Have crisps, will travel

I'm travelling home today... a full day's journey, leaving Wick in the north at 6.20am and getting to Birmingham New Street in the midlands at 8.09pm this evening, at which point I will be picked up by my brother and driven back to Bath (probably another couple of hours). The whole journey will probably last something like 16 hours. If nothing else that serves as a nice reminder about how big the UK is and how far I have cycled.

I can't wait to see the family.

The train journey is taking me past some of the places in Scotland that I cycled thru... Thurso and Dingwall, Carbisdale Castle and Muir of Ord to name a few. I have to confess that without a map to jog my memory, many if these places are rapidly just becoming names... I couldn't tell you what they looked like. Shame! :-(

So, why the crisps?

I bought this bag of crisps on he first day of my Land's End to John O'Groats journey - gosh, that seems like a long time ago. I didn't eat them, instead deciding to keep them in case I got hungry in he afternoon.

On the second day I decided to leave them in my bag as an emergency treat for myself if I ever got stuck anywhere without food. And the next day, and the day after that... in time, they became a fixed feature of my handlebar bag for the whole journey - a kind of totem I guess - carried 1000 miles in case of emergencies but never needed. I was going to take them to the pub last night and share them with Matt and Steve but forgot and left them in my hotel room.

I'll eat them now on the journey home instead.

It's been a fantastic trip - one that I would whole-heartedly recommend to anyone who cares to listen. It's hard in places, but not so hard that most people couldn't manage it with enough time.

Before I left I had this idea that I would spend two weeks alone on my bike with my thoughts and somehow come back a better person. I'm not quite sure that it has worked out like that.

You know when your other half says to you, "what are you thinking about?" and you say, "oh, nothing" and they say, "you must be thinking about something" and you say, "err... no". Well, yes... one is clearly thinking about something... the trouble is that the male brain (or, at least, my brain) just has no way of turning those thoughts into words. I kinda feel like I've had two weeks of that. I've looked at the road a lot, I've looked at the map, I've looked at the road and the map. I've watched the scenery go past - usually very slowly - and clearly, I've thought about stuff. Well, the bad news is that I can sum up those thoughts in three words:

nothing to report

I've missed my family a lot - this is the longest I've been apart from Sara, my other half, for all the time we've been together. Ditto the kids.

I haven't missed my job and it is now more clear to me than ever that something is badly wrong with my working life - something I need, but will find very hard, to do something about. Note that this isn't (just) a dig at my current employer - I'm kinda feeling generally unhappy about what I achieving in my professional life at the moment. In short, when people ask me, "what do you do?" I have no coherent or convincing answer.

I'm proud of what I've done and the money that I've raised - many thanks to all those who have donated. I'm particularly pleased that this ride gave me, and many others, a chance to remember Rachel - that was a big part of what it was all about.

My followers on Twitter have been hugely supportive. It's been great... tweeting as I go, reading people's replies, checking into Foursquare every so often and writing a Blipfoto blog post every night (pretty much), taking photographs and so on. The iPhone has been amazing - though I never doubted that it wouldn't be.

You are never alone or lost with an iPhone. Well, until your battery dies at least... then you are probably really alone and/or really lost so always carry a travel charger! That's my one gem of advice from the whole trip. Not that I ever actually needed mine. With careful use of the wifi and 3G settings, and only running GPS apps when you actually need them, you can make an iPhone battery last quite well. My iPhone has been my camera, my blogging tool, my communications/social media client and my backup/GPS device.

Oh... actually, I have one other piece of advice - never go downhill without double-checking the map!

I'll try and pull together some stats about various things over the next few days - mileage, sponsorship and so on. If you are wondering... you can still sponsor me via the website :-)

I've been very much out of touch with old media during the trip. I haven't read a newspaper or watched a TV for the whole two weeks. It's been fantastic. World War III could have started and I'd be none the wiser.

The hostels and hostel life has been great - the shared kitchens and dorms, the snoring, the sneaking out quietly first thing in the morning so as not to wake the other residents. The fact that you can leave your iPhone charging in an unlocked dorm and not worry about it being stolen - how often in life these days can you behave like that?

I've also met some great people on the trip - the slightly eccentric group of academics on their self-organised geology weekend in Clun, the german girl on a solo driving holiday in Street, the bloke who was 2 days from completing a walk round the whole coastline of the UK just south of the Severn crossing, the old woman at the bus-stop somewhere near Shrewsbury who called me over to say that she'd done the trip last year, the owner of the Country Store in Ardgay who looked a bit like Susan George and who made a great hot chocolate, the landlord of the Crask Inn - to mention just a few.

I haven't seen much wildlife... which surprised me a little. I saw two deer (or one deer twice, I'm not sure) somewhere in the Manchester region but none in Scotland. And a lot of buzzards - all over the place. Other than that, and a lot of roadkill - including a whole dead sheep rigid with rigamortis with its legs in the air by the side of the road - I haven't many living animals apart from livestock.

So what have been my highlights?

Well, the Glencoe day was stunning and exciting in all sorts of ways, not least the reminder of how fast the weather can change in the mountains. Glen Ogle, then Rannoch Moor, then Glencoe itself. I remember nearly bursting into tears when I saw Glencoe for the first time. I have no idea why - a mixture of things I guess. You go a bit weird when you've been alone on a bike for several days! That's my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

The second Cornwall/Devon day and crossing Dartmoor came a close second and probably only ranks slightly lower in my mind because I've seen it before fairly regularly.

Then I'm torn between the hill out of Slaidburn (an awesome sight when you were starting at the bottom) and the long relentless moorland right at the northernmost part of Scotland on the last but one day. Very bleak but also very inspiring. And home to the Crask Inn!

And my low points?

Not much really. The days skirting the major conurbations of Manchester/Warrington/Liverpool and Glasgow/Motherwell were less nice visually I guess. But they did serve as a reminder that this country of ours isn't all stunning scenery, tea and cakes. I've seen some places that I really wouldn't want to rush back to - places where life must be really tough for people. I don't envy them.

The hostel at Carlisle, which we'd been told was great because you got a room to yourself, but which turned out to be a rather depressing student accommodation type affair with soul-destroying single rooms... give me a shared dorm with a fat, hairy-arsed bloke in the bunk above any day! :-)

And the headwinds I suppose. It feels like I've had about 5 days of solid headwind to 1 day of tailwind. I'm probably exaggerating but that's what it feels like. On the plus side, I've been incredibly lucky with the rain - I've probably only had to wear my waterproofs for, maybe, 3 hours during the whole two weeks. In general, the weather has been perfect for cycling - not too hot and not too cold but just right!

Finally, I must say thank you to Sara (my partner) and the kids (Daisy, Wilf and Stan) for letting me out of the house for two weeks in order that I could do this ride. They have effectively given up a proper summer holiday for it which is very generous. I owe them all big time!

Addendum: As @grandcheese notes below in the comments, I should really have also listed midges in my low points. Luckily, they only became a real problem at Tongue and beyond (i.e. the last evening and final day) but the results of their biting are still with me 4 or 5 days later - very itchy legs!