Monday July 7, 2014

We made it, not that there was any doubt, we arrived in John O’Groats at 10:15ish this morning. We cycled a total of 1,665 ks (1,034 miles).

We had a lovely cooked Scottish breakfast (which includes black pudding, if you want it), Ralf did, blugh!

We left the B&B at 8:30 and motored to John O’Groats, we had a great tail wind and covered the 27 odd ks in less than 1.5 hours, which doesn’t seem too fast but on loaded touring bikes it is pretty quick.  I had a big grin on my face all the way.  The scenery was lovely, but the grin was due to the fact that LeJog was almost done.

We could see a rain storm on the horizon but fortunately the wind was strong and kept blowing it ahead of us.  That is the way we like it.

As we headed to John O’Groats about 6 kms short of the end we passed two German touring cyclist who cheerfully told us we had 6ks to go.  They had finished their End to End yesterday.

We arrived at John O’Groats and took photos, as usual we offered to take photos of a couple who were taking separate photos of each other, he reciprocated for us and took some really good photos.

We stopped in the café and had a coffee and bought a little bottle of Pulteney 12 year old Malt Whiskey to celebrate. (Pultenay distillery is in Wick).  At 10:40 we were drinking whiskey, the family on the table next to us noticed us celebrating and then chatted to us about our End to End and our journey.  Lovely family.

Of course on the way back, we hit the tailwind which became a full on headwind, Ralf took the lead and I had a lovely ride back to Wick drafting Ralf all the way. Thanks my love.

The scenery in this area is lovely with Broch\’s, and coastal views.

We settled into our B&B (the Netherby) and had a lovely shower.  We needed to do a load of washing before heading to Ireland and as we had plenty of time, I asked Alison (our host) if there was a Laundromat in town – she offered to do the washing for us.  We went for a wander around Wick and by the time we came back our laundry was clean, folded and outside our room – Thank you Alison.

Wick is a contrast of dowdy grey buildings and a pretty harbor.  I am not sure how to describe Wick, the initial view of Wick is a dowdy grey town.  The downtown is not a pretty site, a lot of closed stores and very dysfunctional.  We couldn’t find the Tourist Information centre and the railway station is hidden. However, if you look behind the main street we found a pretty harbor, a floral clock, and a couple of walks, but they are well hidden.

Ebenezer Street is listed in the Guinness World Book of Records as the smallest street in the world. It was constructed in 1883, when the 1 Ebenezer Place building was built. This building was a hotel at that time, and the owner was asked by the town council to print a name on the shortest side of Mackay’s Hotel. He did so, and the world’s shortest ‘street’ was born, although not officially approved as a street for four years because it took that long to get the required Ebenezer Place door in place. Today, Ebenezer Place contains only a single address because there is no room for another and No 1. Bistro remains part of MacKay’s Hotel.

Tomorrow we leave Wick by train to Inverness and then drive to Ayr ready for Leg 4 – Ireland.