Day 16 - Thurso to John o'Groats & back

Yee haw! We did it!

Route and map here - not that there was really much choice up there!

Actual Day 16

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We were able to leave our panniers in the hotel in Thurso as we had to come back to catch the train. The bikes felt a little strange without the weight on the back but we soon got used to it.

It was only 20 miles/32km to John o’Groats and it was relatively flat so we were able to make good progress. As might be expected there were quite a few people there including three other cyclists who had actually finished the night before but who had returned to buy postcards, etc. They pointed us in the direction of the Finish line which was by the derelict John o‘Groats Hotel.







Having written a couple of postcards ourselves and after celebratory ice creams we set off back towards Thurso. The wind had, by now, started blowing and, for once, it was a headwind. This appealed to two accountants’ sense of symmetry - we had a headwind getting to the start and another after the finish while in between it was almost always a tailwind! We are certainly most grateful that it wasn’t the other way round!!

When we turned up at Thurso station we discovered that there had been an accident and the train was running late. As a result it was not going to make its 20 minute trip up a branch line to Thurso and back. Instead, we were bundled into a taxi and two minibuses (one of which was for the two of us and our bikes) and driven at high speed to the junction where the train was waiting for us.

The train line wanders around the north of Scotland, taking almost 4 hours to get to Inverness but giving great views of the country. At Inverness we encountered more issues with trains. Firstly, we couldn’t get the bikes in the guard’s van because of crates of frozen shellfish and suitcases. This was eventually sorted out by three members of the station staff. Then we found that the lounge car on the sleeper was not going to be manned because of “staff shortages” and so there was no food or drink on board. Luckily, we had bought a few snacks and drinks at Tesco in Thurso before going to the station and so we managed to keep body and soul together all the way to London where we cycled the short distance from Euston to St Pancras. There we had a celebratory Champagne Breakfast looking at the refurbished station and watching the Eurostar trains leaving for Paris and Brussels.