Headwinds not so bad today, and some awesome, awesome scenery on remote back roads. Yesterday was tough so I’ve had an easy day today, with the prospect of fish and chips for dinner and a pint in the pub overlooking the harbour. Ullapool is a harbour town, so it’s a great place for fish –…
Author: Rob Ainsley
Britain 2: Durness to Achmelvich
I was up and off just after 5am this morning, partly because I was mindful of the weather forecast (strengthening headwinds throughout the day, increasing to 30mph by lunchtime) and partly because the tent was soaked following the rainstorm that woke me at 3am. But I was rewarded by this sight of a Durness shepherd…
Britain 1: (Durness to) Cape Wrath to Durness
Finally got to Cape Wrath today, to start the trip proper. Getting there involves a tiny, infrequent ferry boat from Durness across to the virtually uninhabited Cape Wrath peninsula. On the peninsula itself, it’s a desolate 11-mile track to the lighthouse, the notional most north-westerly point on the British mainland. Everyone else on the boat…
Britain 0: Inverness to Durness
I woke up to this scene from the sleeper train window this morning. Fresh snow on the mountains. Oh. The nearest you can get to Cape Wrath by train is Lairg, 60 miles away. I cycled from there along Loch Shin to Laxford Bridge, then up to Durness (nearest town to Cape Wrath), where I’m…
Britain -1: London
Am on the Sleeper to Inverness – leave Euston in ten minutes. Bargain Berth, £19, obtained through nerdy monitoring of the ScotRail site with an auto-refresh widget on the morning they became available online back in February. All rather exciting as we wait to leave. And especially pleased that the sleeper berth includes a complimentary…
WoR 4: Pocklington to Bridlington
My nose, carelessly left out unprotected in the sun yesterday afternoon, felt like a hot air balloon this morning. Ow. I cycled out of Pocklington and up through the rising Wolds past Kilnwick Percy and into the hidden gem of Millington: all cosy little lanes, threading their way through dry chalk valleys like railtrails. I…
WoR 3: Ripon to Pocklington
Another cold-nose night in the tend, though the rest of me was toasty. Again, I’d had just about enough dozing episodes to not wake up feeling cheated. It was another sunny but chilly morning. The route was all flat now but, despite the lack of anything vertical to be manouevred round, it was never straight:…
WoR 2: Settle to Ripon
It had been a very, very cold night. I had to wear all my clothes and draw the sleeping bag up and round my head (as I now realised it was designed to do). I managed to doze just enough, and was all packed up and ready to go by half eight. There was nobody…
WoR 1: Morecambe to Settle
I’m one of the first people to be cycling the Way of the Roses (WoR) (it’s April 2010 as I write this; it’s only just opened officially) and I’m riding it for an article for Cycling Plus. The WoR is a recent addition to the list of Coast to Coast routes, and runs 170 miles…
Gloucester: What a bore (the Severn’s)
It was the year’s only five-star Severn Bore today, a remarkable natural phenomenon that’s ideally visited by bike. So I did, all in the name of route research. The bore is a tsunami-like wave caused by particularly high incoming tides being funnelled up the narrows just south of Gloucester. Like a 168 bus overtaking you…