Julie's cycling challenge

On 10 July 2009 Julie Bentley, FPA Chief Executive, completed her 1,068 mile cycle ride from Land's End to John O'Groats in aid of FPA and Seham Village Appeal. Find out more and support Julie.

Land's End to John O'Groats: Julie's diary

10 July 2009 – Bettyhill to John O Groats – 51 miles

We left Bettyhill not quite believing that this was the last day. We bade farewell to our friends who are heading for Edinburgh and home. We felt quite sick with nerves about what could still go wrong to scupper our finishing.

The first 20 miles was a series of stiff ascents followed by steep descents and the remainder of the ride was a slightly lesser version of that. It was a bit like a slow rollercoaster that you had to work yourself.

The weather has been mainly overcast and windy with the odd shower breaking through followed by the odd sunny spell.

We followed the main coast road all the way, passing Dounreay nuclear power station (gingerly). Just along this road in the middle of nowhere we passed an older gentlemen walking along the edge of the road, wearing a full pin striped suit with waistcoat and watch chain and carrying a black umbrella – most bizarre and out of context.

Occasionally the road dipped inland for a while but then returned to the coast which was really lovely as our return to the shore often coincided with the appearance of the sun to sparkle on the water. As we approached Thurso when we rounded a corner the sun broke through and before us was a huge expanse of azure blue sea and rugged coastline with the Orkney islands off in the distance. Very, very beautiful. We had a brief stop in Thurso for lunch (a picnic in a car park) then headed off for the last 22 miles.

When we passed a sign saying John O'Groats 15 miles it really begun to feel like we were going to make it. As we approached, the landscape became bleaker and bleaker and John O'Groats appeared in front of us like an ancient settlement in the middle of nowhere. We cycled in to John O'Groats and headed through the car park towards the official signpost. Having spent the past few weeks wondering where all the other cyclists we had expected to encounter were, we suddenly found them all. Several were already there and as we took photos several more arrived. A couple of guys turned up in bright orange wigs with kilts on and we got talking to a guy who was going round the edge of Britain (a total circuit) for a multiple sclerosis charity. Our final Samaritan was there to meet us with a bottle of bubbly and it felt such a relief to be there.

Having declined to pay to be photographed with the official sign at Land's End we decided we would here, only to have the bloke suddenly take the top of the sign and lock it up, we called after him asking him to take our photo before he left and he shouted over his shoulder as he disappeared, "Can't! Family emergency" and so it is that yet again we have a photo of us next to a post with no sign.

We spent an hour over a hot coffee in the cafe and enjoyed chatting to all the fellow 'end to enders' who had just finished. We spoke to a great couple from Liverpool who had arrived on a tandem and we realised looking at their bike saddles that we could have spent more time choosing something comfier!

Delighted to arrive, but aside from being the end of our journey John O'Groats doesn't have much to offer. We are now in the only hotel here and will later have supper with our friend who will tomorrow drive us to Inverness from where we will fly back to London.

So we have done it, 15 days and over 1,000 miles. We have cycled through heatwave and storms, over 15,000ft peaks, through deep valleys, across barren landscapes and over four big bridges. We have met many people, lots of whom have shown real warmth and kindness. We have felt despondent and exhausted and strong and elated at the wonder and beauty of nature. We have appreciated the support of everyone.

We have raised (with Gift Aid) something over £9,000 to date for two fantastic charities. We would dearly love to make it a nice round ten so please do support us if you can.

We should be back home Saturday eve and after a couple of days rest, back at work on Wednesday. We have massages booked for Sunday evening and an osteopath for Monday. Time will mend our traumatised joints and bruised bodies and our sunburned knees and forearms will be less comic when the rest of our bodies catch up and match the brown bits!!

Thank you for your support everyone.

9 July 2009 – Lairg to Bettyhill – 32 miles

The good thing about doing more miles than planned yesterday is that today we did fewer miles than planned. The terrain continued in the same vein and our first ten miles continued along a barren, single track road with tough winds against us all the way. Fortunately it didn't rain which helped. We had some excitement and variety 10 miles in as there was a fork in the road! We took the right hand path to Bettyhill and we stayed on this single track road for the next 22 miles.

