The boat was much calmer when I woke up, I was quite surprised to have slept so well. My smart watch said I had slept 6 h 44m, but I’m sure I woke up a lot.

It looked a sunny day as Aberdeen quickly came into view. We were soon down in the car deck and got unloaded really quickly. I said goodbye to Francesco. He was putting his patented plastic carrier bag system inside his shoes. He showed me a picture of himself at the North Cape wearing proper overshoes, but he said they were rubbish and much more expensive than plastic bags. Although I’m not quite sure why he was putting them on as it was sunny and not raining. There was quiet an array of big ships in Aberdeen Harbour, its certainly something you don’t see very often around my way.

First thing was to try to find breakfast. It was only 8:30 and there was nothing obvious open near at the port entrance. In fact the port just opened out onto a Decathlon (normally irresistible to me) and a big shopping centre. I tried a couple of Wetherspoons which were shut, the McDonalds was right in the middle of town centre roadworks and parking my bike would have blocked the pavement. So I ended up in a Greggs for a rather sad breakfast roll with hash brown. The sleeper train wasn’t leaving until 8 pm so I had about 12 hours to usefully use in Aberdeen.

I used a feature on my Garmin to give me a 30km circular ride to the south of the city and headed off. It didn’t take long to find out it was still very gusty, and was a bit silly riding fully loaded on the roads the app had chosen.  I made it south of the river and found myself in a nice park, with a bench and  view, so spent time finishing yesterdays blog.  I’d identified Aberdeen Art Gallery as a place to visit and headed there at opening time. Magically a school car park next to the gallery had a parking attendant in a box. He was happy to look after my bike and luggage, what a result and a load of my mind. The Gallery was good, did a good lunch, and I was probably in there for over three hours.

The gallery had provided clues for other places to visit, so I cycled down to the esplanade and beach. There was a fierce on-shore wind, but the wide promenade gave a good training area for experimenting in the cross winds. It was good fun as I didn’t fall off.

I rode up the coast to the north, and then circled inland which took me to the university district and St Machar Cathedral. Its a really old part of town and the cobbled streets were vicious on my backside, but the views were worth it. I even (think I) found a stone laid for William Wallace. There was no annotation, but I think it was based on information i could find. This was due to slow travel, with plenty of time to look at maps and information at each location I stopped at. With time to burn, there was no rushing.

This area also showed real evidence of last nights storm with branches down everywhere and even a whole tree blocking the road. I had intended to visit the Botanical Garden, perhaps unsurprisingly, these were closed.

In the city centre I eventually found a pub with outside seating, where I could keep an eye on my bike, for a beer. Aberdeen doesn’t seem to go for the continental outside cafe culture of the South – I don’t know why!

I headed to the station fashionably early (about 3 hours) and locked my bike to a bike rack. The rack was relatively secluded and outside a Transport Police Station. So hopefully it will be OK. I can lock the bike up, and the main bags onto the bike, but I can’t do anything to stop people opening the bags. I’d hate to lose all my dirty washing at this stage of the trip. This allowed a walk around the shops and buying food for the journey. The Caledonian Sleeper was running (it had been cancelled the night before due to the storm) and was on time. Some trains were cancelled, including those to Inverness, which was the same direction my train was travelling in [edit – its in the completely opposite direction   –  geography is not my strong point haha]

I met up with Roger again, and he’d had a similar, very long, day trying to use up time. For the journey home, I’d treated myself to a solo cabin. When I was working out train and ferry cost it exactly doubled my overall budget. It was £205, with railcard, but my thinking was that I didn’t fancy two nights running sleeping in a seat, and if you think of it as including a hotel cost, it’s less painful. [Spookily, All the other travel costs; the sleeper seat up, ferries to Hebrides, Orkney, Shetland etc came to £205] The bikes went in the seating coach, where Roger was, and I walked down to the sleeper rooms. There were only three carriages, but more carriages are picked up on its way to London.

The cabin was fine. Its small if you are as big as me, but the bed was comfortable. The beds were already set up (not unreasonably at 9pm) but this made it hard to look out the window. I slept OK, but would have probably done just as well in a seat, so maybe a seat next time. There was a complimentary coffee before arriving at Euston at 7:45 am.

After arriving in London Euston, it was great wheeling my bike slowly up one platform, with the hordes of commuters rushing up another. I preferred my platform! Where the two flows of travellers met was a bit awkward with a bike, but I managed to traverse the flow (ferry glide!), get to the edge, and find some tarmac to set my wheels on.

