19 May – The Mother of All Conclusions

I’ve done it!

I’ve reached John O’…. thank goodness for that!

It was a strange sense of relief and slight disappointment. Relief because my body is absolutely knackered and I’m looking forward to seeing my family and the novelty of being able to sit on a soft sofa. But also tinged with a little disappointment because I’ve had a wonderful experience. So here is how my final stage played out. It wasn’t what I expected!!

Knowing I had a relatively short 50-mile final stage today, I enjoyed a relaxing morning. After breakfast, I took a stroll down to the wonderful beach at Torrisdale Bay.

Straight away, there were some hills to negotiate coming out of Bettyhill but for every climb I was able to enjoy the corresponding descent. After tackling about 8-10 of these things appeared to begin levelling out. I caught myself smiling as a I rolled up and down the gentle hills with more sunshine and tail winds.

Just before Melvich, I met two separate groups of cyclists and enjoyed a few moments chatting with them. Everyone was in good spirits, and we shared our respective journeys. Esther asked me to send the girls a copy of the picture and John from London asked me to do the same for the guys.

As the elevated coast road swung inland, I could see the Dounray Nuclear Power Station about ½ a mile up the coast. In 1994 the reactors shut down, but it still employs a sizeable workforce involved in the decommissioning.  

I then needed to drop my bike of with Jess’ auntie Linda, because I couldn’t book my bicycle on the 3 ½ hours onward train journey to Edinburgh due to high demand.

I met a young guy from Chile called Phillip. He was setting out on his JOG2LE adventure. He asked me how my trip had been and looked concerned when I told him my LE2JOG route had a tail wind most of the way.

As I entered the village, I could see the Castle Arms Inn and planned out my evening in my head. I noticed a chap outside coming away from some motor vehicle in the car park. He looked at me and then he called my name, welcomed me, and asked where I had cycled from. This was the friendly owner. Just at the point I was beginning to respond, I was taken completely by surprise when my good friends Ian and Paul suddenly appeared from said car and were standing next to me. I could not believe it! The video perfectly captures my utter surprise 🙂

They had driven up from near Edinburgh to meet me and celebrate the completion of my LE2JOG trip. It meant so much and it took a while for me to process this incredible gesture. I naively thought I was still getting the train back home from Wick tomorrow until Paul said “What are you talking about, we’re putting your bike in the back of my Range Rover and taking you home”.

I think it is important for me to let Ian explain their account of tracking me down to achieve the surprise they had intended.

IAN: A week into Scott’s epic journey I was thinking about his incredible commitment and what support I could give him. It struck me that after 1000 miles of pedalling, he’d reach John O’Groats but may feel a little deflated that there was no one there to share this with. I hatched a plan and approached my fellow layabout Paul to ask if he was up for a road trip. Great idea he thought so that was set, a trip to the north coast was a goer. One slight issue was trying to pin down exactly where Scott was going to be and when he’d be there. We managed to find out from Mrs W that he’d booked to stay in a hotel in Mey, around 7 miles west of JOG and planned to be there around 4. However throwing Scott’s legendary unpredictability into the mix it become the proverbial ‘pin jelly to the wall’ task. Was he going to JOG on Thursday? or is stopping short and doing this on Friday morning? – this was the biggest question and wherever he was going we had no idea when he’d get there.

We set off from Fife around 8.30am and had a great drive north with fantastic weather and beautiful scenery. We decided to head initially to JOG and arrived there around 2 – to be honest heading straight there was more to do with knowing there was a great cafe with delicious cakes rather than thinking he’d appear over the horizon while we sat there. After an hour we decided to drive to his hotel and hang about around there. We found a great parking spot pretty much opposite and waited for about an hour. No joy.