The path dropped down and took us on a winding route around the edge of beautiful Loch Naver. For a few miles the sun came out and the water looked fabulous with the sun glinting off it.

As we neared Bettyhill, the landscape became greener and more lush again and our final few miles was a climb up a rugged coast until, finally, the North Sea appeared before us and a huge expanse of beach and crashing waves appeared below. We have made it to the seaside!

We are staying in what is possibly the only hotel around here and it has great views of the coastline. Our friends are joining us here and we are just waiting for them to arrive with our panniers. It's now just before 3pm so we have a couple of hours to see the sights!

We can't quite believe we are now only one day away from John O' Groats and we can't quite believe that we are so far north under our own steam. It all feels a bit surreal really and only one day to go. We're finishing with a tough one though. It's only 53 miles long but it is along the coast with big big ascents and descents. No gentle roll into John O' Groats, rather a gasping finish. We just hope the bikes and bodies hold out for one more day!

8 July 2009 – Inverness to Lairg – 64 miles

We had a good length of time to relax in our hotel room last night and had a great view overlooking Inverness castle and the river Ness. We even heard bagpipes playing for a while, which was brilliant.

We started today leaving Inverness by crossing the Moray Firth estuary, which connects Loch Ness to the sea and the Black Isle. Then we crossed the Cromarty Firth over a huge mile-long bridge. It looked quite spectacular but there were big side winds to contend with and 60mph traffic. Scary, but exhilarating too!

The scenery has been really changeable today. Initally, we passed through really lush countryside with moss and fern covered banks and splashes of bright yellow gorse that looked lovely. Then there were swathes of coniferous forests dotted across the landscape.

For the first half of the day the weather was pretty changeable too, going from dull and overcast, to bright and sunny, to rain in minutes. We got tired of taking our rain gear on and off.

We reached a fantastic viewing point which apparently is called The Queen's view on account of Balmoral being in the vicinity. It looked down over a panoramic view of Cambuscurrie Bay, which despite the poor weather, was spectacular.

We made a mistake today and only plotted our course to Lairg, when actually the place we were staying was 14 miles beyond Lairg. In order to boost our morale we stopped in a little tea shop for a cup of tea and scones to 'gird our loins'! There we met four lads who were heading for the same destination and we were a little heartened by the fact that they were struggling too.

Once we passed through Lairg the final 25 miles was very hard work. We had no idea when we watched the weather forecast last night that the three arrows of wind heading towards us on the map would translate to the 12 miles of purgatory we endured!

We started the day saying the scenery looked like Alaska and finished it saying it looked more like Siberia. There was no sign of human life for the last 14 miles as we cycled along a one track lane running through the middle of a barren landscape of felled forests. The wind was driving hard against us all the way and every rotation of the pedals felt painful. It took forever to cover the distance and our spirits dipped pretty low on the never-ending road. We managed to stage our dips though by geening each othr up.

When I said 'no human life' I wasn't entirely accurate. About seven miles from the end a car drew up alongside and the wonderful, familiar faces of our friends smiled out at us, asking, '"Shall we take your bags?" How wonderful to see these dear people who have joined us for moral support for this last exhausting leg.

We are now very far north and it really is the most barren landscape. We finally reached Crask, which basically consists of just two buildings (one of which we are staying in), and there was a warming peat fire roaring away as we entered the inn – wonderful. The lads we met earlier arrived 40 minutes after us. Now it is still not quite fully dark and it is almost midnight. The light as we head further and further north is quite amazing.

7 July 2009 – Aviemore to Inverness – 42 miles

We allowed ourselves to leave later today as it was a short day. We spent some time doing maintenance on the bikes following the wear and tear of yesterday's terrible weather, fitting new brake pads etc. We've also tried to reduce the kit so it weighs less.

