Land's End to John O'Groats Chapter 1

Time to prepare

So, who can I blame for sowing the seeds of this crazy idea in my mind? Would I be able to do it in my sixtieth year? What would Christine think if I was to be away for 3 weeks or more?

Many people have travelled this road before – in fact hundreds cycle it every year. So perhaps this idea – which came to me in the night maybe a month before Christmas 2003 – was not perhaps so mad after all. I have always enjoyed cycling and have been able to do quite a lot since I retired 2 years ago. Most of my cycling, apart from holidays and rides on the tandem with Christine, has been by myself and the isolation has never bothered me. I quite often do rides of 50 miles a day without feeling too much fatigue – but would it be different with full panniers and day after day? I guess not. We averaged nearly 40 miles a day on the tandem for our holiday in Ireland last year and providing the trip is done as an adventure and not as a race against time, why shouldn’t 50 miles per day on the bike be quite achievable?

I suppose that if there is someone to blame it could be Josie Dew or even Anne Mustoe or Dervla Murphy. They are all lady cyclists who have ridden all over the world usually by themselves. They have written lots of books which I have gradually worked my way through in the last two years. I have admired their courage as they have faced up to the dangers encountered by lone lady travellers. B&B in Great Britain should be a doddle compared to their achievements.

I broached the subject with Christine within two weeks of it coming to me. No problem. Go for it. When would I do it? Probably in the spring of 2004 – after the main vegetable planting had been done in the garden but before the time when the weeds start to grow in earnest! That meant somewhere between the back end of April and beginning of May. We had already booked a week’s holiday in Somerset for the Spring Bank Holiday so I would have to be back before then. Would she react so favourably to the idea of a new bike as a belated (and additional) Christmas present? I had only ever had two adult bikes in my life – was it not time to have a third? The first was a Raleigh Trent Tourist which I had been given when I passed my 11 plus exams (with a three speed Sturmey Archer gear), the second a 6 speed Elswick which I had bought second hand through the local rag about 15 years ago. It’s your money – if that’s what you want to do you do it. Great. The bike was ordered before she could say Jack Robinson.

Being a member of the CTC I was aware that they provide recommended routes for the End to Ender. I sent off for my free package of information which came back a few days later with three recommended routes all of about 1000 miles. Prior to this I had been looking at the map for a route involving Sustrans Cycle paths but this had resulted in a much greater overall distance. If I could achieve 50 miles a day then the trip would take about three weeks. The three routes fell into two categories – the first used Youth Hostels and in general had distances of between 50 to 80 miles a day. The second used Bed and Breakfast accommodation and therefore you could more or less please yourself how far you travelled. This route appeared to be spelt out in great detail with distances and directions given at every major turning from one end to the other and also it avoided the use of main roads wherever possible. This looked like the route for me with perhaps one or two Youth Hostels thrown in for good measure where they happened to lie on the route. The third option was a variant on the B&B route which used more major roads to minimise the distance. I therefore sat down and, using a free set of maps which came with the Daily Mirror last year, marked the route in red highlighter pen from beginning to end. The scale of the maps was 1:200,000 or 3 miles to the inch - quite a good scale for seeing where you are on country lanes. There are however quite a lot of A4 pages to cover the whole of the UK, so I also decided to cut the maps up into separate sheets so that I need only take those sheets which I would be travelling along.

What else did I need to take? Some of my author friends had invested in a “Dog Dazer”. This is a fairly small electronic device which emits a very high pitch whistle and can be used to halt the attack of unfriendly and ferocious dogs. I am not a dog lover and many dogs fall into this category! It also seems to us that dogs take a particular liking to people on bikes. Perhaps it’s the bright clothing, perhaps it’s the legs flailing around on the pedals - we have had several experiences over the years that I wouldn’t want to repeat if I had the choice. So I decided to invest – it would also come in handy for our walking expeditions and for our cycling holiday in Italy later in the year. When I received the Dazer I read the instructions. They included the following. “The Dazer emits a high frequency sound heard by dogs and cats but is harmless and barely perceptible by humans. The Dazer’s output startles the approaching dog causing most to stop, move away or stay in place allowing the user to avoid contact with the animal. The Dazer is not effective on deaf animals.” I just hope that I don’t come across too many deaf dogs or dogs that won’t stop! Has anyone got any dog statistics?

