Yippee - out to celebrate

After much deliberation on whether to take the longer flatter route, or the shorter hiller one, we finally decided to brave the Berridale Braes and chose the latter. The Berridale Braes are famed for their steepness. First you have a steady climb out of Helmsdale, then you descend all the way down to the river at Berridale, before climbing all the way up again… only this time the road is steeper as it twists and turns back up. With our new found climbing confid...

Our bottoms hurt. Our knees hurt. Our eyes sting from the relentless headwind. Bike chain covered in so much gunk, we dread to have to hook it back on when it comes off. But it doesn't matter! We have started to see road signs to John O'Groats and are one day from achieving our goal. Yippee! We haven't seen the sun since Hadrian's Wall, but today was at least 98% dry and despite the headwind we made good progress to Helmsdale. We left Inverness crossing ...

Yesterday we left Perth and the black silhouette of Cairngorms National Park loomed before us as we made our way to Glenshee and the highest A road in the country. Little did we know that Glenshee was just the warm up. We left our hotel this morning with foreboding after all the staff's friendly questioning on where we were heading, came to the same conclusion: "You're not going over the Lecht, are you?! Aye, Glenshee is fine, but this is…" At this point,...

Weather forecast is pretty terrible, but at least it is not raining at the start of the day as we set out from Perth to Ballater. There is nothing worse than heading off in a downpour. At least you can keep some hope of a fine day for a while before it is crushed. Today is about hills and castles - really just one hill and one castle, although a couple more featured briefly. First was Scone Palace, located just outside of Perth and once home of Scottish King...