The lovely people at Rowan Tree Hotel donated the price of our room to the fundraising and gave us delicious home made fruity oatcakes for the journey. How nice is that?

Today we barely touched our pre-planned route as we realised that the route spent time on the nasty A9 which we vowed not to go on again as it's just too dangerous for cyclists. So we followed the route 7 cycle way which turned out to be ten miles longer than our original route (but safer).

We passed through Aviemore which was quite bustling and full of outdoor clothing and hiking shops. Behind us we could see the Cairngorms swathed in mist.

It was dull and raining again today but with the addition of wind and it was really pretty cold. We probably passed by lots of wonderful scenery but frankly we had our heads down against the rain and wind and were just focussing on getting to Inverness (and a hot bath) as soon as possible. We did notice that the damp conifers smelled great and we went past a lot of streams gushing over rocks.

We finally arrived in Inverness (once again drenched and freezing) at 3pm, nice and early, so we had a bath and went for a wander around but were so tired that we were back in the hotel room having already eaten by 7pm.

Three more days and about 150 miles to go. It feels like we are really near but also feels like we are still an eternity away. A lot can still go wrong in three days and we are counting no chickens . . . But we are counting the days until we don't need to get on a bike for a while!

6 July 2009 – Pitlochry to Aviemore

We welcomed another good Samaritan today in the form of another friend who lives locally and who came and collected our bags to take on to Aviemore.

We had an unexpected hour off this morning as one of our bikes needed some work in the bike shop. How did we use this hour? Lying on the sofa, watching TV and laughing at Will and Grace (it was great!). We have enjoyed this hotel and both liked Pitlochry.

The delay did mean we set off late at just after 10.30am. While only 54 miles today it was rough going largely due to the weather. We were following the route 7 cycle path that runs alongside the nasty A9 through the Cairngorm National Park. Today we travelled through the Drummochter Pass which meant a climb up for the first 25 miles to the summit at 1556ft. Then a route mainly down the other side. It was cold, dull and wet all day and we struggled on some of the cycle path as it has rough surfaces and is designed for mountain bikes rather than our touring bikes. At other times however the cycle route ran along the old A9 (which is parallel to the new A9) this was a great path for cycling and it was interesting to see how the road, through lack of use is gradually being reclaimed by nature. Once the main route north through the Highlands it is now a much narrower path with trees growing over it and grass and flora and fauna creeping across it.

The scenery today had a much darker kind of beauty with huge grey rocks looming up from the roadside, and streams. It was lovely to come across the purple Scottish thistle along the paths and we have also begun to see pretty purple heather too.

However, the weather made it pretty hard to enjoy the scenery especially when we entered a heavy storm. It felt as though the sky had closed in around us as the tops of mountains went out of site into mist, thunder rolled above us and the skys opened with torrential rain. It was like a sheer wall of water. There was no shelter in sight so we put our heads down and kept cycling as best we could.

It was grim! Water soaked through our waterproof gear and we were saturated within minutes. Our eyes were blinded with rain, cold water was running down our necks and within a very short time we were really cold and our hands were stiffening up making it hard to use the brakes.

Thankfully after about five miles it eased to a more reasonable level and a further five miles on we stopped off at our friend's house (who fortuitously lives just on our route). He gave us towels to dry off a bit and fed us tea and biscuits and we didn't want to leave! But it was back on with the cold wet waterproofs (a very unpleasant sensation) and we set off for the last 18 miles to our hotel just outside Aviemore. For a few minutes the sun came out and our spirits lifted and we began to feel warmer and drier . . . for a few minutes. Then the storm came again. We arrived at our hotel once again drenched and were very glad when we were warmly welcomed and led to the drying room where we derobed and hung everything up to dry out. Our friend followed us to the hotel in the car and dropped off our panniers. Thanks so much. Random acts of kindness are one of the pleasures of life and restore faith in human kind.

