LeJog ... the journey back to John O'Groats

Day 1

Riding went very well indeed, and Nick rode from Lands End to Tewkesbury.  We stayed at the Caravan Club site adjacent to the abbey.  The wardens were lovely, and gave me a pitch close to the gates, because I would have to accompany Nick to the gates the next morning with a key to let him out.

At around 9pm I realised that when I'd done my shopping for the day, I'd forgotten to buy double cream, which is the most calorie intensive part of Nick's breakfast on cycling days, so the wardens gave me directions to the One Stop, the only shop open late at night.  I got there at 9.05pm to

JogLe (John O'Groats to Lands End)

Day 1

Loch Ness - with not a monster in sight

For me, there was a little excitement on the road watching one of the swinging bridges between lochs swinging open to let some water traffic through.  Sadly I had to scuttle back to the van to get ready to move off too soon!

The journey north

The pick  up  in  Rugby went off very smoothly and I have 3 pendants and 2 chains to show for my journey up there, because I stopped off and did a little shopping with a friend from school, Wendy Warren.  She has a website for her jewellery, and her stuff is absolutely gorgeous!

Traffic on the M6 was horrendous (what a non-surprise), but I was very happy to be going northbound - south was much much worse.

We spent the night just north of Gretna.   Yo Scotland!  I haven't been here since 1976!  This was our first night ever in a lay by, and went really well too,  but I confess there is a Britstop a couple of miles away just in case we didn't like it.

The layby that hosted our first night of Wild Camping

The onward journey from Gretna to John O'Groats was uneventful and we arrived early afternoon.

Departing Tomorrow

Well, that's certainly come round rather fast.  Clothes sorted and packed.  Stuff to keep me amused, and the 'tech' gear has gone in today.  Now we have pretty much everything except  us.  Tonight we will fill the tanks, commission the toilet, pop to the garage for a bit of diesel, and have a very early night!!

I think I more or less have the 24 hour monitor thing sorted now too.  Yesterday's phone call to the doctors surgery, was nothing short of depressing.  No appointments available, and an instruction to phone daily until an appointment was available.  So bizarre that I started thinking that it would be a hell of a lot less stressful to just turn up my tootsie and die.  Anyway, I duly made the required phone call today, spoke to a different person, who said I didn't need doctors appointment at all, that Patient Services (whoever they are), would contact me with a date/time to come in and pick up the monitor etc.
No idea who long that will take.  I hope its not too long, because not knowing what is going on is just a 'tad' stressful, and stress is something that I'm supposed to be reducing.

I almost forgot our large pot of loose change for parking machines and laundromats.   That would have been catastrophic!

I'm now sitting around, with no maps open on my PC, no piles of stuff to pack or do.  I feel rather at a loss.

Did you guess it right?

I confess that I am quite delighted with the way this storage bag has worked out.  With poppers at both ends, it stays on the table leg forever.  I like stuff that never has to be stored away.

Departure -3

This morning has gone very well indeed.  I've been having a few issues the last week with my pulse being about 25% lower than is usual for me, and been stressing a bit that I would end up being incarcerated (admitted to hospital), putting a total spanner on the Jogle works.  Thankfully, the nurse at my Cardio Rehab sessions has recommended that I have a 24 hour heart monitor instead (have to wait for a GP appointment to get that ball rolling so won't be anytime soon), and gave me a guideline as to when to leg it for casualty in terms of pulse.  If it goes 6-10 bpm lower than the lowest its gone so far, I'm to pack myself off to the ER.

I've now got everything properly loaded on my Garmin in the van (Yippee ... that sometimes fights with me to the point of wanting to fling it out the window)  Everything is still going so smoothly that I've made plans to pop in and visit a friend on Friday afternoon on my way to Rugby to pick Nick up.

Rugby ... strange place to be picking Nick up really, but it makes perfect sense.  The quickest way to get him out of the London congestion etc is by train, so why not make it a train journey long enough to get away from all the London and surrounds weekend traffic.  His train should come into Rugby station, about the same time as he would get home, but, I'll have been driving for about 4 hours when we meet in Rugby.  It means we can get to John O'Groats a little earlier on Saturday than we otherwise would be able to.

Departure -4

The routing is complete, apart from waiting for the ink to arrive to finish printing off the way points for Nick's backup.  We've even highlighted the route on the paper map book.  We do still need to load the way points, routes and tracks onto the GPS units, but that is all.

We still feel like everything is under control.  We are still worried that we must have missed something big.

Have made a storage bag today.  Have you worked out how it works?  Answers on a postcard (which means in the comments) please.  I will tell you that it has got something to do with the table leg.  During the contruction process of the van, when we were sorting out the fabric for the upholstery, I got a "few" metres of some upholstery fabric from the guy doing the job in a co-ordinating colour for things like this.

