Day 1 - Thurso to Thurso

Today began promisingly, sun was shining the train was easy enough. Bike racks once more in the coach entrances, although the inverness to wick train was some what smaller! We boarded and settled in for a long train journey once more. 4 hours later with aches backs again from the seats we arrived in a blue skied sunny Thurso. The sun helped keep us warm, although up here on the coast the sea breeze is still bitter cold.

We headed straight for the Thurso camping ground, booked in and set up camp. Rachel immediately tried to reverse our efforts by clumsily tripping over several of our luminously coloured guy lines. Once camp was saved from her efforts we headed into Thurso town to forage for lunch. Thurso itself is quite a nice little place and a bakery visit for pies, sausage rolls and cake soon sorted lunch. There was nothing for it, other than to actually start the behemoth of a journey. So we turned east and set cycle for john o groats. We passed through several quaint little villages and towns along the way, and as chris will tell you this involved many a long drawn out hill. Chris doesn't like hills. I'm not sure he understands that very few people do. The sun continued to beat on us for the while journey and depending on wind exposure (of which there was plenty) we flitted between warm and freezing - so clothing changed a few times.

Upon arriving at john o groats, a miserable, dreary place by all accounts - we were pleasantly surprised to find an admittedly basic, but all round quite nice place. In the sunshine it was pleasant to sit on the bench by the gift shop and have a portion of chips. Also, the apparently moody Photographer was a joy to talk to, and once we had paid 9 quid he was happy to take a picture of the 3 of us to send home, and also was happy to use my own good camera and take another for the blog! All being as it was john o groats was a fine part of the day.

But then, then came the rest. We decided on the advice of others before us to take in duncasby head, and dunnet head while we were at it. Now all I can say is - for us novice cyclists the climb to the first was leg destroying, and the climb to the second took our souls as well! Unless you like lighthouses the view from either is nothing special. The best view for dinner head in fact is a lovely one you see quite early on the detour. A fantastic rocky bay in your right.  Best to turn round once you see it as the rest is pretty pointless unless you just want the bragging fights as we did!
Anyway the upshot was plenty of swearing and three very tired campers. Once we finally made it BACK to Thurso (yes its demoralising cycling for a whole day and going no where) we went to the lidls across the road and bought dinner (beans and sausages - best beans EVER as certified by Chris and I) once cooked and devoured we decided to brave the showers (its freezing - technical term - here this evening!) The toilet block although clean, doesn't have any heating on - we think ths locals consider this ungodly weather to you be an acceptable summer. The shower literally had to he set to dribble to get any warmth! More swearing occurred.

All in all the weather was as good as we could have got, but its still the north coast and cold. Many trees are still just starting to come into leave.

Rachels lucky cat was fairly silent today, we are convinced its still a liability, but benefit of the doubt has been given for now.

Miles cycled: 53

Celebrities we are convinced to have seen:
Jo Brand in a silver Nissan Micra
Sean Bean in a white van

Hills: too many.