Arrived John O'Groats

We finally arrived at John O'Groats last night.

The signpost had had its signs taken down for the evening. (Just in case anyone were to take photos of it without paying the fee.) So, we took photos of the empty signpost, and one or two others.

John O'Groats, to be polite, is not a very exciting place - it is run down. So, we did the pictures of an empty pole.

The morning yesterday started with beautiful warm sunshine which we enjoyed for the gentle journey past Altanaharra and down the very pretty Naver valley. But then we had two or three hours of strongish headwind along the north coast. Thankfully by Thurso the wind had subsided for the final push of 20 miles to John O'Groats.

While driving back from John O'Groats to Thurso we were lucky to see the most wonderful sunset, at 10:20pm, as the sun descended almost North into the Pentland Firth. Fantastic! It is quite different to see the sun descending into the far northern sky.

It is worth briefly mentioning the bikes. We have all cycled 1015 miles. On the combined 4060 miles of riding we had ONE puncture, ONE broken spoke, a pedal crank which fell off but was then easily reattached. There were no other bike problems.

On my bike, the only maintainence I gave it was:

• a clean of the chain twice,
• a daily pump of the tyre,
• a tighten of the break cables (as the blocks have worn down a bit).

And that maintainence was enough to get me there. (I do probably need to service it when I get home though.)

Today we have a very long drive home. Google tells us it is 11+ hours of driving! We just had a great breakfast, are about to pack the car, and then we're off.