Day 8 - Durness to John o'Groats to Nairn


Saturday 29/05/2021

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Slept great at Durness after a long day of riding and taking in the views. It was nice to make use of the cooking kit after dragging it around with us all this way. This morning's weather was glorious when we got up - no wind and lovely sunshine from the outset.

After a bacon buttie and coffee breakfast we shot off a mile down the road to check-out Smoo Caves quickly. We had a long day so couldn't hang around though, but we wanted Konrad to check them out. The road across the top looked soo much better than the last time we did it in the wind and rain. A pleasure to ride and take in our final views of the beautiful mountains and coastline here. Before we knew it we were in Thurso where we tanked-up before the last little run into John o'Groats. We bumped into Nathan there who kindly took a photo of us next to the famous signpost. We did it. Swindon to Land's End to John o'Groats on the smaller roads! Felt a minor sense of achievement. Can't imagine doing it on a push-bike in less than a month!

We ate some chips, drank a coffee and started the long haul South. We said our goodbyes to Nathan, but Alan was only a couple of hours behind us on his 125 scooter. 81 years old and I bet he complained less than everyone!

The weather turned foggy as we hit John o'Groats and it didn't improve much on the run down to Inverness. Didn't see the sea at all and we didn't bother stopping at any tourist attractions this time around. Just wanted to cover some miles. Wanted to stay at Loch Ness, but everything was fully booked so we went East to the edge of the Cairngorms where we are camped near Nairn. Remote campsite but we are well set-up to do the ski road past Braemar tomorrow morning and the sun has come out!

Our kindly biking camping neighbours let us use their BBQ so we had burgers and kebabs for tea with other comfort food that I think we deserved. We were then issued with NC500 completion certificates. I don't understand this either, but it all seems legit.

Long day, but it was great to make it here which is a great stop-over before we head further down. Tomorrow, after the Cairngorms, we hope to ride all the way down to Holy Island. No idea about tides, but I suspect that we won't make the crossing when the tide is low.
Mileage: 1625 (John o'Groats) 1759 (Nairn)
Beers: 41 + 3 bottles of white + 1 red
Fines: 0
Bribes: 0
Ass pain: 7/10
Mechanical issues: 0
Accidents: 1 (me running into Konrad)
Wetness: 0/10
Coldness: 0/10
Birthday's: 2 (Krysia and Barry) 



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