After eating my dinner in the bed and breakfast at the end of day two, a delightful meal purchased from both Lidl and Coop (which might have been pasta salad like) I enjoyed a really good nights sleep waking up before my alarm at around 5.30am.
Whilst I appreciate this is early, earlier than my normal every day 5.45am alarm call to walk the dog and get ready for work, the further north you are in the UK (and I guess on planet earth) in the summer months the earlier sunrise is. Its quite likely that daylight played a significant part in waking me up, but after almost 100 miles of cycling the previous day I felt surprisingly good as I grabbed a shower after a short doze and made my way through to enjoy breakfast.
I was joined by Charlie, the resident cockerel at the Acarsaid B & B. He lives there with his Angels, a group of hens and they have freedom to roam the large garden surrounding the property. At approximately 7.34am as I confirmed my breakfast choices with Kirsty (co-owner of the business) Charlie decided to announce that it was now time to wake up! Quite respectful for a cockerel.
Breakfast was delicious, another vegan haggis, oat cakes and other veggie delights. The perfect set up for day three, and I had a plan to cycle up to John O'Groats, take a few photos next to the signpost then head back to Wick to get a train for the bike and I down to Golspie to avoid the horrendous hills I had already encountered.
This might have been one of the best decisions I took on this adventure. I'd already cycled the route one way, had nothing to prove by cycling it again and also had a further 6 full days of cycling ahead of me. Decision made, breakfast enjoyed I then changed into my cycling gear, packed up, loaded the bike and said goodbye to Kirsty and James who had been the very best of hosts.
Whilst I had enjoyed a good nights rest my legs took a little time to get back into the rhythm of cycling. The weather was dry, sunny and warm as I set off on the A9 and the next few miles towards Wick were simply stunning, especially the view to the east of the road looking out to sea. After a little over an hour I reached Wick and headed onwards through the town towards John O'Groats.
Heading out of Wick past a Tesco (future lunch stop I noted to myself) I took a right turn onto the A99. The first part of this road runs parallel to a large expanse of sand dunes, I can't recall if the part of the journey was downhill, but with the sun shining, temperature increasingly slightly and minimal traffic the next 16 or so miles were quite perfect.
Before I knew it I was heading downhill towards the coast with several of the Orkney Isles ahead of me. Perfect blue sea, slightly hazy, but I felt a real sense of achievement as I headed further downhill towards the relatively small village / town that is John O'Groats. I'd guess that the daily visiting population is larger than the number of residents and as I was guided by satnav through the visitor centre car park (busy, full of camper vans and motorbikes...) within a few seconds I had stopped by the famous signpost.
Maybe I should have been a little more planned for this photo opportunity (I thought I would get a photo of Red the bike in front of the signpost and maybe a poorly captured selfie of me, Red and the signpost) but lucky for me a very kind gentleman had travelled all the way from New Zealand to offer to take my photo......and all he asked in return was that I take his photo next to Red the bike so he could tell his friends and family that he'd cycled to the most north easterly point of mainland Scotland / the UK in return.
I was only too happy to help (Red became an international star I'm sure as soon the he shared his photos!) but as I got back on the bike I realised that actually all I had achieved with this initial run of around 135 miles of cycling from Inverness was to get to the point of the start of my cycle back down to Liverpool !!!
Not that this was an anti-climax, the sun was still shining and I set off back uphill to get back to Wick. As I cycled away from the beautiful view of the Orkney Isles satnav was of little use - I'd only just cycled this way in reverse and there was only one road to take.
About 8 miles later I was once again cycling parallel to the sand dunes, and as I re-joined the A9 a few miles away from Wick the temperature was noticeably hotter.
Red is equipped with four water bottle holders all of which were full of water bottles filled with fresh water. Although the days cycling to this point was around 40 miles (give or take a mile or two) I was working my way through the water supplies a little faster than I had anticipated. Not a concern, there were plenty of opportunities to resupply especially as I was close to Wick once again, but as I pulled into the Tesco petrol station to pick up a meal deal (or two) I was a little concerned that satnav had gone a little quiet.
Once in the air conditioned petrol station shop, in which the lovely member of Tesco staff offered to fill up all my water bottles I realised why satnav had gone a little quite - my phone had a thermometer symbol on screen saying that it had overheated!!!
Day three , north eastern Scotland and my phone, my one source of satnav based guidance unavailable because my phone had overheated! Whilst I was calm (ish) the implications of no satnav for the week ahead was clearly a concern, as was my problem of cooling a phone down......I couldn't even google it!
Fortunately access to the shaded side of my bike handlebar bag for a few minutes as I cycled into Wick and satnav sprung back to life directing me to the train station. As I handed my phone to the lady in Wick train station ticket office to confirm my booking even she commented how hot my phone was (not that she suffered burns, but her comments didn't help my level of concern) as she printed off my train tickets.
Ticket for the trains acquired, one for me, one for Red I got on the train and placed Red in the bike space in the front carriage. I love train journeys so the decision to preserve myself physically combined with a meal deal (including a bottle of ice cold Irn Bru) and a train journey all helped calm me down. Its also worth noting that the train consisted of two carriages, and for the first few stations Red and I were the only occupants in this first carriage. It was a shock when other people, including a couple of dutch cyclists joined us for the journey west then south.
The phone overheating was likely to happen again over the course of the next few days so a plan needed to be formed to keep the phone cool but also allow satnav to provide the verbal and visual support I needed to guide me all the way down to Liverpool. As my sarnie, crisps and Irn Bru were consumed this sense of concern mellowed slightly, but for all my preparation over the previous few months prior to this adventure my phone overheating was not on my radar as even a possible risk. Whilst I had little chance of controlling the weather I would have to consider how to keep my phone as cool as could be to ensure I had any chance of hearing the all important directions.
As the train headed towards Thurso, and then I think reversed away from Thurso we trundled through more beautiful Scottish countryside on our way south. Before long we arrived at Golspie where Red and I alighted from the train, sat nav now cooled down guided me to my evening destination of the Golspie Inn.
As had been the same at each of my previous two stop overs the welcome, facilities and bike storage were once again excellent and after a shower , check in with Jan and the family and a quick rest I headed down to the Inn restaurant for dinner. Luckily for me even with a few staffing issues (and I didn't want to ask the details) the restaurant was serving dinner for staying guests.
Only slight issue was my dessert (a cheesecake) which whilst was delicious appeared without a topping or any flavoursome accompaniment (and I know first world problems, they did have a kitchen staffing issue....) but it was still carbs, well mostly sugar, and that was good enough for me.
Fed and watered I then retired to my lovely room, caught up on some social media posting, chatted to Jan and was soon thinking about sleep, rest needed even after a slightly shorter cycle (just under 50 miles for the day) because the next day on Red would get me back to Inverness and beyond into new uncharted territory.