This adventure is interesting, it is as much a mental challenge as physical. When struggling through difficult weather or up high ascents barely reaching 3mph it feels as though we will never reach our destination. Then you find yourself sailing down an ascent at 20mph and it feels like the miles are being eaten up. It is a roller coaster mentally and you can go from feelings of despair to elation in a matter of minutes.

We are now on the edge of Loch Avie about to have dinner, which will be most welcome as we didn't manage to have lunch due to the adverse weather conditions. Outside the rain still falls and we are hoping for a little less of it tomorrow. One of the things we realise is that there is no taking for granted we will make it, even at this stage. All it will take is a bike (or a body!) to go wrong and we may still be forced to stop. Fingers crossed neither happens.

5 July 2009 – Inverkeithing to Pitlochry – 65 miles

We had a great room in the hotel last night overlooking the Forth Bridge extending across the Firth of Forth. Once it got dark the bridge was all lit up and it looked fantastic and quite magical, particularly as there was a full moon.

Last night we reflected on the journey to date and the fact that we are now north of Edinburgh and we got here purely by the hard work of our own bodies – it feels quite remarkable to us!

This morning we woke up feeling like someone had soundly beaten our bodies with a metal pole as every bit of us hurt.

The first ten miles today was all uphill and steep as we went from sea level up to 928ft in ten miles. As we reached the top of each new level of ascent we were yelping from the pain in our knees and thighs.

We passed through Kelty and King Ross where we encountered views of our first loch (Leven). The first half of the day to Perth was quite dull and not very scenic compared to the previous day's majestic countryside.

For several days we have often heard a noise as we cycle along that sound like the cicadas you hear in hot countries, then our romantic imagery was shattered when we realised it was the overhead power lines fizzing!

Another (unwelcome) regular occurrence is how often we pass road kill, lots of birds, rabbits, frogs and a badger but also cats and even a dog (not pleasant) – its a harsh place the countryside.

We got a bit lost in Perth and decided to chance the beginning of the A9 (the so called route through the Highlands) as we knew there was a cycle path (route 77) that ran alongside it and we hoped to join it but couldn't find it and found ourselves on the stupidly busy road which we very quickly agreed we should exit ASAP. We did and navigated along some tiny back roads until we found route 77, much to our relief.

The countryside became more splendid as we followed the river Tay northwards to Perthshire. We crossed lots more brick bridges and enjoyed looking at the lovely river Tay bubbling along below us.

We have discovered that the last ten miles of any day is always really hard and seems double the length. The final run into Pitlochry was a pretty tiny road passing through some cool woods and glades. By this time we were exhausted and the twists and turns, revealing more hills, exasperated us and we groaned each time another ascent loomed before us. We left the cycle route as we entered Pitlochry were we came out just in front of Bells distillery (we decided against a visit as frankly a nice cup of tea was all we were interested in).

It was a relief to arrive at our hotel which (unlike several on our journey) actually looks like the promises on the website. It's lovely, our room is very comfy and there were two homemade fairy cakes left next to the teapot which was just what we needed.

We had a very nice dinner here in the restaurant then went for a walk around the town which we both really liked – a proper Scottish feel (if not with an excess of tweed and wool shops). We also sought out a bike shop as we need to get one bike checked out in the morning.

We are two thirds of the way there, ten days down, five to go. We are wondering how on earth we will find the mental and physical energy to do another five days of this.

4 July 2009 – Langholm to Inverkeithing – 84 miles

We said goodbye to our hosts today, they looked after us so well. Our hero once again took our bags and joined us on the road. We were lucky with the weather; sunny mostly but with a cooling breeze. Today was our longest day and we had some stiff ascents, no really steep climbs but a lot of long long up ups! Over the course of the day we climbed up 3363ft.

The scenery for the first half of the day was quite simply breathtaking, we passed through deep valleys with fir tree forests looming above us on our left and dropping away from us on the right. The forests were really dark and we found ourselves cycling through thick swathes of trees and we were struck by how impenetrable they looked and how scary it would be to lose your way in there.

