn is nuts!

A sunny day, hopefully not quite as windy.

We awoke this morning to calls of 'Dave... Phil' from outside the window.
Joe was outside asking if we could come down and let him in because he'd
locked himself out. Dave went down and Joe said he'd been to lockerbie for
a drink (he owns a bar!) he must have been out there all night?

I wonder if we'll get our breakfast for 7:30.

How long does it take 2 men to change a tyre?

The headwinds today were untrue - after making good progress this morning
to lanark, the following 10 miles must have taken us 2 hours.

Because we were making slow progress, we decided to grab some food from a
petrol station and get going.

At abington we met a couple of other bikers who were on their way to hoik
we pointed them in the right direction and they reciprocated. We were
surprised to find at this point we had only 43 miles to go, rather than the
50 we thought. Spurred on, we put our heads down a hot about another 10
miles down (the wind was not quite as bad as before 'lunch'.

We then joined the a74M which had a good quality cycle path, a bit of
shelter from the wind and a massive downhill - not terribly steep, but long
and gave us a bit a rest while still making progress. It was like this all
the way down to balnock where we had only about 15 miles to go to
ecclefecchan. Dave got a puncture around about here, so we stopped to fix
it then got back on the road and stopped after about a mile to do it again,
properly...

We arrived at 6 - considering the headwind and the later start, not too
bad. Ecclefecchan is small and quiet but the hotel bar (ok, it's just a
pub really) was buzzing. The owner (Joe) came out to meet us and put the
bikes away - a really friendly guy and not a little crazy. He's in the
middle of renovating the pub and we had to work our way through the
building site to get to our room, but once there it was very comfortable.

The bar was apparently a rangers bar and everyone was celebrating - thank
god they won today!

Feeling tired, but looking forward to crossing the border tomorrow. I have
a strange bruise on my right calf and sunburned knees but other than that
just enjoyin a well deserved pint.

A brighter day

A continental breakfast inside us, a good sleep and a lot of stretching, we
feel a little better than yesterday (we couldn't have been much worse)

We set off at the very civilised time of 8:40 (only because breakfast wan't
served until 8. We've covered about 25 miles so far, just stopped in lanark
for a quick rest and hoping to get another 25 befor lunch.

A day worth forgetting

Our longest day has also been our coldest, wettest, windiest, highest and
most generally miserable.

After a promising start in pitlochry by 10 we set out towards aberfeldy,
where we needed to pick up the a826 to crieff. We did that 10 miles or so
in reasonable time. When we reached aberfeldy, we headed south towards
crieff hoping for an easy 20 miles before lunch.

We were presented with a 5 mile 7 percent climb which took it out of both
of us - it seemed to go on forever, and we were waiting for the nice long
downhill, but it never really came. Instead we just started going up and
down the terrain, which as it turned out was the top of the mountain range.
None of this would have been that bad if it wasn't for the horizontal rain
and very strong headwinds. The 20 miles to crieff took about 3 and a half
hours.

When we got to crieff we had battered sausage supper (which Dave found out
after a fashion meant all wrapper up together - so we retired to a bench
(with our free drinks from the nice man in the chippy - with the Chinese /
Scottish accent).

We still had 37 miles to go from there and decided to just get on with it,
it was mostly ok, but we arrived in the vicinity tired at about 7 - we then
took about an hour and a half to find the hotel - the only directions we
had involved going on the a80 - basically a motorway without the benefit of
a hard shoulder. So we had to find another route - it took us 2 hours to
cover perhaps 10 miles - not a good average.

Just had time to get changed and go and eat - and now getting to sleep in
preparation for tomorrow - hopefully will be a little brighter tomorrow!

Leaving Las Vegas

We left dalwhinnie a little later than we wanted (about 6:30) to strong
headwinds and a cold morning. We cycled for about 40 minutes at a very slow
pace, thinking that the wind was holding us up, when we reached drumochter
summit and realised we'd been climbing the whole way (there really is no
way to tell).

So from there we stayed on the route 7 cycle path, all downhill and getting
some good pace, bringing up the average from 7.5 to 12.5.

Calvine was the first village we came to, then Blair, where we saw Blair
castle (presumably where john and Jackie summer?) and killircrankie before
finally getting to pitlochry at about 9:50. It was about 30 miles (we
predicted 20) so it's good to know that we have done 30 miles of the day's
total before 10 am.

We have a winner on the boxer shorts, Dave is commando and finding it much
more comfortable.

Early start

Off toda at 6 - hopefully to pitlochry for breakfast.

Scattered clouds, but clear and dry for the moment.

Hoping for a less 'interesting' day than yesterday.

Dalwhinnie, kamikaze flies and our new friend.

Mike at the bike shop told us a route down to dalwhinnie that didn't
involve getting back on the a9 which was something of a relief - this route
was nicely paved, quiet and offered the most stunning scenery, I've tried
to show it, but doesn't come close to capuring it.

