Well today we arrived in Rixton. Where’s that? … It’s near Warrington which is either Cheshire or Lancashire we haven’t quite worked it out. Today’s cycling started early at 6.30 departing the brilliant Lowther Holiday Park who as previously mentioned kindly let us pitch for free. We got to Kendal about 9. Dad bought some mint cake which I’m sure you can get in Sainsburys then onto Lancaster for McDonalds snack which made a nice change to the Scottish pies we’d been eating lots of. Then on to Preston for coffees and Bagels. It’s all food and drink really little cycling. We then pressed onto Wigan. By then it was getting on a bit but we all felt fit enough to carry on and we made it to Warrington. It was then a quick panic to find somewhere to sleep and thanks to Gav we found a campsite in Rixton where we were greeted by two lads asking for 25 quid. Youch, but is a bit of a captive market with virtually no other campsites around for miles. Now sitting in a pub called the Black Swan just had a great dinner not sure about the live cover singer.

After having a very hearty breakfast in Lochmaben they have now arrived at Penrith. The campsite were they are staying is 3 or 4 miles south of Penrith. Once the campsite owner knew they were doing the cycle ride for charity there was no charge for the pitch. The distance travelled today was 58 miles. Ian was troubled by punctures yesterday but these seem to have been sorted out.

We are starting this post with a lot of thank you’s. Firstly to all those that have sponsored us so far I believe the totaliser now stands at around 1,500 which is really amazing. Now the people that have helped us on the way. Ian would like to thank the sheep that so kindly led him along the road. We’d all like to thank Lowther Holiday Park who kindly gave us free accommodation tonight, excellent facilities already we feel rejuvenated. Ian’s friend Martin and family have been brilliant letting us crash one night, feeding us and getting us up to john o’groats in the first place. We would also like to thank the Taj Mahal restaurant in Gourock who let us park our bikes in the restaurant to eat our dinner, they also serve really good food. We will post links of their websites soon.

All three have arrived in Lochmaben and are camping there for tonight. They are still ahead of schdeule but not quite by one day as they had hoped they would be. The distance travelled today is 70 miles still not too bad going despite tiredness setting in and a few punctures on the way. Lochmaben is between Dumfries and Lockerbie. I think curry and chips are on the menu tonight wind again from the behind I’m afarid.

The Jogle boys are already into day 4 route although its only day 3. Lunch as I understand it was a curry in Gourock extra wind power I presume. They then cycled on to Troon to find a camp site but alas they were only for carvans so they carried on to Preswick where the same happen. I got a phone call at 11.20 pm to say they had found a pitch in Ayr. So they are now into day 5 of the route having covered 120 miles today

Yes the intrepid 3 have arrived safely in Glen Coe. David has got a bit of a dodgy knee over did it yesterday I think. They were on the way to a local hostelry when I spoke to them to get dinner and down a few pints. The camp site they are camping in is very scenic surrounded by mountains. Weather has been similar to that in the south raining most of the time with some very heavy down pours but no wind.

Today’s leg was supposed to be a gentle 100 miles but somehow we managed to cram in 150 miles. We set off nice and early waking at 5am and leaving at 6. First on our list of to-do’s was Dunnet head, the most northerly point in mainland Britain. We got there and guess what? … it was foggy, very foggy so much so that really we could have taken our photo’s anywhere but I can vouch we definitely were there. On exiting it was here we had our first accident of the trip.

Mark (Dad) slipped on the cattle grid and got his tyre caught in the rails causing him to come off his bike. Mum, don’t panic, it was at very low speed and Dad will deny that he actually crashed at all his bike just ‘fell over’. Luckily that was the only incident… well almost. We then continued on, trying to find the road in the fog. We were going well and then came the turning for Scrabster, “down here” shouts Dad. As the route bearer and we trusted him, down a long hill, “hurrah some down hill at last” … “oh a roundabout” … “oh this is a dead end” … arghh!! … never mind it wasn’t too far we just had to reclimb the minor mountain we had just come down. Then we were back on the right road, I soon started to feel really tired and was steadily getting further from the leader. Eventually I asked for a quick drink stop and managed to scoff enough energy boosting short bread to boost my energy levels. We then started to encounter hills, quite a lot of them. It slowed us all down but we kept going. The toughest of these was Bettyhill, it was huge and vast, it nearly killed Ian (his words). We were rewarded though at the end we found a pastie shop and got two each, along with a strong cofee. After this we hit a nice long stretch along a river it was a nice relief after the mountains we had just passed. After about 20 miles that was over and we were back to hills/mountains. We made it to Lairg where had planned to stop for the night. It was only 3ish so we thought we’d grab some food and decide if we wanted to plug on. We had a really nice dinner/lunch and the lady who run the place was really helpful which convinced us to plug on. In the back of our minds we hoped we could make it to Ian’s friends house. Which we did, so a total trip of 150 miles giving us a 40 mile boost on tomorrows journey (10 miles down due to wrong turns etc.). I could write a lot more but I am so tired, check out Flickr for our latest photo’s. Here’s one or two…

A long trip but well worth it. Despite David jeopardising timing by developing a puncture coming home from work, we left Euston at 21:15 and were pleasantly suprised to have been greeted by ScotRails management, and upgraded to cattle class on the Orient Express.

A can or two of Caledonian Deuchars IPA smoothed the journey.

For a moment we thought we had arrived in Istanbul at 08:30 on Saturday 5th but were greeted by a local Scot named Martin.

Although Martin couldn’t carry our luggage, He was more than accomodating in loading our bikes to his four wheeled Chariot named Zafira, He drove like a demon to a local burger bar where we replenished our malnourished stomachs with cheese and bacon burgers. This lasted approximately forty minutes whereby we stopped for a further fill, a compliment of coffee and Scotch pies. £5.68 for 4 coffees and 4 scotch pies, Starbucks eat your heart out!

On arrival, after the mandatory snaps by the signpost, erecting our temporary homestead, etc. we departed to the local hostelry to sample their culinary fare, along with 3 pints of Stella, 5 pints of Tennents Ember and a pint of Murphy’s.

Carbo loading completed, we stocked up with further nutritional supplies, like cut price shortbread, and chocolate eclairs. We are now going to plan tomorrows drinking… I mean journey… our provisional plan is to wake early and get as many miles in the bag as possible. So what do you reakon we’ll manage, answers on the comments section please.

They have all arrived safely in Inverness and getting their breakfast in B&Q’s seems a strange place to buy breakfast now if they wanted to get plastered I would understand. After breakfast they will be on their way to John O’Groats which will take them about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.

Yes, I won’t be watching Countdown for a fortnight, have to find something else to keep me occupied…
Nerves are kicking in big time now. The bike is all packed up ready to go (bar last minute items). Weighs a ton and I cant fit anything else in. Bit late now, but front panniers might have been useful to spread the load. Will take it out for a spin later, to see if I can still turn the pedals.
Final preparations under way, the most important being to get the route loaded on to my gps plus route cards as back-up. Slight bit of pressure as I don’t think I have space to take a road atlas as back-up!
Last visit to chiropracter yesterday, who didn’t say I shouldn’t do it, so can’t back out now….