It was very uninhabited and deserted, there was almost no traffic on the roads and we barely saw another person. The absence of people and traffic was great, instead of course we met the midges who accompanied us (rather too closely) for the day and we spent a lot of time cycling one handed while we tried to bat them away!

The two big descents of the day were wonderful (not least because they followed two gruelling ascents). We whizzed down sweeping roads passed unimpressed sheep who seemed to feel fine about standing stock still in the middle of the road while we careered towards them at 25mph (we have noticed that sheep and cows stand very still and stare at us quite quizzically, maybe they aren't used to many Lycra clad humans on metal machines or maybe they just can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats).

Once again our friend sourced a great lunch spot just outside Peebles and we enjoyed a tasty lunch together before we set off to tackle the last 34 miles of the day. We left Peebles on the A703 which was rather scary as cars rocketed past us. Mind you it did make us pick up speed and we made really good time to Edinburgh. We skirted around the city (much of which was very deprived and looked very grim) and we headed for the Forth Bridge initially on the mad A90 and then got routed off into a cycle lane which after a rather convoluted fashion got us onto a cycle path to cross the bridge. By this time we were too tired to be excited about crossing the famous Forth Bridge. Our friend was waiting for us at our hotel and we are now sitting in our room which has a great view of the bridge as night draws in.

We said goodbye to our friend tonight which we were sad about as he has been an absolute star. Thank you, we shall miss you.

Nine days in and the pains have really begun to kick in. We are both having problems with very painful hands, wrists and knees and our legs are constantly aching now, we had to stop for pain killers this afternoon to enable us to keep going!

So we are now a few miles north of Edinburgh, we have six days to go, but all shorter days which feels like a big relief to our increasingly weary bodies.

3 July 2009 – Sedburgh to Langholm – 75 miles

Last night we discovered that things are different in this neck of the woods and they stop serving food at 8pm ! We had a wander around the pretty village of Sedburgh, it was a lovely cool evening and the views of the mountains looming up all around us were beautiful. The village had a proper sweet shop with big jars of goodies in the window. It was so quiet and the streets were empty.

We set off this morning at 8.30am. It was overcast and there was a refreshing cool breeze which was such a relief after the previous hot days. We had expected the first 20 miles to be really tough but it wasn't as hard as expected, aided by the coolness, and we felt in quite good spirits.

We passed mountains looming close on our left and huge expanses of green patchwork as far as the eye could see on the right, every shade of green in the palette –quite beautiful.

We went through the village of Crosby Ravensworth, which reminded us of a 1940s war film. In a tiny school playground in the middle of a country idyll a school mistress was ringing a hand bell to call in the children, while overhead flew a small plane doing loop the loops.

In the past couple of days we have passed some lovely stone bridges, over rivers and disused railway lines. Romantic and really picturesque.

We covered the first 20 miles on largely traffic free roads, we made good time and our friend met us on the road with more drinks then drove ahead to find a suitable place for lunch, which he did, the aptly named Weary Sportsman.

It begun to rain at midday and basically didn't stop for the rest of the day and not just a bit of rain, it absolutely bucketed down. We got soaked to the skin. The last 25 miles were particularly grim, not helped by another puncture which we had to repair on the side of the road then carry on for the last ten miles.

We entered Scotland and whooped as we passed the Scotland welcomes you sign. It feels unbelievable to us that we have actually cycled to Scotland from Cornwall in eight days.

We arrived at our B&B, Wauchope Cottage, which is a haven. The hosts are cyclists and did E2E themselves last year (so they understand!). They greeted us filthy and dripping(us that is), took our wet gear to dry, washed all our kit for us and fed us tea and banana cake. What care! We had dinner with our friend (who has been a great support and good company – like a guardian angel with a sports car!) and headed off to bed in this pretty place nestling in the mountains.

Tomorrow is our longest day – 81 miles of high peaks up the mountains to Peebles then on past Edinburgh. We are just over half way there and have done almost two thirds of the miles. We ache pretty much everywhere and look forward to our shorter days coming soon.

