Day 0 - Travel to Wick

A epic 14 hour journey on the train. Caught the train from Newark to Edinburgh, this went OK. Bikes in guards van, though it was a bit of a scramble to get them loaded at Newark. Then had a 2 hour wait at Edinburgh for the Inverness train. They only announced the platform about 5 minutes before the train left, so there was a mad scramble to get on, but we got on OK. Then a 40 minute wait at Inverness for the Wick train. We had reserved space for the bikes. There were 3 bikes on the train and, in theory, 4 bike spaces, but 2 of the spaces were taken up by pushchairs, but we still managed to squeeze the bikes on.

Beware, even if you have reserved bike space, it doesn't guarantee you'll get it, if it's taken up by someone else first.

A slow journey north from Inverness as the train line meanders inland then back to the coast, then inland then to Thurso and finally to Wick. The countryside inland is really desolate with miles of peat bog and hardly any buildings. We saw many herds of wild deer. We'll be cycling back through this area on Sunday and Monday. The train got in at 10.15 and the B&B was just round the corner from the station. We watched the weather forecast before going to bed, forecast heavy rain for north Scotland with an easterly wind.

B&B was Bramhill Guest House - cheap and convenient for the station.