£40 dinner, bed, and breakfast plus bar drinks at The Crask Inn bunkhouse and pub, Crask Inn
£14.25 for beef burger and pot of tea plus four postcards at The Tongue Hotel, Tongue
It was clear that the only staff at the Crask Inn were the slightly eccentric couple who ran it. They both look more like farmers than B&B owners. That's because they are farmers, and run the pub, B&B, and bunkhouse alongside the farm. It was therefore unusual but understandable to notice the ingrained black stains around the man's fingers when he brought us our breakfast, the large blue pen stain on his shirt (the shirt was clean, I'm sure he just has the sensible logic that the shirt still does the job of covering his nakedness, so why stop wearing it just because something dark blue got spilt down the front), and the woman's haircut that truly did look as if her husband had cut it using a pudding bowl and set of sheep shearing implements.
I hadn't seen these things over dinner the night before. This was probably because I was tired from being on the bike all day, plus the effect of the two pints of organic Black Isle ale that they sell in the bar alongside 45 different malt whiskies. I also hadn't noticed the colour of the drinking water that they brought out in jugs for the tables. It was brown. As the houses are so very remote, they must have to have their own water supply (they have their own generator for electricity) so it's probably drawn from a well or spring and the ground is peat around there. The water tastes fine, it's just an unexpected colour.
We'd been given one specific time for dinner the night before, with no choice. Therefore all 16 of us had been in the front room of the house (the bar) together and moved through to the back room (the dining room) when a small bell had been rung. Breakfast was staggered though, as I imagine the couple find it easier to cook that number of hot breakfasts in small batches rather than all at once. When I'd asked about breakfast before leaving the dining room for our bunkhouse / cottage, I was told I could choose any time I liked except 7am as the group of 5 cyclists plus their support van driver had chosen that time. I asked for 7:30. Unlike the other cyclists, I wasn't pushing on for the final 80 miles to John O'Groats in one ride, but I still had a fair way to go and had seen the elevation maps for the second part of the day once I hit the coast, so knew it was going to be a tough ride getting to Thurso.
When we arrived in the dining room to join the group of six already there the man told us that he had a pot of porridge on the go if we wanted to start with that. I was interested to see what their porridge was like as a Scottish friend of mine makes her porridge totally differently to me; much thicker, with water rather than milk, and she adds cold milk once it's in the bowl so that it sits like a small island of porridge in a sea of milk. Vaughan and Liz joined me in accepting the offer of porridge as their breakfast was going to be quite small compared to mine since they're vegetarian.
I'd never seen such thin porridge. It looked more like wallpaper paste waiting to thicken up than a breakfast food. As the man put it down in front of us he complimented us on having it, saying it's good cycling food, and that the other cyclists had skipped the porridge. Perhaps they'd stayed at the Crask Inn before and knew what to expect. Having not chosen porridge at any of the other Scottish hotels we'd stayed in though, this might be the usual way it's made and my friend actually makes it too thick.
Apart from the consistency of the porridge, this was one of the best breakfasts I'd had all month. The yolks of the eggs were bright yellow, having come straight from the hens in the garden, and the black pudding seemed to be home made (and the most delicious I'd ever tasted). It was exactly the right amount whereas other cooked breakfasts had been too big but I'd forced them down to get as much protein as possible then felt uncomfortable on the bike for the first 30 minutes.
As we ate our breakfasts we watched the other cyclists leaving the house (they had stayed in the Inn itself) and gathering outside ready for their final day's cycle. Vaughan always complained about the time I took to faff about getting ready in the morning, but these cyclists took it to a new art form. They clearly didn't trust the brown drinking water so filled their bottles from a large container of water in the back of their mini van, spent time wondering how many layers of clothing to wear so opened their suitcases, trying on layers, then putting some back and swapping them for other choices, and putting their shoes on. Two of the group had emerged from the inn pretty much ready so stood in the cold wind whilst waiting for their companions to get ready. I don't understand why they didn't wait inside until everyone was ready to go. This group had been cycling together for 2 weeks now, so you'd have thought they'd have got to know who is ready first, who faffs a lot, and who always remembers something they'd left in their bedroom at the very last minute just as everyone's clipped in and ready to leave. Eventually they all straddled their bikes, stood staring at their handlebars as they waited for their computers to start and locate them, then set off with the blue mini van following them. I told Vaughan to remember this scene as it made me look like a well oiled machine in the mornings. I also said that I'd witnessed one of the many reasons I was pleased I was doing this trip as a solo cyclist with no-one else to delay me, slow me down, or put pressure on me to cycle faster or keep riding past a wonderful photo location.