The other simple job to do was to obtain train tickets. Not knowing too much about bargain offers I arrived at Hinckley Station about 10 days before the start of the trip together with all the train times and dates for both the travel to Penzance at the start and the travel back from Wick at the end. I was informed that I had already left it too late to get the best bargains. I should have booked at least a month in advance and I was later to find that by using the internet you can get some amazing deals on tickets if you book well in advance – snapping up the bargains as soon as they are released to the public. Oh well – you live and learn.

There was a new computer at Hinckley Station which had not yet been fully mastered! I guess there was no problem for normal passengers – but cycles were a different matter. Out came the book of instructions. After several delays, where I was asked to step aside so that the lengthening queue behind me could be served, I was eventually presented with my tickets for the Hinckley to Penzance outward journey - eleven tickets in all!

An overall ticket covered Hinckley to Penzance and, for each section of the route, Hinckley to Birmingham, Birmingham to Exeter St. Davids and Exeter to Penzance there were three tickets – a seat reservation, a cycle ticket for me to hold and a cycle ticket to tie to the bike. And finally there was the credit card payment ticket. The whole exercise had taken over 20 minutes and there was still the return part of the journey to tackle!

I must have been there at least another ½ hour at the end of which I had another 11 tickets - I think. The journey back couldn’t be completed in one day so I had decided to stay at Perth overnight. I would take the train from Wick to Inverness and then change for Perth on one day. This would take from midday to 7 in the evening. I would then leave Perth at 8 the next morning and arrive back in Nuneaton at about 3pm having changed at Glasgow and Stafford . There was one small problem. Hinckley Station couldn’t book my bike on the ScotRail section of the route – that is from Wick to Glasgow . I would have to ring up ScotRail and request this – cycles were carried free but reservations had to be made as there was limited space.

I duly made the phone call and explained what I wanted. “Sorry sir – can’t do this. I can only give you cycle reservation tickets if you purchase your main tickets from us. You will have to send your tickets back to us and we will issue you with a new set. Unfortunately there will be a £5 administration charge. I will get the new tickets sent out to you straight away so that you have them by the time you depart. Where do you want to travel from and what date?”

“From Wick”

“How do you spell Wick?”

I was beginning to realise that the person I was speaking to did not have a broad Scottish accent. He didn’t have any Scottish accent – in fact it sounded more like a midlands accent. Later I was to find out that ScotRail and Central Trains are owned by the same company and all telephone ticket sales are from Newcastle under Lyme – you were fortunate that they weren’t from Bombay I hear you say. So why couldn’t Hinckley (Central Trains) give me the cycle reservations?

So into the post went the tickets for the return journey and off I went to Hinckley Station to inform them of what had happened. It was best that they didn’t issue tickets for ScotRail journeys with cycles if this was going to happen. I then found I had made another fundamental error. If I had taken the tickets back to Hinckley they would have refunded my money in full. Too late – they were already posted.

You can probably predict the next part of the ticket saga. After more calls when the tickets still hadn’t arrived a couple of days before departing and, despite promises that they would be sent immediately, they still hadn’t turned up on the Thursday that I left. Never mind – I would be home again at the end of the week for a days rest before recommencing the journey. Surely they would have arrived by then.

I haven’t mentioned that the CTC route follows a fairly predictable path through the west country, crossing over the Severn Bridge into Wales where it follows the Wye valley and continues northward through the Telford area and then on up to bypass Manchester to the west. Early in February I discovered that the singing group of which I am a member had promised to sing at a wedding on the Bank Holiday weekend at the beginning of May. The daughter of one of the other members was getting married. I felt obliged to attend – the tenor section of the choir is rather depleted in that there are only two of us at full strength. My plans for the journey meant that I was in the midlands for this weekend even if I had intended to be in the Telford area. I had a couple of options – either to catch the train back from Telford returning there later or to cycle to Hinckley and extend the route. In the end I decided to do the later. I didn’t want any more hassle with trains. The route for the first week included two days where the mileage was low as I was unsure how I would be bearing up - perhaps I could gain a day if the weather and the hills have been kind to me. I would then arrive in Hinckley on the Friday and have a full days rest (with the exception of the wedding) on the Saturday. I would then resume the trip on the Sunday after lunch, making my way to Macclesfield where I would stay with Ellen and Mike and rejoin the CTC route soon after. It would add about 70 miles to the route but this was only about a days cycling which I had gained by shortening my stay elsewhere. This I did.

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