A year ago I set out cycling up the East Coast from home in London. After two weeks of gorgeous weather, amazing scenery and memorable adventures, I ended up in Inverness, having cycled over a thousand miles. It was such great fun that I was pretty sure I wanted to do more, and over the winter I sketched out a route which continues from Inverness, north to John O'Groats and then on to the northern islands of Orkney and Shetland, which will take many days to explore, returning to continue around the northern highlands of Scotland.
It will be different this time. I can't expect the same heatwave weather, and the area is far less populated - less chance of randomly finding a bed & breakfast or campsite with space for me, or a café. I know I could wild-camp but the prospect of lots of rain and nowhere to get clean and dry is not very appealing. So I've had to plan this a bit more carefully than last time, and I know where I will be staying each night. On the plus side, I know I will have somewhere to sleep, shower, and maybe eat. No wild camping. On the minus side, it takes away the flexibility to go further on easy days or less far on rainy or difficult days. I hope I've judged it right. It all looked very inviting to go just a bit further when I was looking at a map on my PC in February, but we will see.
I set off tomorrow (Wednesday 9th), cycling in to catch the sleeper train from Euston to Inverness. Two weeks later, I hope to be returning on the same sleeper train. I plan to make regular updates to the blog when there is an internet connection, so I hope you will enjoy reading about the trip.
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Thanks for commenting! I do get to see the comments but it's not easy to reply when I'm on a ride.