We had a leisurely breakfast and then I set off for the last stage of 21 miles to John O’Groats. I didn’t want to hurry because the adventure would be over but the hill out of Thurso made sure that I couldn’t hurry anyway.

After about 8 miles you reach the village of Castletown which is on the coast and in the mid 1800’s most of the paving slabs for the streets of Edinburgh, London, New York, Sydney and many other towns and cities, came from Castetown. There isn’t much there nowadays.

As the ride progressed it got more and more sunny and by the time I got to John O’Groats it was a very bright and sunny day. John O’Groats is much more relaxed and quieter than Land’s End with just a few people milling around taking pictures. When I rode down the road towards the finish, Helen was waiting to meet me with some welcome balloons.

It has been great to have her help and support throughout the ride.

It has been a great adventure and I’ve really enjoyed seeing parts of the country that I didn’t know existed. There are great contrasts between different parts, naturally, but at the same time a lot is very much the same with people going about their daily business everywhere in just the same way. I experienced nothing but helpfulness and civility everywhere and we had many interesting conversations with people that we met along the way.

There are wild and barren places such as Bodmin Moor and Exmoor in the south, The Forest of Bowland and the southern uplands of Scotland in the middle and the Highlands and the Flow Country in the north. These are intermingled with hectic, bustling conurbations – I got lost in Bristol, Gloucester and Manchester and Hamilton.

I had only one issue with the bike which was caused by my own carelessness and no punctures. I had no injuries and was no more than pleasantly tired at the end of each day.

There were many highlights – I enjoyed lunch in Rick Stein’s restaurant in Padstow, cycling with Marcus down near Taunton, Bill Dickie from Drymen and Jim Kellas from Dingwall. The Camel Trail, and the Tarka Trail but best of all The Speyside Way, north of Aviemore. I got wet a couple of times but never had to contend with long periods of rain and I never got up not wanting to get going on the next stage. Your body just seems to adjust to the fact that it will sit on a bike for 8 hours and pedal and I definitely got stronger and fitter as the journey went on. I don’t know how I will adjust to not cycling every day.