Liz and I walked back to our cottage after breakfast, leaving Vaughan to settle the bill with cash as the couple don't take cards. Liz and I agreed that this was an incredible place to stay and we'd have happily stayed on for a week, despite the leaking showers, kitchen with mismatched units that were falling apart, and table lamps with no bulbs. I really didn't want to leave so spent a long time doing my final bits of preparation (in the warmth of the cottage). It was a bitterly cold morning with a brisk easterly wind and I boiled a kettle on the gas stove to fill a small flask and one of my water bottles. I also packed lots of energy /carb/protein bars in the expectation that I wouldn't find anywhere with food until I hit the coast, and made sure I had the survival bag that Vaughan had got for me as well as first aid kit and spare gloves and socks. I wore every layer of clothing I had as this was the last place in the UK that I wanted to start getting hyperthermia.
I reluctantly pushed the Roberts out of the cottage at 09:30. I'd put it in the third bedroom as it was free, despite having the barn where the other bikes had been stored alongside hay bales and farming equipment.
This was the best morning's cycling. The A836, Sustrans National Cycling route 1, continued to be a single track road with passing places. Traffic was extremely light and consisted of land rovers, tourist cars, and motorhomes. You could see and hear anything coming for at least a mile as the road was fairly flat and straight. In general I was given plenty of room or the vehicle drove slowly behind me until I could pull over into a passing place to give the vehicle space to overtake, at which point the driver would wave me a thank you. Vehicles coming in the opposite direction would wait in a passing pace until I reached them. The only exception to this was a couple of motor homes coming in the opposite direction who neither slowed down nor moved over, forcing me onto the rough gravel at the side of the Tarmac. I cursed them as they passed, thinking that they were either driving a hired vehicle so didn't know how wide it was and were worried about driving it slightly on the rough gravel at their side of the road, in a hurry to get somewhere so didn't have time to pull into a passing pace and wait for me, were not cyclists themselves, or perhaps all three.
I'd left the logging activities behind me so there we no longer the large expanses of greying tree stumps and shattered wood littering the heathland and I could no longer hear the sounds of machinery as it ripped the trees out and stripped the trunks of branches. The logging lorries had also stopped using this road, taking their hauls south instead to the larger roads more suitable for them.
Mountains rose up around me and I rode alongside the shores of tranquil lochs. It was silent apart from my breathing, the chain shifting across when I changed gears, or the occasional screech of a bird of prey. Ben Loyal rose in majestic glory ahead of me, then beside me. Loch Loyal was alongside the road for more than five miles. Occasionally a whitewashed house would appear in the distance but in the main this was a landscape with no sign of humans. For several hours I rode in total bliss, not quite believing how lucky I was to be able to cycle in such glorious countryside.
As I was passing Loch Loyal lodge I heard the sound of a fighter jet plane. The night before, Vaughan had chatted to the Crask Inn owner about a photo of a Typhoon fighter jet that was in the gent's toilet of the bar. The RAF use the Highlands to practice their low flying, annoying fisherman and walkers, and one the pilots had stayed in the Inn whilst having a walking break and donated the photo. I hadn't seen or heard a jet plane since I'd left the North West of England though, so was interested to hear one now.
The sound got louder very quickly and I looked up to see a sleek black plane flying down along the Loch, extremely close to the water, and headed straight for me. As it passed the sound was incredible and I hunched my shoulders in an effort to block my ears as I couldn't put my hands over them. I screamed, more with delight than anything else. I know, having chatted to Vaughan and Liz, that the pilot was almost certainly having some fun 'buzzing' me but at the time it felt like he was flying in to say hello and acknowledge that I'd nearly completed my journey across the UK. Once the plane had disappeared and silence had returned I started crying. The shock had stirred my emotions and brought to the surface how happy I was, pleased to be alive and able to take a month to just cycle alone, and grateful for all the support I was getting from friends and family. Tears streamed down my face as I continued to pedal along and look around me.
