Friday 11th July, John O’Groats to Bettyhill

51 Miles

Today we finished in Bettyhill after departing John O’Groats at 10am. The first part of the day was incredibly difficult as I found it impossible to shake the image of Jane from my head.

John O’Groats is a desperate place, devoid of any character and reminiscent of Land’s End in only a sense of anti-climax. Even more appalling was that we had to pay 20p to go to the loo. It felt good to get on the road, but after only two miles Becca was complaining that she couldn’t stick to our pace.

We were pleased to see that Harry Gration from the BBC had decided to pack a sit-up-and-beg bike which was built like a tank. It was a surprise to no-one that he soon dropped off the pace, missing a scheduled interview at 1.30pm. Indeed he arrived for dinner as we left.

The last 19 miles were hell and suitably cold and Becca and I suffered in turn. Facing a head wind and driving rain Becca cycled alongside me saying, “This is f***ing hard.” The last five miles were torturous and I ended up spending the last 30 minutes cursing Jane.

You will be pleased to know that our cycling kit has finally arrived, at 6pm tonight. Unfortunately too late to avoid me hand washing today’s shorts.

Mike Tomlinson.

Here’s a few pictures from Day 2:

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This entry was posted by Mike Tomlinson on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 9:57 am and is tagged with Jane's Appeal and is posted in the category Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.