Grant and Barbara

0DTM Wick to Bettyhill

Setting off

A good start. Grey and dry, windy and on our backs for most of the day. The 52 miles took in a great variety of scenery, most of it peat bog.

What I always find fascinating here is the flagstone fencing. Flagstone were quarried here and shipped across the UK.

The first time we were on these roads they were being resurfaced (EU funded off course). Evidently that hasn’t happened again in the intervening 21 years. There’s little evidence of the fibre optic cable they were laying in 2015: good connectivity to help the communities.

Facilities

The North Coast 500 is evident through the numerous signs. Though thankfully not today’s traffic. What it means is that even on a Highland Sunday there are coffee stops open. Bins abound That fibre cable and Covid19 means cashless too is the norm: not too long ago the hotels only accepted cash or cheques, avoiding credit card fees.

Michael tells me the Duncan side of the family originated from the Bettyhill area. That probably explains the good availability of public toilets. Bettyhill is quite a dispersed wee village. The hotel has come on a wee bit since we first stayed here. The windows close. Looks like done people haven’t moved from tbe bar in 21 years. Excellent jukebox: The Ozark Mountain Daredevils is on. Just a shame our room is above it…….

Down the Middle, Scotland

Getting closer

Good to go

We drove parallel to our later route down, though in the other direction. Thankfully our cycling route is on the NCN network, not the main A9. The road works (dualling for some reason) gave us plenty of time to absorb the landscape as tbe peaks start to build.

Aviemore was bustling, with a dusting of snow still visible. Tain was a history lesson. Whilst William was setting his mark on English 1066 history, Malcolm111 was granting Tain a Royal Charter. Are the Turkish hairdressers a legacy from the crusades?

Tain

Arriving in Wick, we’re staying near Telford’s 1807 bridge. Just off the world’s shortest (at 6’9″) street. Ebenezer street. This is South of the z River, a town designed to commission by Telford. It was built as a herring town, becoming Europe’s largest and then decline.

A wander around educates. Lowry painted two recognisable pieces here. The first daylight air raid of WW2 bombed a street. There’s an active civil society running alongside the active sub cultures hanging out the pubs. The Newtown is a bit dilapidated: presumably no new work on the wealth creating scale of herring ever arrived.

Bikes unpacked, van dropped off. Fed. Watered. Waterproofs out. Good to go.

Cycling, Down the Middle, England, Scotland, Wales

The journey north

….is by van with the bikes enjoying a free ride in the back. We’re getting our surfeit of main A roads and Motorways. These will hopefully be offset by the quieter roads we’ve (we think!) we’ve plotted on the pedal south.

Down the Middle, UK

In the beginning

Down the Middle, why and what?

Why. 2000 we cycled Land’s End to John o’Groats. 2010 we cycled ‘the other diagonal’: Dungeness to Durness. So a logical completer finisher mind, not mine, saw the next link: Down the Middle. From Bettyhill to Portland Bill.

What. Cycling from Wick, we will start at Bettyhill, which looks almost in the middle of the North Coast of Mainland Scotland. Then, as far as road cycle roads permit, we’ll go south to take in as many of the geographic centres of the UK.

There’s no settled list of the geographic centres as it’ll depend on what you’re taking in. The mainland, islands, topography etc. Ours include:

Centre of Scotland, near Dalwhinnie (with another disputed one in nearby Newtonmore)
Old political centre of Stirling, including the strategic crossing point of Stirling Bridge
Watershed in Central Scotland, near Harthill, Cumbernauld
Centre of Britain in Haltwhistle
Dunsop Bridge, another geographic centre of Great Britain
Fenny Drayton, Centre of England
Meriden, another centre of England

We’ll finish at Portland Bill, off Weymouth. Why there, a) why not it looks as good as anywhere, b) allows the routing to go via Avebury and my sister’s. Then we’ll cycle back to Wales.

1132 miles and about 58000feet of ascent, 58000feet of descent.

Germany, Odyssey

Odyssey day 35 Cologne to Wesel 75 miles flat

Through a fan oven.

Industry reappears. In one sense on a massive scale, in another it is absorbed into tgey landscape and appears in its place. More juxtaposition of towns, factory and farms, all taken by the mighty Rhine in her stride.