John O'Groats

I forgot to mention some wind turbine blades I saw in Wick - they are huge! If you look closely you can see my bike parked in front of them.

The ride from Wick to Thurso via JOG and a couple of headlands was brilliant, not very hilly, although my legs turned tojelly after lunch and the morning's exertions. 

The road to John O'Groats is aptly named the A99: fairly flat and with a tailwind I was soon approaching JOG.  A few clean and keen cyclists were heading the other way, maybe bound for Land's End.  

I visited Duncansby Head first: the most top-rightly point on the British mainland.   Up a hill, but worth it for views of Hoy and the sight and sound of the tide rushing round the corner of Britain to the Pentland Skerries,  apparently a dangerous place for ships at the wrong time of the tide.  Some imposing sea stacks, the Duncansby stacks, and a sheer-walled inlet in the cliffs hosting hundreds of birds, nesting and fishing.  I think I saw a few puffins, with their distinctive flying sausage flight, from a distance,  but someone else thought they were cormorants...

Then to JOG for the mandatory photo, and off to Dunnet Head, which was even better.  To get there the road snaked between lochs of the brightest blue, and the Scottish palette of green, brown ans purple heather just coming into bloom.  It was a long way up but at the top an unbeatable 360 degree panorama took in Hoy to the north, the cobalt blue of the Pentland Skerries and Duncansby head to the East, big mountains and Cape Wrath in the distance to the west, and behind me to the south a patchwork of lochs and a beautiful cove in the cliffs.  The views were too vast to capture in a photo, sorry...

Tonight I'm in Sandra's Backpacker's Hostel in the town of Thurso.  A memorable day.