mijlee's blog
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to cycle from the furthest North East part of the UK, John o’ Groats, back home to London. The plan is to do as much as possible off-road, only using lanes and small roads where there is no other option. I am going to be using everything from Bridal-ways and bike trails up to where possible going completely across country. I estimate that the whole thing will take me approximately 2 weeks with a daily distance of somewhere between 40 and 60 miles, but will only really find out once I get going.
My Accommodation will be a light and small 1 man tent, camping wild for the majority of the trip (especially in Scotland). Everything I need will be packed into a 38 litre back pack and a handlebar bag, this has meant that I have only packed the bare minimum.
People keep asking me why and I still really have no idea. I got the idea from a couple of people who had done the Land End to John o’ Groats off-road, unfortunately that takes 19 days if your fit and I only had 15-16 days so I hatched this little plan instead. We’ll see if my kit and my body are up to the task as we go.
The sunrise over Toftingall was stageringly beautiful, the way the light came over the trees and hit the water. Would have been a perfect start to the day had it not been for the legendary midges. Within minutes of myself and Dan getting out of our tents we were full on attacked! The problem was so bad that we had to forget about breakfast and get everything packed up.
Once on our way the journey to our first sleep was unfortunately all roads but thankfully at least they were all small lanes with very little traffic. We had roughly 3 hours to cover 20 miles so we had to get a shift on. The thing that struck me about this part of Scotland was the relatively flat terrain, which worked out well as a nice run into the pain that is sure to come. The downside was that unfortunately there was some sun broken up by a fair bit of rain.
The start of my adventure started in Euston where I borded the 21:15 Caldonian Sleeper train to Wick via Inverness. It's one of those things I have wanted to do for ages and was easily the best way to get to my start point. Myself and Dan had a cabin with bunks booked so dropped our stuff in the room (got it right second time around) and once the train got moving we snuck into the first class lounge and had a few pints before getting an early night. We went to sleep somewhere north of the midlands and woke up in the Cairngorns, magic.