For a little karmic payback the weather was really nice all the way down.
We went through kincraig, kingussie and newtonmore which were very nice
little villages. And we made a friend along the way (see pics). We made it
in really good time and at about 5 we only had 10 miles to go, so we
stopped for a while for a cup of tea and to enjoy the views.

Getting to dalwhinnie at about 6, we soon noticed there is nothing here - a
disproportionate number of houses, a station and a hotel called the inn
dalwhinnie. Filled with trepidation, we arrived and discovered it was
remarkably full, very trendy and not without a sense of humour about itself
(twinned with Las Vegas).

The journey was ok on the body, I just have aches in my hamstrings, quads,
gluts, lower back, upper back and elbows - apart from that I'm fine. Dave
seems to be fairing a little better.

We're also fed up with the kamikaze flies that seem intent on ending their
tiny lives in our face - or if they can manage it, in our mouths.

By the way, feel free to post comments, encouragement, mockery, etc - they
don't call it social media for nothing.

Punishment and reward

Quite a lot happened this morning - we are, as predicted, in aviemore by
lunchtime (50 miles from alness) but not without incident.

The first 10 miles were ok and we went over the bridge to 'black isle' (I
half expected to meet a couple of hobbits on a quest) - we then had a
fairly relentless climb for 2 miles, but not too steep - it was raining and
the wind was in our face, but after a good climb we were rewarded by a dose
of sunshine, calmer winds and a good long downhill where speeds of 25 - 30
were easy freewheeling.

After that is was another 10 miles to inverness which passed without
incident. We got to the inverness bridge and the views were increadible,
followed by a huge downhill which got us up to 35, the punishment here was
35 mph rain in the face, which does sting a little. It was at this point I
noticed I had lost a spoke (I heard something clatter on the way down. I
put it to the back of my mind, donned the wet weather gear and started off
to daviot.

At daviot I felt that the climbs were a touch harder than they should have
been, so I looked back at my back wheel which was buckled and rubbing
against the brake - punishment! We then decided to carry on to the next
town, which appeared to be aviemore - about 18 miles away. Little did I
know that this consisted of a 7 mile climb to schloct summit. I staggared
on with the buckle getting worse, every mile feeling like 2. Several times
I thought we had reached the to of a hill and were going down, but checking
back realised we were still climbing, just at less of a gradient -
punishment! With a bit of grit and determination we reached schloct summit
(405 metres above sea level) and was looking forward to an easy decent in
to aviemore. We stopped to check out the bike and the buckled wheel had
worn a notch into the aluminium of the frame. I'm sorry to say that we then
had to hitch a lift with a guy called Dave and his van for the last 10
miles - if it's any consolation, it was more disappointing to see the
fruits of my impeded climbing 405 metres going to waste in a van.

So, to a bike shop for a new back rim, tyre (because it had worn away on
the frame) and a bill I could do without - punishment!

The sun is out, but I'm not sure that really has thr karmic effect required
for the day so far. We've got to sit and have lunch until about 2:30 so
the guy at Mike's bikes can finish the job, then we can get the next 30
miles out of the way and curse the day. I guess it's better this happens
today rather than tomorrow, at 97 miles it's our longest day and won't have
any time to spare.

Soreness wise, I think we're both a bit better, whether the saddles are
moulding to the shape of our bums or the other way around I'm not sure. We
are testing a supposition, we've both had problems with chaffing, so Dave
is trying 2 pairs of boxer shorts, and I'm trying none - we'll see who
comes off better at the end of that day (tmi?) - I won't post a picture!

Outlook is good - for the moment

We woke up this morning to a cloudless sky and a few aches, but less than
yesterday.

Looking forward to a good breakfast and then getting 50 miles under our
belt before lunch - hopefully.

The last Tain miles were the hardest.

When we left the comfort of the Sutherland inn we immediately felt the cold
and had to chuck on some warmer gear.

We started strong and all the way to Tain we were keeping a good pace. In
Tain we saw a sign for alness (our first) and were surprised to see 16
miles, we had obviously made better time than we thought. So, spurred on,
we peddled hard for what seemed like 5 miles (we've got pretty good at
estimating) when we were greeted by another sign saying 13 miles - confused
we carried on for another 5 miles when we saw another for 10 miles - and so
on, until we reached alness after what felt like about 30 miles.
It was a day of extremes weatherwise, being calm and sunny half the time,
but gusting and in your face the other half. The sun came out quite a lot,
but we were also met with fairly torrential rain.

We arrived sore but happy at the station hotel at 6:15 - a good 10 hours on
the road with a few decent stops. The bar was full of surprisingly drunk
Scottish people considering it was 6 in the evening on a Thursday. We were
shown to our room (Dave made the nice girl showing us carry his bag for
him) which is basic and not completely functional, but to be honest it had
beds and a hot shower so neither of us cared.

We have since found that the berry dale brace is the steepest hill we will
encounter which makes us both feel a little better about whinging so much.
Looking forward to some stunning scenery at Aviemore tomorrow, although I'm
a little concerned that 'stunning scenery' means 'whopping great hills'

Off now to take in the local culinary delights (probably a curry) - wish
you were here!

