Land's End to John O'Groats

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On our last day we were meant to be heading pretty much straight through the centre of Scotland and making a right hand turn at Thurso, heading East towards John O'Groats, however... Given the past day or so with my strained muscle in my quad, we looked for an alternative route with less demanding hills, and Luke managed to find exactly that. So instead, our route took us up the North Coast (NC) 500 route round the East coast of Scotland. Without a doubt, this was such a good decision. The roads were in really good condition, the hills were "manageable" and views were stunning, even though it was a slightly busier road, the cars and lorries gave us plenty of room. Here's our Strava summary of the route below: We were so excited to get to John O'Groats, but at the same time couldn't believe that we had actually managed to get this far over the past eight days. It was such a surreal day for both of us. For the ninth day in a row we had amazing weathe...

Sorry for not posting an update yesterday, it's been a crazy couple of days. We had very little signal last night (if any at all) to send a text or call, let along post a blog update. We were staying in a valley in little wooden lodges, see picture below: Day 7 we started in Edinburgh (South Queensferry) and finished just outside of Ballater. I'm pretty sure we saw some royals too near Balmoral, there was a vintage Rolls-Royce which sat in-between two identical Range Rovers, one placed behind and one placed in front! Day 8 (today) we started just outside of Ballater and finished in Easter Fearn. The elevation over the last couple of days has been insane, we've climbed up and over two ski resorts in the last two days! Our bodies don't quite know what's happened to them, mine a little bit too much, to the point where yesterday I thought I was close to calling it quits - I managed to pull a muscle or ligament in my right leg (upper). I didn't know If I ...

Today we started in Carlisle (Whetheral) and finished in Edinburgh (Queensferry). The sun was out again today, we've been so fortunate with the weather so far, not a single drop of rain, if not a bit too hot at times! But we'd definitely rather have the sun than the rain that's for sure. We finally entered Scotland today soon into our ride. Then all of a sudden it became quite sparce, just rolling hills and nothingness, with the occasional wind farm looming over us. The roads got quite menotonous at this point, 1km felt like 100km... until we did actually get to the 100km point! Thats when the route started to get better, more to look at and less cars speeding past us. We managed to find a Welcome Break at the side of the motorway to stop for lunch which was perfect and well needed after the roads we had been on. The multiple days of cycling have definitely taken their toll on the bodies, continuously tired now with muscles tight in the mornings and evenings when off the bi...

Today we started in Wigan and finished in Wetheral just outside of Carlisle. Distance wise, it was a big day again. We started off strong today, we had the roads and the wind on our side. The roads were so much better today, even on the A6 they were wide enough that traffic could past us easy enough at speed, which makes a big difference to the ride, it's much less stressful. In terms of wind we had a slight headwind, but nothing major, about 5 mph, getting stronger by the end of the day. The sun however, well that just seemed to get hotter and hotter and at all the wrong points! We had a really big climb today, to be honest I think we could probably class it as a small mountain, the climb lasted 13km with the sun beating down on us at the same time. For me personally, the climb did me no favours, it sapped a large chunk of energy, luckily Luke felt a little bit better than me after the climb and could give me a draft so I could recover slightly on the down hill and flats. Before t...

Today we started off in Ludlow and finished just outside of Wigan. The day started off really well, cycling within lovely countryside, there was a fresh breeze and the sun wasn't too hot. We were able to play music from our speakers for a good few hours with no one around to even hear us (although I'm sure some of the birds weren't happy with their morning wake-up music) - one thing for sure, the music definitely helped with the motivation. Today was a big day in terms of distance, 180km (112 miles), but it had much less elevation that the previous three days, which was much appreciated! In theory today has helped our bodies recover ever so slightly ready for tomorrow, the route for tomorrow has the same distance but quite a bit more elevation - so expecting a long day tomorrow, with a later finish! Only half of the route today was countryside, the other half (after lunch) was very much busier, not very nice roads at all - which can make it feel like the end of the route ca...

So today we started from Bath, unfortunately though we had to cycle out of Bath first to actually get anywhere, which only meant one thing... a big hill climb!  Once we were out of Bath though it was plain sailing (for a bit anyway). We cycled through some beautiful landscape and picturesque villages, through valleys and past Ross-on-Wye. We stopped for lunch at a pub/hotel at the top of one of the valleys, the sun was just right and sat behind the clouds whilst we ate outside. We noticed just up from where we were eating, there was a road closure, typically this was the road we were meant to be going down. We followed the diversion, only to be met by the A40 (dual carriageway), which we definitely didn't want to be cycling on. After a bit of navigating and looking at alternative routes, there was only one other route that would get us around the road closure to where we needed to be - and that was up and over the top of the valley. After approx. an addition 150+ of climbing and 10...