From End to End - over £3,000 raised to reduce carbon emissions

So I rode a bicycle from Land's End to John o'Groats between mid-July and mid-August 2007 because I wanted to and also to raise money to reduce carbon emissions.
Thanks to everyone who preferred to sponsor the trip for this mighty cause rather than wring their hands in despair. May the wind not be in your face, the rain not run down your neck, and the sun not burn your skin. Sponsorship as of 16 October 2007: £3,213 (92 sponsors).
The trip blog appears below, most recent posting first (i.e. start at the bottom and work up!).

Where the money has gone

The money raised will help to cut the carbon emissions of the organisation that I worked for and admire – British Quakers. If you’re not a Quaker (nor am I), then please take my word for it that they are worthy recipients of the money.

Simple, contemporary, radical: Quakers were instrumental in setting up Greenpeace, Oxfam, Amnesty, Campaign Against Arms Trade and others, and were also pioneers in the abolition of the slave trade. They've never made oats (that's true). Find out more about Quakers.

The money will help to buy a glamourous new combined heat and power boiler for the Quaker central office, Friends House - these boilers are ecologically responsible, shiny and horribly expensive. Yes, it's a bit boring but it will cut carbon emissions. Find out more about CHP boilers (oh go on!).

07 August 2007

The real north

I'm now one day short of John o'Groats. Some of the other end-to-enders I've met can't wait to get there and go home. Most people ride the distance in two weeks because that's all their employers will allow them. My managers try to say yes to requests and didn't mind letting me go for a month. I can take the back roads, stop to have a look at whatever comes up, and have a few rest days for mooching about and visiting friends, so the journey's a journey, not a mission to reach the end point riding 70 miles a day on all the main roads. And it's not been a cycling summer. It rarely rains all day but there have been a few days like that in the last fortnight alone, and it has rained at least some of the time almost every day in the same period. Add to that the high winds from unhelpful directions, the cold, and the drone and tedium of the A roads, and it's not suprising that some end-to-enders have had enough. In the bunk next to me last night were a father and a teenage son who'd ridden up from Land's End on a tandem on a two week trip to John o'Groats. They've not only had the elements to deal with, but their relationship, too - pretty inescapable on a tandem. From the way they talked about the trip, I guessed it had been tough - both said they just wanted to go home. They were clearly disappointed - their holiday hopes unrealised - and I felt for them. But I imagine they won't forget this holiday and it will stay with them as something that holds them together for the rest of their lives.
In Lairg I bought some Powerade. It's isotonic, which means 'good for gullible people'. Amundsen (I think), who led the first successful expedition to the south pole, gave his team the following nutrition advice (wise this is, listen carefully you should): never eat what a dog won't eat. So if you've walked 50 miles and can't wait to sink your scurvied teeth into a piece of raw seal blubber, throw it to the dogs first. If they eat it, you can too, if there's any left. Well I'd like to fill a hungry dog's bowl with blue Powerade and see what it does, because I think it would rather drink its own urine, or someone else's. However, with no dog available, I took a swig of the Powerade I'd bought and rode on.
The Lairg-Tongue road is one of the most remote in Britain, running for 38 miles over the north highland moors with nothing on the way except a pub. The wind, which was forecast at 29mph in Lairg and would be more than that in the hills, was from the north-west today, so I was only managing 7mph and going uphill. Every ten minutes or so, a car passed, but otherwise there was nothing up there - no people, anyway, or any signs of them apart from the road. The open moor stretched out its grey body without visible end in every direction. It was a bleak day and the skies were so low there seemed no room between them and the earth; they pressed down on the moortops, wanting to rain. The heather was purple and orange - the only colours that were not a variation on grey. The landscape here, being most untouched, is most itself. I remember coming past Birmingham, where most of the landscape is not itself anymore - the wilderness is of an urban kind down there. Here the face of the earth speaks for itself - simple, austere, beautiful, distant. It's what left when everything's been taken away. To be there is to be shaken down to a basic self.
The road dips briefly into Althanarra, a hamlet where there's a pub. In there was no-one but a retired couple, who quickly told me that they'd climbed every munro - Scottish mountain above 3,000ft, of which there are more than 200 - and were now working their way through the corbets - mountains over 2,500ft. These were munro baggers - people who collect mountains like others collect the numbers of trains, climbing hills for a purpose that has nothing to do with the hills themselves. 'It's difficult to enjoy it,' one of them said, 'because you're just going up to tick the next one off the list.' Well, that's pretty honest. It reminds me that I passed a trainspotter on a railway bridge somewhere down south. He was standing on a little stepladder and his camera was ready for the train when it came. 'Is there a steam train coming?' I asked. 'No,' he replied, looking away - no smile, no joy, no point. There's a lot about this universe I don't understand.
Leaving Althanarra, the road climbs again. The rain started up (and didn't stop for the rest of the day), and it wasn't long, in such a wind, before I was wet through. Perversely (I recognise), I was loving every minute of it. Up ahead, I saw the father and son on their tandem, crawling up the hill, wobbling over the road in their lowest gear. If they'd come from Land's End like that, every mile would have been a hardship. I drew level. They were dripping wet, fighting against the wind with every turn of the pedals, and their faces said it all - fed up and yet determined to keep going. I rode next to them for a chat but I think, although they tried to be cheerful, it was better that I left them, so I did. Wise guy, but I so didn't want to be.
Eventually, I reached the top of the hill, and Tongue on the north coast. A howling wind blowing chilly sheets of rain from the sea was my welcome - at the height of summer - but through the mist I could see that this is an exceptionally beautiful place. Turning east, I had the wind at my back for the next 12 miles to Bettyhill, where I'm camping tonight, if the tent doesn't blow away.
Sarah posted a comment asking about the state of my botticelli - blessed are those who post comments on the blog. Well, it's like this: If I bent over and you whacked my bottom with a cricket bat, sandblasted it, and tried to file it down, I could still be playing the violin without a murmur or pause, if I could play the violin at all - that's how resilient to impact and chafing my bottom now is. Om shanti!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a fantastic photo. Glad you are being process driven and not goal driven. Joy can be found in every moment even if it is one where you being pelted with rain whilst cycling with the wind in your face. Congratulations for making it all the way and thanks for allowing me(us) to share in it without leaving our offices (!) love sarah
P.S tempted to test your theory about your bottecelli when you get back!