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…
Category: End to Ends
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…
Wales 5: Caernarfon to Holyhead
I was out, with a quick farewell circuit of the castle, by 8ish. Today was sun sun sun at last, and Anglesey looked serene and bright over the saturated blue of the strait. I was soon across the Menai old suspension bridge, a compactly impressive thing in fat bricks. I cycled across followed byimpatient overtakers….
Wales 4: Corris to Caernarfon
A better day all round, except for the discovery that my glasses had disappeared. (Left in Corris YH? Bizarre. Another victim of beer amnesia?) The morning ride, out into the misty hills. Green steep sides, sheep, square and stern slate houses. A long climb up a stony path, frankly unsuitable for touring bikes as well…
Wales 3: Rhayader to Corris
A bad, testing, but ultimately not unrewarding, day. I had my brake blocks replaced at Rhayader’s local bike shop and, to the ripping-off sound of velcro the size of a tablecloth, was rushed £22. I set off back into the rain……and it rained and rained and rained all day, non stop, a wall of water,…
Wales 2: Merthyr Tydfil to Rhayader
I was off by 7.45am into a miserable, nagging, repetitive drizzle. It was like a failing marriage. A convoluted series of paths, roads; a few good runs on cinder railtrails; grimy backdrops of misted hills; more drab housing… a world of grey and drained green. Eventually I came out at Ponsticill, the reservoir, ringed by…
Wales 1: Cardiff to Merthyr Tydfil
Not great weather. The air was softly textured with drizzle, so fine it enveloped me like a hangover. Though I also had a hangover, the product of a convivial stay in Bath last night, which enveloped me like drizzle. It wasn’t cold, or warm, or dry, or humid. But it was grey. Cardiff looked grim;…
Britain 22: John o’Groats to Thurso
With my End to End completed I enjoyed a smug breakfast, and a morning of leisure writing smug postcards, followed by a smug lunch, in the John o’Groats House Hotel. I amused myself watching the trickle of arrivals at the fingerpost from the comfort of my warm dry table – it was cold, drizzly and…