2 July 2009 – Leigh to Sedburgh – 79 miles

Today started on a low ebb. We had a really bad night's sleep in an over stuffy hot hot airless bedroom (next to the kitchen).

Much to our surprise we found life on the open road was much more refreshing than the hotel room and we cracked up 20 miles in pretty good time. We were trying to hook up with our friend who had unfortunately got stuck in a jam on the motorway (poor man) and he finally caught up with us at around mile 30.

Our friend has taken a few days out to give us back up during what will probably be the toughest four days of the trip, which we really appreciate. He brought his foot pump as our tyres were getting flat. Unfortunately, one tyre blew so we ended up having to replace the inner tube. By this time it was becoming very hot and we realised that the promised thunderstorms would not materialise. We therefore had a day of merciless sun as we climbed up almost 1400ft through the fells of the Forest of Boland to the left of the Yorkshire dales. The scenery was absolutely stunning – huge rolling hills criss-crossed by stone walls with sheep roaming freely across our path.

Our friend drove ahead with our kit and met us at a pub for lunch. He then went ahead and dropped our panniers for us at the hotel.

Our biggest tests today were two massive peaks which we had to tackle in our lowest gears, the ascent went ON and ON and ON and for over three hours we climbed and crossed in open country with no sign of shade from the overbearing heat. It was really tough.

We arrived in Sedburgh after 11 hours on the road – too many, we are shattered and sunburned.

1 July 2009 – Market Drayton to Leigh – 50 Miles

We didn't want to leave the B&B this morning as it was so nice. If you are ever in Market Drayton check out Brooklands as it is a beautiful house with a very friendly and considerate host and provides lovely toiletries and choccies and a fabulous breakfast. We allowed ourselves the luxury of not setting off till 10am as it was a shorter 50 mile day as well as being the flattest day.

We passed through nice countryside but largely on A roads which had a lot of traffic, so you tend to focus on that rather than the scenery. Mind you, I did see a bunch of sheep under a tree cooling off and gently baaing, I felt like joining them and settling down among them for a shady snooze!

We passed trough the village of Audlem which for some reason was full of union jacks, all public buildings and lots of private homes had flag poles, all flying the red white and blue, it looked like Queen Victoria's jubilee (have we missed some important event we are wondering?).

It was hot again, though rather than feel like we were under blow torches it felt less harsh, more like being forced to lie under a sun bed all day.

We passed through Knutsford where we stopped for a snack before pressing on. There have been loads of very expensive cars on the roads which we put down to us being between Manchester and Liverpool (football wealth).

We passed Warburton (as in the bread!) and over a lovely old iron bridge that crossed the Manchester ship canal. It is a weak bridge so they were controlling the number of vehicles passing over it and charging 25p to cross (isn't that sweet?).

Smells have been a theme of the journey to date, some lovely and some not so! The lovely ones include cut grass as we pass through villages of proud gardeners and beautiful gardens, parched roads just after there has been a shower on a really hot day, lovely Jasmine, and freshly cut wood as we passed a guy doing giant wood carving on the side of the road. The bad smells however generally involve farms and manure, lots of it, enough said about that!

Given the shorter day and the absence of any hills to negotiate we managed to keep up a good pace and we arrived in Leigh just after 3pm (only five hours in the saddle – joy!). We seem to always end up in hotels that are on noisy main roads, today we are on a large roundabout signposted Manchester one way and Liverpool the other, we fear a noisy night.

Let me finish by sharing our end of day routine. We check into the hotel and firstly put the bikes away in whatever secure place the hotel can give us. The next critical step removing our filthy stinking kit and having a shower – absolute bliss every single time! Next its the charging job – sat nav, walkie talkies and mobile phones. Then we wash the kit and hang it on the washing line we string up across the room (or if we have the luxury of a heated towel rail we use that). Once those chores are out of the way we spend time stretching our aching bodies to try and keep injury at bay and pain at a manageable level! Next we write the blog and read the great emails and texts you are sending us before we then get the maps out and go over the route for the next day. Finally, we eat and then sleep after watching the news to keep up with what's happening in the world and checking out the all important weather forecast for the coming day.

