Castle Arms Hotel Thurso

It rains on and off all night and I awake to a sodden tent and a damp sleeping bag where I must have rolled into the side. Great! Luckily the rain clears and the skies brighten, enabling me to dry my tent off on the outside of my pack.<br><br>Today's trek down the A99 is painfully slow. The landscape is quite bleak out here and the flow of traffic, much of it large lorries and motor homes, means jumping on and off the ...

... on his ride. Then I notice the name on his charity t-shirt - Ben Cocker. My brother has a school friend of that name but I'm too nonplussed to ask and he peddles off to complete his journey leaving me wondering... It really would be a very small world, if he is my brother's friend! <br><br>Wick campsite is about half a mile out of the town by the river. It's a peaceful spot and I sit ...

There can't be many people who've started their John O'Groats to Land's End journey (JOGLE for the uninitiated) by spending the night before heading to the start at an '80s party with two Adam Ants, Batman and Batwoman, Freddie Mercury, a Rubik's cube and a Falklands battleship! Thanks to the RAF Kinloss Mountain Rescue team for the best party in a garage that I've ever been to!<br><br>Getting to John O'Groats is a ...

... Orkney is a collection of a couple of decent sized islands and a whole bunch of little ones. On the smallest ones, way out in the North Sea, the only folks who live there are sea birds, mainly puffins. We stayed in the largest city in Orkney, Kirkwall, on Orkney Mainland. It is a bustling metropolis of six thousand Orcadians and a whole bunch of tourists. <br> Now why, you might ask, would anyone want to stay in a tiny town on a little island out between the North ...

... the sun only having risen at 10. Kirkwall is on the 59 degrees north- same as St Petersburgh. This means they get midnight sun- til about 12:30am, it rises again at about 3am in the summer. The also get northern lights in the winter which i guess makes up a little for the lack of sun. Interestingly, despite the chilly air there is not much frost- most of the Oarkenys are too close to the coast and the gulf stream tends to carry any frost away.

... suburbs of Edinburgh the rest of Scotland is surprisingly sparsely populated, with lots of little towns along the way. The towns here tend to have one high street, or main street, along the "highway" here and that's about it. Some of them are downright adorable like Creif with it's little flags and hanging baskets of flowers. The natural scenery is also amazing, with awe inspiring bens and glens. We hit what we think is the edge of the ...

... first evening that guests arrive aboard, and tonight was no exception. We are joined by the Captain, the Pilot and all the Department Heads, all of our guests, and anyone else from the area that we have met or do business with. The tour guides that will be showing us the islands also joined us. For cocktail parties I&#8217;m encouraged to invite guests whom I have met and that morning I met a couple in their late 30&#8217;s that were visiting from London. I invited them to join ...

The English east coast is lined with magical spots where the deep north sea meets the slab reef and churns out some glorious waves. On a rare occasion: when the east coast swell hits, the winds blow gently offshore, the car starts, planets align etc. - some of the breaks can be world class and almost devoid of crowds. Surfing in the era of ever improving neoprene has brought surfing into a new ice age, the never-ending endless summer style search for the perfect wave has expanded ...

... are armed police following everyone they don't recognize as Phil and Carl found out when the went for a walk and a pint. Angie (my sis) and Iain (her fiancé) made us feel extremely welcome with a massive carbonara with lashings of Rioja. Carl and Phil especially needed the carbohydrate since they had cycled 0.3 miles this far. We all slept well and were up early as a result of the sun streaming through the ...

... I inadvertently had my key out and James saw what room we had and his was next to ours. How convenient, or so he thought! I went up to the room, by myself, I might add and while trying to fall asleep, the phone rang. Neither of us answered it and a couple minutes later was a loud knock on the wall above the beds. We stayed silent and there was another pound I was starting to get scared by this point. Finally it stopped and we never heard from them again.