Having stocked up on whisky minatures from our first distillery (Old Pulteney – 12 year old single maritime malt) and the cycletouring essential milk powder, there was no reason to delay setting off. With slightly more elegance than our departure from Bariloche, i.e. R did not career down the hill into a parked car, but still with amateurish charm – i.e. we did have to stop after 200m, as our handlebars were certainly not straight, our Cyclemoon commenced!
First stop for lunch was the beautiful Sinclair beach and ruined castle (turns out a family dispute over inheritance can cause a significant amount of damage!). With regular rolling waves on a large curve of white sand on a sunny August Sunday you might have expected that the beach would be a mass of deckchairs, surfboards and careful orientation around (slightly chilled) sunbathers. Not at all. There was noone around, and no indication that the-most-perfect-surfing-beach-in-the-UK was a regularly frequented attraction.
With no surfboard to hire, and nothing in our overpacked bags to be made into one, we continued north stipping for our first lunch of oatie soup since our departure from Patagonia (recipe below) at a tiny old harbour surrounded by lobster pots.
John O’Groats has been pretty fairly described as a parking lot for campervans, and with the greying 1980s ‘craft village’ hosting a ‘Christmas shop’ there are reasons why it has been described as a rather dismal most Northern settlement. However with a campsite with sea views over Orkney, a new onsite brewery (in a beautifully renovated croft house) and a 5* hotel (which of course we stayed well clear of) it was better than what we had been expecting. Having queued up in the sunset for a signpost photo (we may or maynot make it to Land’s End this year!) we pitched our tent next to a chain-cigar-smoking 70 year old solo American cycle tourist who had cycled up from Glasgow (having previously cycled around Iceland). With ambitions of doing greater distances a day than we were contemplating, we chatted with admiration. There were also a few cyclists that had done the LEJOG route in 14 days-ish but they were only capable of a couple of exhausted grunts before collapsing into their sleeping bags! NB. As two of them were cycling back to Inverness tomorrow (in one day!) we decided that they were a totally different type of cyclists (and humans).
Having ummed and arred about getting the early morning ferry to Orkney, we eventually decided that it was something to save it for another trip, the 0730 departure time playing a small part of our decisionmaking. A pint down, and most of our load left at the tent, we pootled up to see the Dunscansby Head lighthouse and pyramid stacks. The lighthouse being built by Robert Lewis Stevenson’s grandfather, prompted the kindle download of Treasure Island. A good first day back on the bikes!
Pedalling_Patagonia 