Then we wake up and do it all again! We think the next three days are going to be really hard, they are all over 75 miles and all look to be tough terrain. On a positive note our friend who is giving us back up for a few days has just phoned to tell us that he will be with us to take the panniers tomorrow morning. We hadn't expected him until the following day so that is very welcome news. Six days down nine to go. Thank you for the emails and text messages, we look forward to reading them at the end of the day and they are great for our morale.

30 June 2009 – Fownehope to Market Drayton – 80 miles

The kind man at our B&B last night agreed to lend us his washing machine so we could wash our kit. We then hung them all over a bench in the beer garden to dry. I think the manager was concerned we were planning to move into the garden! We slept badly as the room was so hot with very little ventilation so we woke up still feeling tired. We said goodbye to our friends, leaving the two biggest panniers with them as the fab folk drove them to the next B&B for us.

Today was mainly overcast and there was generally a light breeze which was a very big relief after the past couple of days. The first 40 or so miles was undulating but we were able to cycle up the hills, that is until we hit mile 58 when we suddenly found ourselves staggering up an unmade track, through woods; it was full of rubble, bricks, boulders and was generally rock climbing with bikes (it was actually the Wrekin we were crossing). We climbed up in this staggering fashion for about half an hour. I thought I might expire at the top. But I popped a glucose tablet in my mouth and we sped up and on to Little Wenlock!

Today felt pretty tough mentally, our legs are beginning to hurt now and we were tired from the poor night's sleep. It began to rain as we stopped for lunch and we cut quite sad figures hunched under our waterproofs in a field just off a busy road!

Again we passed through some lovely countryside and pretty villages but we were too tired to fully appreciate much of it but. One particular sight of a verge full of red and pink poppies stays in my mind and made me smile.

We stopped to ask someone directions and he asked us where we were going and then replied "oh yeah, been there done that" – very supportive!!

The last 20 miles was reasonably flat but seemed to go on forever. We were really relieved to arrive at the B&B, Brooklands.The owner promptly invited us into his beautiful lounge were he had tea and cake waiting for us – how lovely.

So we have now completed one third of the journey, we bought five maps with us and we now have almost finished two! These symbolic milestones become very important.

29 June 2009 – Farrington Gurney to Fownhope, via Wales! – 71 miles

Thankfully our dear friend turned up at our hotel in the morning at 9am in order to take our enormous panniers to our next stop. Thanks so much mate.

The B&B was great – a renovated barn called The Croft – and a really comfy place to crash in. Today was exciting as we went into our Wales following the cycle path over the Severn bridge – very shaky with lorries thundering past – and then swooped down a very scary A road to Tintern Abbey.

Our stay in Wales was brief as we began our climb north. The countryside has been phenomenal today and at times breathtaking particularly going through the Wye valley via the back roads.

The biggest problem today of course has been the weather. We woke up this morning and groaned as we heard heavy rain. That soon cleared and we spent the day under an unbearable sun that really felt punishing on the long, long climbs up through the Forest of Dean. We couldn’t drink enough and had to stop regularly.

We arrived at about 6pm to be greeted by our friends who founded the Seham Village appeal. 11 days to go.

28 June – South Molton to Farrington Gurney – 80 miles

The lovely lady at Stumbles B&B made us doorstep cheese sandwiches to take because she was worried we "wouldn't find lunch on a Sunday around here" – an act of human warmth that made us both smile.

Another thanks to our friend who having looked at our route for today rang to say we were mad and would be walking all day due to the ascents. Thanks to that emergency call we changed our route and lost all but one of the horrific ascents.

After worrying about today, it was more manageable than we had expected, helped hugely by the fact that most of the day was overcast and breezy. We wilted on the couple of occasions the sun showed itself.