Just before I got to Tongue and the coast, I saw a large bird of prey sitting on a fence post ahead of me. There are eagles in this part of Scotland and I was keen to establish whether this was indeed one of them, or just another raptor like the many I'd seen. It kept flying ahead of me then settling on another post just too far away for me to get a good look at its beak or feathers. It looked larger than anything else I'd seen, but I'll never know what it was as I didn't stop to look at it through binoculars and identify it from a book of birds; I wasn't carrying either with me, and needed to keep cycling anyway. Just as the 'eagle' flew off for the final time I heard a large rustling in the grass to the left of the road. I was used to hearing small rustles as birds or small mammals were startled by my passing, and I'd seen field mice, stoats, rabbits, and pheasants running along and across the road in front of me many times. This was a bigger sound though so I turned to look and just caught the sight of two deer leaping away from the road towards the cover of trees. Again, I can't tell you what kind of deer they were, but I was pleased to have seen some as I'd been passing road signs warning of deer on the road for about 40 miles. It was one of the less unusual road signs of the trip. I'd been warned about red squirrels in the Lake District (and seen two at close quarters), and frogs somewhere else. I'd almost grown oblivious to the signs about cattle and sheep.
I'd arranged to meet Vaughan and Liz with the van at Tongue, where the A836 turns east to follow the coast along to Thurso. We'd all thought I would need to have lunch in the van due to the absence of pubs and cafes, but Vaughan sent me a text saying Tongue had a hotel that served food all day so they would push on to Thurso to find a campsite and get the van and tent ready for me arriving.
I found the Tongue Hotel easily, following the signs for the village just off my route 1 road. It was a lot posher then I usually stopped at for lunch, with full traditional Scottish decor and wood panelled lounge, but the receptionist didn't seem at all phased by me walking in clad in cycling gear and asking of there was a table for one for lunch in their restaurant. They probably get lots of End to End cyclists coming in and there's only the one road north between Bonar Bridge and Tongue, and they seemed to be the only place to sit down and eat in Tongue.
I sat looking at the views across the mouth of the Kinloch River and the distinctive curved causeway as I waited for my beef burger, drank my tea, and wrote some postcards.
The afternoon's riding was very different to the morning's. I was facing into the easterly wind so the going was harder. Route 1 stays on the A836 but the road was single carriageway in the main rather than single track, and whilst it never got busy there was noticeably more traffic. I was hugging the most northerly coast of mainland Scotland so I looked out to sea on my left and passed lots of abandoned crofter cottages from The Clearances. The biggest difference was the gradients, however. Whilst having my lunch I'd checked the map for the afternoon and saw lots of double chevrons on my route, indicating very steep hills. In its own way this was a wonderful afternoon's riding, with stunning views of sandy coves and Orkney gradually appearing on the horizon, but it was very hard work and I consumed several energy bars to keep me going.
As the light turned golden behind me, the cliffs of Orkney lit up with a pink glow, and the lengthening shadows became cold on my arms and legs, I passed my final county boundary sign, announcing I was entering Caithness I stopped for a photograph and phoned Vaughan to say how I was doing and get directions to our final campsite. It didn't sound nice. Thurso only has one campsite, so we didn't have a choice, and it was on the main road opposite a Lidl supermarket. The ground was very wet so Vaughan had had to be careful not to get the van stuck in the mud, and he an Liz had taken a look around Thurso and announced it once of the bleakest and unattractive towns they'd seen, with people who looked like a lot of inbreeding took place. Dounreay Nuclear Power Station is right next to Thurso, so this might also explain some of the distinctive physical features of the townsfolk.
I put the lights on my bike and rode on into the gathering darkness, not really wanting the day to end as the cycling had been wonderful and the night's accommodation didn't sound inviting. I abandoned the Sustrans route at Reay, where it left the A836 to take a more rural route to Thurso, and stayed on the main road to get me in more quickly in the cold and the dark.
I'm glad I did. I phoned in at 7:30pm and Vaughan said he and Liz were at the Weigh Inn on the road in to Thurso, just along from the campsite. They stopped serving food at 8pm but if I wanted to come in there rather than go to the campsite first for a shower then eat late, they'd wait for me. I arrived at 2 minutes to 8, devoured a double portion of fish and chips that Vaughan had ordered in ready for me, then left the soulless pub (the only one in Thurso) to push my bike to the campsite whilst chatting to Liz and Vaughan about our days.
We arrived at the campsite to find a large hired motor home getting more and more embedded in the mud as the driver kept revving the engine and spinning the wheels. We could also see the lights of Thurso down the hill and the dark shadow of Orkney on the horizon. If you kept looking away from the main road this was a stunning campsite on the cliff top with uninterrupted views out to sea. If you turned around, you saw the blue and yellow neon of the Lidl sign and the harsh glare of the street lights on the main road. I went to sleep smiling at the variety of places I'd stayed in the previous 24 nights.
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