The Lands End to John O'Groats thread

Made it! All went according to schedule, despite slight worries about missing trains at either end. (Mudguard exploding two minutes after leaving Blackheath, and a puncture/misbehaving mini-pump in John o'Groats.) We followed the Cicerone route almost turn-for-turn 90% of the time, other than planned diversions to stay with relatives in Somerset and Merseyside. I can thoroughly recommend the Cicerone guide with some minor caveats but more on that later.

We stayed in a mix of campsites, B&Bs, hotels and relatives' homes; a couple more hotels/inns than planned due to either longer days than intended or getting on the beers too quickly at Jo'G and not being arsed to set up a tent! Camping involved carrying a lot of stuff but I'd happily do a similar mix again as it's nice to have the variety, and camping keeps costs down (a bit).

Some highlights:

• The weather! Absolutely lucked out here. Besides a freak 5 minute downpour (with hailstones?) right near the end of day 3, the only really bad day was a rainy slog out of the urban North West through Lancashire. Travelling through Wales, the Lake District and literally the length of Scotland without a spot of rain must be some kind of record. 30 degrees in Glasgow!
  
• People are really friendly, even in cars! :-) I didn't hear a horn beep, or anyone give another stranger verbal abuse, for two weeks. Then we cycled home from King's Cross... :-(
  
• I thought my geography of the British Isles was OK, but I learnt a lot. Forest of Bowland? Never heard of it. Absolutely beautiful! And the Shropshire countryside... and...
  
• Scotland! Wow! I've seen a few bits of it, but generally from a car and looking a bit grey. The further North we got the more breath-taking the scenery. And great roads with very little traffic (other than bits of the A82!)
  
  

Some lowlights:

• Trying to work out whether we could get to Rainhill (east of Liverpool) via the old Runcorn Bridge, and then negotiating Runcorn's maze of cycle routes. Ugh!
  
• My only major navigational error, adding 7 miles to an already hard (and wet) day. That didn't go down too well. Oops! Nutella cheesecake and Theakston's Old Peculier make it all better...
  
• Bleedin' midges. Aaargh! Camping by a river in Glencoe not the greatest idea. Small children were dressed like bee keepers.
  
  

I guess you can access the route we took from my Strava link. Since the first diversion from the Cicerone route involved going 20-odd miles East of Somerton on day 3, we decided to get a head start by making a round trip to Land's End from Penzance after the day's train journey.

I'll make some notes on the Cicerone route in a separate post, but here are some photos:

More here!