We hit trouble late on at mile 68 at 4pm when we hit our third successive collection of hills. These were the Mendip hills just outside Bristol and we had to push the bikes up several miles of hill as the gradient (30 per cent) and length was too much for us to cycle. At the top, covered in sweat and dead flies, we found a B road much loved by motor bikers who roared past us a few feet to our right at 60 miles an hour!! Horrid.

We enjoyed the fast and exciting descent which delivered us to the A39 about six miles from our destination, where we finally arrived after 80 miles and ten hours on the road.

So we have left Cornwall and Devon behind us and we are now in Somerset, one fifth of the journey down.

27 June – Tintagel to South Molton – 57 miles

We set off at 9am and had a long climb out of Tintagel. We had thought today would be easier as once we had reached the highest ascent early on (791ft) it seemed to be reasonably on a level for the main part of the day. How wrong we were, today we were faced with some very steep climbs; lots of 'spikey' ascents (one hill 25 per cent gradient) that were gruelling and we had to walk up three – even that felt hard work! Some amazing views of green rolling Devon countryside from the peaks though.

Prior to some of those sharp ascents were equally sharp descents and our speed got up to a very hair raising 30 miles an hour.

We encountered a large snake on the road at one point , slithering beautifully and a bit creepily!

The heat was intense today – I have just heard the weatherman say the young and the elderly can struggle when it's this hot – for the record, middle aged cyclists struggled too.
But it is amazing how little things we normally don't consider come into focus as something good, for example it's amazing how pleasant sitting on the wall of a garage forecourt with a cheese sandwich can be when you are hungry and exhausted.

On the same forecourt a man in a sports car befriended my partner, quizzing him about our ride, he gave us a donation of £1, which will of course be divided between our two charities!

We are now at our B&B in South Molton, we have a washing line strung up across the room with our washed and dripping kit hanging from it! We anxiously look forward to tomorrow. A 77 mile day which we fear will be even hillier.

26 June – Land's End to Tintagel – 78 miles

As we left London yesterday we were full of anxious energy; had we forgotten anything, would the very precarious looking bikes last the wobbly six hour journey in the car?

Today we set off at 9am from the official start line (yes there really is one). The first ten miles, while pretty undulating, weren't too bad. We passed through a really pretty town called Marazion which looked out to St Michael's Mount. We reached Penzance ten miles in and one hour down. Our lunch was curtailed as having stopped on a grass verge and got ourselves comfy with sarnies we were approached by a large Alsatian from a house nearby. We sat very still and it went away only to come back five minutes later even nearer. Given my 'dog attack' scenario during training we decided to cut lunch short and leg it!

Heat!. There was lots of it, mentally we had prepared ourselves for the terrible weather promised by the morning TV however, the sun shone for most of the day and blasted us with heat on our long gasping ascents up the hills of Cornwall. It felt like we had chosen a route to include more or less every hill from top to bottom! So today we had some really horrible ones. Several times we struggled up a hill reaching what we thought was the peak before a left or right turn revealed a further rise about as steep as the escalators on the tube – and there is plenty more to come. Today we had a first as we approached the hotel – a hill that was too steep to cycle DOWN so we walked the bikes down with our bodies at 45 degrees to the floor!

A nice dinner and we were ready for sleep. One down, 14 to go.

22 June – four days to go

There has been a last minute change to the route, rather than go round the Grampians via Forfar and Huntley we are now going through them via Pitlochry and Aviemore. This is because there is a cycle path running along the A9 and this will save us about 50 miles over three of the days. Mind you it will be hillier than the other route – so we may live to regret that decision!

With only four days to go before we commence the madness we spent the weekend not cycling (hurrah!) but resting and doing final logistics. The spare room is full of our kit and we continue to try and find small things we can cut out to keep weight down!

Various parcels have been posted to ourselves along the route including the 4ft long bike bags which are now safely in the garages of the hotel in John O'Groats.

The routes are all loaded onto sat nav with five paper maps as back up with the route plotted on them.

Hotel reservations all confirmed, Vaseline purchased and return massages and osteopath appointments booked!!

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