End to ended

 Sir Ranulph Fiennes wrote:

"I am doing this for many reasons, some of which I don't fully understand"

I know we're not explorers and countless thousands have 'done' the end to end, many in more extreme ways - take Bash in his wheelchair for example - but there's something hard to explain about us humans (if I may be permitted to slot us both into that category for a moment). It's like the way we respond to praise and encouragement. Today a 12 ish year old leant out of a car window and cheered us on. (Our sign on the tandem does help) Other people have wound down their car windows and said well done. Near the top of our big climb a few days ago, someone shouted Well done, c'mon, you're nearly there! And suddenly we have renewed strength in our legs. We must never underestimate the power of encouragement!

I knew it would happen of course. It had to. We weren't going to cycle the length of Scotland with hardly any rain. We set off this morning in very heavy mist. In other words, the cloud. The first ten miles demanded 1,000 feet of climbing, so most of the time we were well and truly in the cloud until it moved seamlessly into rain. At this point  we 'caped up'. Now whilst you are all hooting with derision at the thoughts of us wearing capes, let me tell you that under a cape, you remain dry. Infact, thanks to their capyness, you don't even get wet with sweat. 

We bought these capes about 38 years ago. OK, I might as well confirm our weirdness to you all - like you didn't know already. When Kate and I met about 38 years ago, first of all I told her how much she liked cycling. Then we bought a tandem. We had been going out with each other for a few months and we spent every last penny we had, plus a few we didn't, on a new Claud Butler tandem. So buying capes was the least of our worries. We were already travelling along highway weird...

Today was a tough one but we seemed to thrash it. Excitement? Adrenaline? A deep desire to get it over and done with? I don't know. My left shoulder was OK but not great. Kate has pulled a muscle in her right leg. I guess that balanced us out quite nicely. Today, there was the promise of a coffee shop after 20 miles. There was a note on the door saying Closed Today. We had to cycle the 40 miles to Thurso before I even got the whiff of a coffee. We found the best coffee shop in town. "Coffee - white. Coffee - Black. Cup or Mug." Oh well.

We steamed ahead after all that Thurso had to offer by way of refreshment, cycling through a landscape which became flatter and increasingly featurless. The sort of land which I would imagine the 'Flat Earth Society" would expect to find just before falling off the world. 

When we pulled into John O Groats, there waiting for us were our amazing friends, Malcolm and Helen, with party whistles, bubbly stuff and chocolates. It was quite an emotional moment. 

We are now in Puffin Cottage for the night. M and H are picking us up in the morning and we start the return journey. By car. We had a suitcase waiting for us in the car and this evening we went to the pub down the road looking like normal people. Well, Kate was. I still have my beard. I would like to grow it until you can lose a ferret in it but Kate says it's coming off. Probably for the best really. It's hard enough making friends as it is.

And so tomorrow we start to enter normal life. There will be things we enjoy about that but there will be things we miss about the last three weeks. And I'm speaking for both of us there.

This has been an epic adventure for us. Thank you for reading these blogs and being prepared to endure a tour of my mind. We always agreed that this was the first and last time for such a trip. We won't be doing it again. Ever. Well, not for a while  anyway.