I've used Kam Snaps for the closures at both ends.  I absolutely love these little things!  You need to have one of the Kam snap pliers though, they can't be used without it.



Also need to sort out covering a bit of wood we'll be using a temporary shelf, and a little strap to keep all the remoska bits together.  The remoska is already in a bag, but all the bits strapped toogethr will be helpful.

And, we forgot to do the bike light adjusting after dark yesterday, so will have to make a concerted effort to remember tonight.  Its not something we want to be doing at 4am on Sunday morning!!

Departure -5

We've mostly had the entire day off today, spending it with family.
Did a little van rearranging this morning, and will print out whatever is needed for my reference file this evening, and make sure that everything necessary is transfer to the assortment of Garmin devices.

This evening will be spent making sure there is nothing unnecessary in the van cupboards/lockers, and tomorrow, we will pack the van other than clothes/food.  Can't believe tomorrow is the last non working day before we leave.

Happily my body seems to be functioning much better today.  Hip is prepared to do some moving (had a shortish walk of about 3 miles on virtually flat ground, but still not driving, because I don't want to antagonise it), and although I still feel a little off, not quite as off as yesterday :)

Nick still has a little bit of fiddling about to do with his water bottles (drawing lines on them for the ration of gunk to water), checking angle of his lights (scheduled for after dark tonight), and prepping his tools and spares to be loaded in the van.  He also still needs to show me the recipe for his current food drink.

We feel like everything is going too well at this point.  The only 'disaster' is running out of ink while printing off the waypoint sheets, but as there is ample time to get in some ink to complete the job, it really isn't a disaster!

Departure -6

I'm not feeling particularly "on form" today, so will try and take it easy, and keep stress to a minimum.  I think the prep for this trip may be more stressful than I imagined it would be, and that is very definitely having a negative effect on me.  So ...
Factors that mean I don't need to be stressing or worrying about any of this ...
1.  The actual routes are complete, only some stop cataloging still needs work on.  If I don't do that, it doesn't matter because I can pull up stops from the various apps, and just text Nick Lat/Long instead of a stop number.
2.  It doesn't really matter if we are ready or not on Friday.  All that really needs to be done is put clothing in the van, cos I can buy anything else along the way.  Of course Nick's bike stuff also needs to go in, but I never get involved with that anyway.
3.  It doesn't matter if we don't actually even do this thing, or don't stick to the estimated schedules or anything.  We can bail and just holiday at any point.
4.  I shall point blank refuse to get on the cross-trainer at rehab on Tuesday, because the pain in my left hip and shoulder is enough that I'm concerned that I can't drive properly.  Its improving, but will be really bad if I let them put me on it again on Tuesday.

OK  ... so ... strategy in place.  Breathing and relax, breathe and relax.

Today, I shall spend some time on my waypoint spreadsheet, and after today, not look at it at all, whether it is finished or not.

A week until we set off from home

To speed up our journey northwards, Nick will be catching a train to Rugby, and I'll pick him up from there.  That neatly puts us out of London, in the right direction and sidesteps the Friday afternoon/evening traffic.  I just have to ensure that I leave home in good time and don't get stuck in some earlier traffic of my own, leaving him lurking around the station for ages.

The countdown timer reflects when the cycling will start, which is why there is a discrepancy between its countdown and my Departure countdown.  It will take many many hours of driving to get up to John O'Groats.  We are hoping to get there early afternoon on Saturday, take a little time out to explore, and then have a very early night.

We went out for dinner last night, just to have the evening off thinking about this trip, and I think we succeeded.  We only mentioned routing a couple of times, and stopped talking about it as soon as we realised what we were doing.

Nick is having a 'late start' day today, and is replacing bits on the road bike that he took off for the service it had on Monday.  He plans to start work around 11am today, which of course means that he will be at work far later than usual, and get back home again really late too.  This isn't too much of a bother for me in terms of planning stops, because he is quite good at checking the roads/paths he'll be cycling at lunch time and sending any adjustments, so his odd working hours for today shall have a minimal impact on planning.

Technology is proving to be a bit of a downer today.  Nick and I each have two phones ... a personal one, and then Nick has one that we call the bike's phone, and I have one that we call the van's phone.  Well the bike phone has died.  Rather annoying really, because its only a few months old, but it was a cheap pay as you go phone purchased in a hurry following a prior phone failure in the middle of a long ride.  Will have to order something today.  Nick's phone will become the bike phone, my phone will become Nick's phone (he never usually gets new phones, because he's quite heavy on them), the van phone will stay the van phone, and I will need to buy a new phone for me.  I love the Nexus we have for the van, but two identical phones ... nope ... things will not go well, I'll always have the 'wrong' one with me.