The first half day (or the best of times and the worst of times)

A good full English and 2 cups of tea started the day well and the guys we
met last night from Exeter were heading off at about the same time, but
they had to go to JOG first.

So the A99 out of wick is reasonably quiet and flat so allowed us a good
pace - we saw off the first 20 miles quite quickly - then it turned into
the A9 at latheron and we were met by the berry dale brace (not sure if
I've spelt that right) there's a picture, but I'm not really sure it
captures how steep it was.

After a long hard slog over many hills (someone said this bit was flat!) we
got to helmsdale where we decided to another 10 miles to stop at brora for
lunch. It was hard going as we were both out of snacks and running empty,
but we made it and pulled in at the local shop to stock up on supplies and
ask the owner where was good to eat in this little town. He said there
wasn't anything other than a pizza place in the station, but there was a
nice chippy in the next town about 6 miles away. Disappointed, we gathered
ourselves and prepared for another 6 miles. We rode all of 100 feet when we
came across the Sutherland inn with a sign outside saying 'hot and cold
food available all day', we cursed the shopkeeper quickly and headed in for
a very good scampi and chips.

Dave is currently being shown how to use his camelbak by the waitress at
the hotel.

We've got about another 40 miles until we hit alness.

Wick in good time

Arrived in wick feeling pretty happy with the day - despite a bit of rain,
conditions were good - not too warm but that helped at times. General pace
was 10 mph uphill and 20 down so we've got a good average going

The scenery is increadible and the terrain not too bad (more gentle
undulations than real hill climbs) i- I'll try and stop and get some shots
tomorrow.

we met a very nice group of 'end to end'ers who had just completed it in
between 14 and 19 days - I think the general concensus is that 10 days is
hard but achievable. I guess that just validates the donations, which are
still coming in - again, thanks everyone!

Tomorrow is the first full day, so we will see if I'm feeling half as
confident then. If today's pace is anything to go by we shouldn't have too
much trouble - Dave was setting a very good speed but I think keeping that
up all day is a whole different story.

We've started!

We have arrived in john o groats - never has it felt such an achievement
just to start something!

We made it from thurso in about 1 hour and 15 minutes to cover 19 miles so
not a bad pace to start. Let's just see if we can keep it up.

Now, back to my flapjack...

Slight route change

We've found that the train to wick actually stops a bit further north than
wick and then goes back on itself. So, we'll be getting off at thurso at
about 14:25 and heading straight to JOG from there, then heading to wick.

Inverness (and the very wobbly bridge)

At inverness after a [more comfortable than imagined] 8 hour journey. We
learnt about Swiss politics from a group of Swiss railway journalists.

Inverness itself is a pretty standard town - unassuming in all but the
bridge across the river (pictured) which was startlingly unstable and
caused both Dave and I to steady ourselves on the handrails.

After traditional Scottish breakfast of MacDonalds and a brief ride around
town, we are now on the 10:36 to wick (100 miles away) taking an
astonishing 4 and a half hours! We're going to need to get our skates on
when we arrive if we are to get the first 40 miles done before teatime.

And we're off...

We checked on to the sleeper train, ordered our coffer's for the morning
and settled down for the 11 hour journey to Inverness.

I think we're both thinking that a bit more training would have been
useful, but no going back now!

JOG - LE, itinerary

For all those who are interested, this is our planned itinerary for the next 11 days - the route from John O Groats to Lands End. 900 miles over which we intend to groan, ache and grumble our way across the longest span of the country.


Tuesday 19th May: Leave Euston @ 2115 on sleeper train to Inverness.

Wednesday 20th May: Arrive Inverness and travel on to Wick (furthest northern point for trains). Then ride the 40 miles to John O Groats and back again.

Thursday 21st May: Wick to Alness (86.7 miles) - staying at the Station Hotel

Friday 22nd May: Alness to Dalwhinnie (81.8 miles) - staying at 'The Inn'.

Saturday 23rd May: Dalwhinnie to Cumbernauld (97 miles - ouch!) - staying at the Red Deer Vintage Inn

Sunday 24th May: Cumbernauld to Ecclefechen (93.3 miles) - staying at Ecclefechen Hotel

Monday 25th May: Ecclefechen to Lancaster (85 miles) - Staying with Ben and Vicky, who are very kindly abandoning a camping trip to give us a bed for the night.

Tuesday 26th May: Lancaster to Stoke-on-Trent (90 miles) - staying at Plough Motel

Wednesday 27th May: Stoke-on-Trent to Gloucester (91 miles) - Staying at October Cottage with the wonderful Mr and Mrs Rolls.

Thursday 28th May: Gloucester to Taunton (80 miles) - Staying at the Black Horse Inn

Friday 29th May: Taunton to Bodmin (90 miles) - Staying at the Barley Sheaf

Saturday 30th May: Bodmin to Land's End (56 miles)