During this time we both were aware of the fact we we’re sitting in a black Range Rover, both wearing sunglasses, in a tiny village where these don’t go unnoticed and decided perhaps we should move on. We moved off and did a u-turn in the hotel car park where I realised someone from the hotel saw us – more on this later. We ended up in a beach side car park which had a clear view of the route we thought Scott would be taking. It was only after some time sitting there Paul consulted Google maps and realised this wasn’t actually the cycle route so off we drove. We picked up the cycle route and did a circular route back to the location opposite the hotel for our 2nd stakeout. After a short while a couple walking an excitable Jack Russell gave us the ‘what are you doing here’ stare – we looked away. After a few minutes I said to Paul there’s no way we can be in this same spot when they walk back as we look seriously dodgy so I suggested we should go back to the cycle route again and continue our version of “Where’s Wally?”  This backfired immediately when we found ourselves in hot pursuit of the dog walkers down a single track road.  They already had us down as uber dodgy so I’ve no idea what they thought when they discovered we were following them. They moved to the side, I couldn’t look at them as we passed and could only raise my hand to thank them in an embarrassing fashion. It got worse as we went by; the dog didn’t take kindly to us edging past and let out this painful yelp. We both thought we’d run it over but thankfully it seemed fine and we drove on.

It was now after 6 so we were becoming increasingly concerned! After driving for about 10 minutes at the same time both Paul and I saw a speck on the horizon – it couldn’t be? Is it? I got out the binoculars (specially packed for covert operations) and yes, there are the panier bags I recognised; Paul looked and he confirmed that this was indeed the elusive Wallace. A quick u-turn and we returned to the hotel to await his arrival. This time we parked in the actual car park.

For the hours we spent trying to track Scott down, Paul and I talked through pretty much every possible scenario from the ridiculous to the completely ridiculous around where he could be, even thinking he’s actually finished the route and will surprise us by posting to say he was almost home. After a few minutes sitting in the car park Paul and I remarked how suspicious our behaviour must have looked and we were right to think that as pretty much immediately the owner appeared and approached the car. It transpired his wife had seen us earlier and said “that’s that black Range Rover back”. Before he could speak I got in our defence to say we were to surprise one of his guests and he’s arriving soon. Initially he wasn’t buying the story but thankfully Scott came round the corner and all was confirmed via video evidence.

After talking to the hotelier it was only then we became aware that cutting about acting suspiciously less than a mile from a royal residence in a black Range Rover with Irish plates does attract a little attention. We all had a great laugh about it and we’re kindly invited in for a beer whilst Scott checked in.

We finished the day by visiting the local curry house as you do, where we met some of Scott’s cycling friends from earlier in the day. Our drive up and hours of stakeout was completely worth it to get that reaction from Scott – he has completed a remarkable achievement which he should be rightly proud of, raising a huge amount for such a worthy cause and making lots of lifetime memories along the way. Paul and I are delighted to have contributed in a small way to these memories. Only Paul and I know how very close we were to calling it quits and heading for an early curry. Of course we would never have done that and both delighted we didn’t.

Paul, Ian and I enjoyed shooting the breeze with our breakfast hosts, Euan and Emma. they had just taken over the Castle Arms Inn a month ago and I am their first LE2JOG cyclist. they presented me with a bottle of beer with a handwritten note saying ’All the best from Emma & Euan at The Castle Arms Inn, Mey’. My friendly hosts were so kind, they waived the cost of our breakfast in favour of us making payment to my charity fundraising. We were joined by fellow resident, Sandra who was interested in my LE2JOG challenge and asked to be sent details of my fundraising. what kind and generous people.

Today’s trivial facts

NO. OF MILES CYCLED TODAY :    50

MOMENT OF THE DAY:   Ian & Paul laying the biggest surprise of my trip. Brilliant!

WEATHER:   It was perfect today. Dry and sunny with a slight tail wind, 17 degrees

SONG OF THE DAY: At Last – Ella James https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qJU8G7gR_g

% of FUNDRAISING TARGET REACHED:  111% (Thank U for sponsoring me)

FRIDAY’S DESITINATION: Home Sweet Home