I do like riding through London, especially with a satnav. It is amazing that so many cyclists are manoeuvring at different speeds, taking different paths all with a minimum of traffic control and yet there are few crashes. I think it’s like people walking in a crowd, we (humans), have innate behaviours to avoid collisions. Just googling this shows lots of papers on the subject – but I don’t think we know all the answers yet. When you cycle on the Cycle Super Highway (along the embankment), the speed, proximity and density of cyclists increases, but as the movement is only in two directions, the bikes are getting closer and more potential for head on crashes, and yet it flows super smooth. The number of cyclists in London is really good to see, with only 1 or 2 idiots (in black on e-bikes). There are quite a lot of red light jumpers (or rather people who cycle across intersections slowly), but they are not causing any problems – except aggravating the car drivers. It was a fun ride and I soon got to London Bridge and a train home.

So, some reflections on the trip. It was one of the best journeys I’ve done, right up there with the Arctic and Iceland. The remoteness attracts proper travellers (and  particularly cyclists), which means quality interactions with other people. The contrast of visiting 16 (I think) different islands was quite striking.

On the Outer Hebrides the difference between Vatersay and Barra, which are an almost 5 hour ferry from the mainland, and Stornoway at the other end, which is a 2 hour ferry is huge. Stornoway felt like a proper UK town, with lots of bustle, despite it being a Sunday, while further south in Lewis its tiny hamlets with a dependence on small petrol station shops. However, Harris and Lewis are almost urban compared to the Uists, which feel so remote. Benbecula between the Uists, provides the main services, including the Hospital, but it still seems incredibly remote from what I’m used to in the South of England  when you can pretty much get what you want, when you want it.

The Northern Isles are quite different again. Orkney feels like it is still connected to the mainland and has pretty good services and sizable main towns. Obviously, the islands like Hoy are much more remote, but their size and proximity to the Mainland (Orkney Mainland) mean that you are never too far from civilisation (or a museum cafe). Shetland is completely different. It has the feel of a completely different country. I was often surprised when people spoken English. The evidence of the oil money is clear with really good roads, leisure centres in even tiny towns and what looks like a good standard of living.

A question I was asked over breakfast in the last (fancy) campsite was “which was my favourite place”. Its a difficult question. I particularly enjoyed  North Uist, with its beautiful beaches (and excellent camping spot) but with good shops and not too many hills. Although the pesky “insect” that screeched all night was a pain, but when I found out it was a quite rare Corncrake, I felt much better about it. Also Shetland, because of the reasons mentioned earlier, its feel of it being its own country together with the remoteness and wildness of it.

Finally, the cycle across the Highlands was great. It was so good to retrace (in reverse) my ride from Lairg to Thurso, ten years after I’d ridden it as the second day of my John O’Groats to Lands End ride. Even now it seems surprising that I achieved the End to End feat, and it was great to relive those emotions.

One final reflection on my equipment. I teased you earlier when I introduced my chair, but didn’t give any details. After two weeks I’d say it’s a game changer. I didn’t use it all of the time, and I’m still happy sitting on the floor for cooking, but having an option to sit is so good. You will of had to spend some time without a chair to fully appreciate how good it is to have one. The chair could be the second greatest invention of all time, second to the bicycle, obviously. I genuinely believe the bicycle is the greatest invention ever – I can’t think of any significant situations where the (acoustic) bicycle has been used for evil*, it is always used for good (of the rider or others). [* Maybe Deliveroo, which is bad for the riders employment  conditions and the fast food recipients. But I always find film of soilders on bikes with guns funny].  I’m rambling! I’d had my eye on a chair for a while, but the maximum load was a bit too close to my weight – not giving a good factor of safety. I was worried that I could sit on a very expensive chair and break it the first time I used it. I recently found they make a heavier duty version – only weighing 100 or so grams more than the standard version (600 grams) but rated at 140kg – a risk worth taking. It has been great.

Another change for this year was how I use QGIS (GIS) to plan a lot of my rides. It’s an open source, completely free Geographical Information System. Usually during my planning I put points of interesting places, campsites, shops etc on a map,and use this to developed a route (using cycle.travel website/app). Normally I try to create pdf prints of the maps and save them to my phone so I can refer to them during my ride. However, I recently discovered QField, an app that lets you download and open QGIS workspaces on a mobile app. It really makes QGIS very useful in the field.

The Final figures – Total Dist Cycled 999 km, (620 miles) 13 Ferries, 4 Trains

I used a spreadsheet to form the above text/conversion of the mileages, so the numbers are accurate. I did another 8 km through London, but I rather like the 999km total, so I’m not adding it.

And finally thanks for reading, and for your comments, as while I feel I’m generally writing this for myself, it’s nice that others are interested in it. As usual I will go back and try to correct some of the more glaring errors – the result of writing this on a phone and in a variety of strange places whole it is fresh in my mind.

What’s next…..