UPDATES!
Day 13 - 15
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Day 12
Tongue to John O'Groats!
Bad nights sleep due to snoring angry haggis like creature in the youth hostel dorm.
Very hilly first 30 miles left us limping from food stop to food stop! Both absolutly knackered. As usual for scotland the scenery was AMAZING, and with a tail wind the last 21miles from Thurso to JoG flew by! Never been so glad to see mum, Aunty Noreen and Uncle Johnf as a welcome party. Wiskey and Baileys very much appreciated. Many photos taken.
6 hour drive back to Edinburgh with a stop for some real scottish entertainment.
Day 11
Inverness to Tongue
After leaving inverness with our bellies still full of last nights delicious grub we headed off to tongue. We both got extremely worried about the last 40 miles - through deserted scottish highlands with only one rumoured pub stop. The A road was something else. Tiny single track road with occasional passing places built in. Was all very beautiful but the deforestation made it look like a war zone. The pub was open (thank god) and was a brilliant rest stop. Arrived at tongue to a ferocious wind - at one point I was peddling downhill and making no ground!!
Day 10.
Glencoe to Inverness
Today was very very beautiful! Busy ish A road but ran alongside loch ness. Officially the most beautiful day in the UK. Fact!
Morning was a nightmare - a 90mph gust had sarah off her bike just outside glencoe. We walked 2 miles pushing the bikes to a more sheltered area, but when we decided to get back on the bikes again we found about 100 punctures. Jenny's new inner tube was too large, so eventually a repaired inner tube was put in. It didnt last. had to thumb a lift in to Fort William to get to a bike shop! First time I've hitch-hiked! Felt sorry for Sarah cycling along in the shower as I was sitting snug and dry in a car... Two sleeps til JoG... :-)
Day 9
East Kilbride to Glencoe.
A long (100 mile) and very very wet day. I imagine the scenery was nice. But all we could see were clouds. The 2 punctures, hail and ferocous head wind were very welcome as we were nearing Glencoe. The hail was so strong it kept ringing the bell! Somehow we arrived in high spirits and mostly dried out before setting off early the next day...
Day 8
Carlisle to East Kilbride.
Again, a lovely day, spent the day with another lonely cyclist! Weather was nice and scenery was absolutly gorgeous! Dodgy sat nav took us miles off route as we neared East Kilbride so Aunty Gillians house had never looked so inviting when we FIANLLY arrived...
Day 7
Caton to Carlisle
The day the men joined us.
Spent the day with Fin, met a family doing end-to-end like us, with a HUGE amount of luggage. A couple of big hills had Jenny starving hungry as Sarah sped off towards her husband awaiting in Carlisle. Turns out Jenny left her shoes in chester so Fin and Jenny had to make an emergency taxi ride/piggy back to the nearest tescos to buy suitable restaurent-attending attire. Both had an excellent evening in (different) italien restaurents, Jenny ordered bread with every course.
Day 6
Chester to Caton.
City central today! Passed through chester, warrington, wigan, preston and lancaster. Love chester and wigan. Hate preston (SJ nearly picked a fight with a bus) and lancaster (where the passengers of unhelpful cars nearly got an elbow to the face). Considering graffiti-ing the 'lancaster - cycle friendly' sign.
Day 5
Leominster to Chester
'The day we fell in love with shrewsbury'
Left the youth hostel in good time and made excellent progress through the miles (the hills had flattened out to mere sleeping policemen by now!). Got Sarah's geers fixed in Shrewsbury, then discovered the delights of Shrewsbury's cycle paths. I can't tell you how much we love Shrewsbury. We love Shrewbury. We love Shrewsbury more than we hate plymouth.
Somehow Jenny managed to drag Sarah away from the antique shop where we stopped for 1st lunch and we flew in to Chester youth hostel at half 6. Averaged 15mph today!
Day 4
Bristol to Leominster
'Route rationalisation begins'
Finally found some cleets! Left Bristol over Clifton suspension bridge, and cut through the GORGEOUS welsh valleys. Scrapped the suggested 'scenic minor roads' route suggested by the CTC for quicker, straighter more navigational A roads. A good move! Yet more hills as we entered Leominster but got there before dark, ate our body weight in pasta, rationalised routes for the next few days, and collapsed in to bed. whoo hoo!!
Day 3
Exeter to Bristol
'Where's the B road?'
Sarah's cleet broke on day 2 so we headed in to town before we set off, only to find that NO bike shops in Devon sold our type of cleets. Typical! So we headed out to Bristol, yet more hills and a nasty headwind slowing down our progress... Got in to SJ's sister-in-law's at 8 30. Another long day!
Day 2
West Taphouse to Exeter
'The circle of plymouth!'
Oh my gosh the hills!! Wasn't aware there was that much dirt in the world to form those mounds. Reached plymouth by 12 (very excited by this). We left plymouth at 4. Ridiculous signposting system and poor poor map just had us going around in (extremely hilly) circles. Dartmoor was BEAUTIFUL and we sailed in to Exeter at 9 20pm.
Day 1
Lands End to West Taphouse
'spagehtti minor roads'
left lands end at 12 30, covered ground like cheeters on speed at first, but a double puncture, jumping chain and the ridiculous spagetti junction of cornwall minor roads left us well behind target and we reached the B&B at 11pm. Weather fantastic :-D
*** NB: Miss Foreman, it appears, is skillful on the bike but a little less coordinated when apres-biking (or, more precisely, whilst climbing stairs). On 13th August she fractured her metatarsal and is currently in a very fetching, purple, slipper-caste. We have consequently delayed the trip until 13th September - 24th September ***
Having hung up their oars for the last time, SJ "three blades" Cooper-Knock and Jenny "erg beast" Foreman needed a new challenge. So, to improve SJ's grasp of geography and demonstrate Jenny's physcial prowess, they will be cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats from 13th - 24th September.
But our quest is not simply to find a replacement for the nauseating pain of the erg, oh no. We're cycling the 854 miles in aid of the Anthony Nolan Trust.
http://www.anthonynolan.org.uk/about/what-we-do.htm
The Anthony Nolan Trust does fantastic work in encouraging people in the UK to volunteer as bone marrow doners and helping those in need of a donor to find their match. Sadly, we are only too aware of the importance of their work. In 2006 Jenny's big cousin Jo received a stem cell transplant and Matt Carver, a member of Brasenose College Boat Club, spent much of 2008 battling leukaemia. Tragically, neither Matt nor Jo survived. It is in their memory that we encourage you to donate as much as you can to the charity and sign up to the bone marrow donor register.
Thanks for visiting this page, and we'll see you at the finish line: photographic finish guaranteed. Please bring home cooked warm food, a flask of tea for Jenny and a flask of single malt for SJ (all offers of blended whisky will be kindly, but firmly, turned down).
Here's the blurb: Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
