In 2005, after a few good ride-out's with Andy and Steve, we got together and chatted about doing a End to End. This means riding from the furthest points of land across the UK. Here in the UK, these points are, John O'Groats on the north east tip of Scotland, and Land's End down on the south west tip of England, a distance of 874 miles.
Well we wanted to do it slightly differently, so we opted that we would not use motorways or major trunk roads, we also thought we would detour slightly to collect a few Round Britain Rally clues along the way.
Our route took us five days, stopping at: Fort William, North of the Lake District, Chester, Exmoor and finally Land's End.
Result!!!
Well we did it!! Here we all are at John O'Groats on a windy and wet, Monday morning. This was to be the start of a great 1,176 miles.
And here we are at 15.31 on a nice warm Friday afternoon, at Land's End
First off we had to get there, John O 'Groats, that is. Saturday morning we met Andy at Trowel Services on the M1 northbound, between Jnc 25 and Jnc 26. Cracking on north, we stopped for breakfast near Scotch Corner, so far this had all been motorway, a few more miles of motorway toward Newcastle, then we peeled off over onto the A696 heading north-west and onto some good sweeping main roads. Keeping a weary eye out for camera vans, we soon passed through the Cheviot Hills and into the Borders area of Scotland, where we stopped in Jedburgh to get fuel, I also called into get a cashmere jumper, as I have been after one for a while, and I was feeling the cold a bit. We soon passed around Edinburgh, over the Forth Road Bridge, looking across at the marvellous Forth Rail Bridge, which was still being painted. Heading toward Dundee and off up to another RBR clue in Montrose. North again up toward our first nights stop over at Johnshaven, we collected a Round Britain Rally clue at Pitscottie. Just under 400 miles for the first day, and we had a great stay at Ellington B+B, in the small town of Johnshaven. After a nice shower and cup of tea, from Margaret our very friendly hostess, we ventured into the town and had a nice meal at the local pub.
Sunday morning after a great breakfast, we said farewell to Margaret, and headed north near Strathaven, where Andy was staying, at his mates house. Meeting up, we were away by 10.30 heading around Aberdeen and up to Turriff, where we were to collect more RBR points. Stopping again in Forres for another RBR clue, a very fascinating clue this one, more later. Lunchtime again, stopped at a Chips shop, which looked like an old Little Chef. Well my steak pie was lousy, it was bullet proof, the replacement was a little better, but we will not be calling there again. Back on the road, into Inverness for fuel, and onto the A9 all the way up the west coast, the road was very good, nice and twisty and lots of shell grip on the corners... Into Wick to top the fuel up, "get fuel while you can in the Highlands" and we were soon at John O' Groats.
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