***  Have temporarily solved the phone problem but getting a cheap £20 phone off amazon for same day delivery.  We only need it to last a couple of weeks, and £20 is a 'small' price to pay to not have phone shopping distractions today.

Departure -8

Still frantically filling in info on my spreadsheet of possible stops, but not stressing about it too much, because I have downloaded every conceivable phone app to help me find campsites, laybys, water etc en route.

I also signed up to the Caravan Club last night (I really hope they don't think it's because I was so impressed by Caravaner of the Year), so increase the number of potential stops we have available to us.  It was a farcical process.  Their website (after filling in all the forms) told me that it was unable to allow me to join.  Ten minutes later I got an email with a membership number, but, I don't have a log in for the website/app, but that is sorted out now.

The Camping and Caravaning Club app thankfully only wants membership number, and not password, because there is no hope of me knowing what that is at this point.

Thank goodness the van has its own phone (really old contract with unlimited internet that I've never had the courage to cancel, because nobody gives unlimited internet anymore).  The screens are getting rather cluttered with mapping, and camping apps.  Quite a nice find, I think, was park4night.  It seems to have lots of parking areas, and laybys and things, much like WildCamping UK.

Also have an AA camping app, and WikiCamps installed.   It's a pity BritStops don't have an app, but all the regions that our route travels through have all their Britstops loaded as POIs in our Garmins now.  It took some time, but will be really useful for finding places on the fly, seeing as there is now very little of this trip that we can plan in advance, other than routing.

With all these park4night, BritStop and Wild Camping apps, it must really seem like we're freeloading motorhomers.  Not true at all, but, these informal places to park up, alongside roads etc, are the best possible overnight places for people that can't say in advance where they are going to be stopping.  I will be trying to pick an overnight place around 3 hours before we expect Nick to finish riding, but this could change moment to moment.

We are adjusting our Lands End back to John O'Groats course to go via Saltash in Cornwall.  Some of you ;) will know why, and this has lead Nick to decide to include a previous Devon Coast to Coast ride in the return journey, so I'm having to add stops and potential overnights for that area to my spreadsheet, as well as routing from the north end of that ride, back onto the Jogle route.

I'm also starting to realise just how little time is left, and that of that time, 3 days is weekend, of which 2 are fully booked.  *and breathe and relax and reach for the wine even though its midday ... *

Oh ... and ... if anyone has recommendations of apps that I haven't yet loaded, please let me know!!

Departure -9

Today has seen the last of the laybys/stopping places along the route catalogued, and waypointed for the satnavs (a couple of Garmins, and phones).  This has been quite a mammoth task, taking about 3 full days, with little else being done other than the waypointing.  Next step is a spreadsheet of them as a backup to GPS and phones can begin.   The spreasheet will also have contact  information, and facilities information (need to know where we can empty the toilet.  We have also bought in an additional cassette, so we can effectively have twice the toilet capacity if necessary.  The 2nd squeaky clean cassette is only for emergency use if we can't empty the first timeously.

I've also done a little work on how we can make the live tracking work for readers, as well as us.  You will be able to see the proposed cycle route on your tracking maps, which we cannot do on our phones, and both of us on the same map.

I've also come to grips with the blog format a little more and managed to add the relevant phones as 'authors' and such.  Be warned, my typing is atrocious on a touch screen, and the posts will be more like a cryptic crossword clue than anything that makes sense.

Now ... back to the spreadsheet.  Inputting all the contact and facilities information for just under 400 places is both boring, and time consuming :(

Departure -10

In just 10 days, we set off on our first 'major' adventure with our camper van (Footsack).  My husband intends to cycle from John O'Groats to Lands End, and Footsack and I will be support.  We're aiming to stop and sleep wherever he stops, and at the moment I am consumed with waypointing laybys, car parks, pubs etc that are happy to be used by overnighters.  I reckon this will take me another day or two to complete.

We had Footsack built for us by Camper Kong in Wigan, to meet our needs on cycle support journeys, and to be pleasant to holiday in, and although we've only had the van for 5 months, its filling our needs perfectly.

Footsack

Today we got Nick's bike back from its annual service too.  Hopefully nothing will go wrong with it during the ride.  Although we will be carrying spare tubes/tires and some other bits and pieces, we will not be carrying a spare bike.

Nick is hoping to cycle the WOW Cyclothon next year, and this will be a test for that in many ways.  An opportunity to iron out any problems with nutrition and muscles.  He is planning 2 new bikes for the WOW ride.