Day 13: Laing to Thurso

Well that was a tale of two halves! From views that were truly sublime to a headwind that was nothing but utterly ridiculous.

Laing to Tongue


The day started well. The Laing Highland Hotel was a really nice - if slightly retro - little place, with lovely staff. They did a nice breakfast at a set time, and it was nice to see a little ‘Reserved for Room 3’ plaque with orange juice and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes waiting for me when I came down. Don’t be mistaken… that was just the warm up for my daily Full Scottish! Tasty it was too. I’m going to get withdrawal symptoms without my daily fix of that once this trip is over I reckon.


I suspected that it would be a long day though… I struggled walking up a flight of stairs back to my room… aching legs… not great!


Hit the road, Jack


The weather was fantastic; the first half of the ride had easily the best weather of the past two weeks! Too hot for a gilet… and I was really regretting my life choices by wearing a black top and black bib shorts. My kit absorbed a lot of the heat and baked me in the sun. 


I made a few errors with the route as well… or at least I thought I had. If I had looked at the route properly (I’ve been following the gpx route files from a Cicerone book), I would probably have avoided the beautifully named town of Tongue. I’d have thought that I’d have been better off just riding straight to Bettyhill via a detour and avoiding the banks Loch Loyal… but what a mistake that would have been…


I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that that the northern part of the A836 road to Tongue - via Loch Loyal - has the best cycling views in the country, certainly that I’ve seen anyway (sorry Snowdonia!). 


It’s the Loch that sets it off. It’s just astonishing. Plus the sunshine on the hills opposite… and the other bodies of water than you can see… and the other mountains and valleys you can see in the distance. It’s just incredible. 


You also don’t get phone signal for a few hours, so you can focus on the surroundings rather than the latest email notification from Ticketmaster. 


Tongue leaves a bitter taste 


A bit of a hiccup here. Tongue was the end point of Day 13 on the route I’ve been following… and it has such a cool name… this will be a bustling little town with numerous cafes right??? Wrong. It was basically a hamlet with a hotel! I was hungry and relying on a good feed.


Luckily, I was just in time to get to the nearby Norse Bakery Cafe (it closed at 3pm and I got there at 2:15pm) for some good grub… lasagne, some cake..and a bottle of Peroni (moment of weakness!). 


It’s a good job I pigged out though, as the second half of the ride was very hard indeed…


Blowing a hoolie


After the beauty of the mountains, I basically ran out of land going North - hitting the top of the UK mainland and, as it turns out, the edge of the North Sea (not far away from where the Atlantic starts). I then took a right turn towards John o’Groats… but the terrain was moor-like… but with lots of short sharp hills… and many miles of horrendous headwinds!! Gosh!! 


Having made another mistake and having climbed up a steep hill out of Tounge, I was already feeling it a bit… and one of the early costal climbs rivalled the stuff in Cornwall. It was 1.4 miles long with a steep gradient, which was a lot given the luggage I was carrying.


I saw some poor punter pushing his fully-laden bike up the hill; it was all too much for him. I made it up the hill - slowly and after a lot of grunting - but I felt his pain. He, like I, was in for a long day.


I whinged on WhatsApp - with a predictable response (“Rule 5” or similar), but it was really hard going. I was moving at 17mph down quite steep hills, as the (unusually) flush headwinds we’re trying to blow me back up the hills!. The only upside were the few times when the route darted about and I experienced a turbo boost from certain angles. 


After a good 35 miles (!) of headwinds and climbing action, I finally got to Thurso.  At several points, it felt like it was never going to happen! Just so happy!!


Touching distance!


Getting back from John o’Groats is quite fiddly (it will basically take me two days) and I took what I could get; I have a (three hour!) minibus transfer to Inverness booked from John o’Groats at 2pm tomorrow. Because of this, I’ve been trying to get ahead of the schedule over recent days… and I’ve somehow managed it.


I should get to John o’Groats within 3 hours tomorrow, subject to there being no major problems (fingers crossed). I am however dead on my feet, especially after today’s exertion. Will I get up in time to set off early??? I don’t know… but I really hope so!!! I’ll be setting my alarm shortly. I even didn’t have that fourth pint of Birra Moretti to increase my chances or hitting the road early doors. This is serious business!


All black outfit in the sunshine… doh!

Spectacular views and weather all day.

Scenes like this were commonplace.

The banks of Loch Loyal. My favourite of the many dozens of lochs that I have seen.

Loch Loyal from another viewpoint.

The Norse Bakery is well worth a stop.

Artistic, by my standards! In the background you can see.. that the UK has run out of northern land!

Me, a nice Mongolian chap… and cows with MASSIVE horns… just stood in the road!! Very scared, I was!

The coast had fewer mountains but was still amazing.

Into the final county!

From Thurso. On the right… John o’Groats.
Just so close.

A few sharp hills on the route from Tongue, with a bit of a breeze for good measure!





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