South, south, south: John O' Groats to London, Part II.

So here I was, prepared with a sheet of cardboard which I had gathered in Thurso the day before and armed with a felt pen I got back in Inverness. In big capital letters I spelt out "SOUTH" on it and stood there by the side of the road next to the only junction around. I had all my hopes and expectations up: whoever was going to John O' Groats or back, or, in fact, anywhere up here, had to pass by me.

Duncansby Stacks near Duncansby Head

But as time went on the only thing passing by seemd to be, well, time. After an hour or so and only two cars, who gave me nothing but a short gaze, I decided I might as well just start walking back on my own. And so I collected my rucksack and any left over enthusiasm from the ground and started walking down the A99, maybe I would have more luck once I reached the next village. I should be disappointed, all the -wicks and -gills and -towns on my map were nothing but small hamlets, collections of a few houses by the road, and so traffic didn' increase much for the first hours of my walk. "What a great start for my days as a hitchhiker" I thought as I kept on letting my head drop only to effortfully push it up with every passing car in order to present my more or less painfully smiley face - it didn't even matter if these were travelling in my direction, I just hoped that, whoever had a reason to come up here, might as well have one to come back down again. About hitchhiking I had been advised by several people who were highly experienced with this, that the utmost importance in hitching a ride should be given to looking positive and well scented - though for the latter I neither did nor do now have any idea as to how one should "look" the part. Anyhow, I kept myself busy wondering about the difference it could make out here if I was to be accompanied by a fridge¹ - not much I suppose. Just as I was about to take a seat on the grass by the road and boost my energies with some bread it happened. A car, it stopped, right there next to me. I was being rescued from the uncertain seas of this black road²!

It is wonderous how much faster it is to travel by car, not just in actual time but in what you perceive. Still when it had taken me half a day to walk from Penzance to Land's End I felt this was quick, now on this lonely road and with this monotoneous landscape it was not even noon and already I felt I had taken twice as long to walk but short of half the distance. When it only took around fifteen minutes by car now I would easily have taken another two to three hours to get to Wick. The old chap who gave me a ride made the journey much shorter with a good, grandfatherly conversation and his tale of a short spell of hitchhikeing when he himself was a young man like myself - but well, for now this was enough shopping for memories as we arrived at the supermarket in Wick and he was only going to get some groceries and then head back to one of these anonymous little houses on the way back to John O' Groats. I positioned myself next to the cemetery, where the A99 was now appropriately named "South Road". It turned out that most traffic here would rather head for the dead than the Angles, but it was not all that long before a plain white articulated lorry stopped by the side of the road. Once seated in the over-engine cab I felt a little like sitting on top of the world - this whole lorry business reminded me much of these happy childhood days when my uncle, who was a lorry driver, once allowed me to come with him for a delivery he made to Luxembourg and the heroic feeling a young boy as I was it back then has when being aboard something big, loud and powerful like a lorry, especially when loaded with something mechanically complicated and overwhelmingly industrial such as a hydraulic press. With similarly child-like interest I began to examine the drivers seemingly true Scottish accent. After all the days I had spent here now this was the first time that I met a man who's accent, not voice, sounded as rough as one could imagine the wind scourge these lands in a storm. And I should not be disappointed with my interest in his Scottishness as half way to his home-town Inverness he abruptly stopped our slightly obscure conversation about women and free-of-charge internet pornography (what a true trucker, not a lorry driver!) to get on the radio and start speaking Scots with one of his colleagues who had just passed by us. Their chat was pretty much the same though, and I didn't mind. I just sat there smiling and admired their Doricness for a while, and so we got to Inverness late afternoon.

Since it had been a long day and I knew where to find a good hostel for the night and even some of its inhabitants, I flirted with the thought of getting some rest and well deserved meal. On the other hand, the hitchhiking was going well now, the last lift was for spirits as much as for way and there was still well over two hours of daylight left. I reckoned I could try my luck and wrote "Perth" on the backside of my cardboard sheet. Surely someone would pick me up on this busy dual carriageway down south. Not so.

¹For an account of comedian Tony Hawks travelling around Ireland with a small refridgerator as part of a bet, see Tony Hawks. 1999. Round Ireland with a Fridge. London: Ebury Press.
²The A99 alongside which I was walking was rated one of Britains most dangerous roads by count of accidents just before I left London.
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North, north, south: John O' Groats to London, Part I.

London-Land's End-John O' Groats-London: Done. I am home (home?), back in London after almost three months now. Still pretty worked up and not quite out of wonderland yet, the last days were dramatically slow progress and almost too fast to cope travel home at the same time. After leaving Inverness I made my way to Wick and from there took a bus to Thurso where I stayed in a actually very nice hostel - extremely quiet and peaceful, just as you would expect from a place so remote. Early in the morning then I set off for John O' Groats: final stop.

John O' Groats

I was just in time to witness the sunrise overlooking the harbour towards Orkney - what a spectacle. From the three or four houses around not a single soul was up, I was alone with the beauty of the moment and some nearby sheep. When I realised that it would probably stay this way until a bit later in the day I decided that now that I have come so far already I might actually make for the real north-eastern most point and head to nearby Duncansby Head. In doing so I thought I might after claim to have covered the longest cross-distance from two points in Britain and also hoped to get some nice impressions from the coastline, as I was walking on the shell covered beach.

For it only being around one and a half miles from John O' Groats to Duncansby Head, this walk on the beach was most packed with discovery. From the thousands and thousands of white shimmering broken shells lining the coast and the clinking sound they made when treading them to the hollow creaking of the sea working its way up even these shell lined beaches, the rabbits who build their holes in such manner that the whole shoreline looks like an Afghan hiding place for terror rabbits, the ever staring sheep who seem eternally fascinated with you and last but not least the colony of seals you encounter in this one hard-to-reach bay who all men out rush into the sea only to then turn around and be your theatre audience when passing by.

Carcass of the seal I found

Oh, and then there was this rather lucky moment when I almost got my foot stuck into the carcass of a dead seal a bit further along the way, I don't know how but my body subconciously must have realised that this was not a stone as I had thought and in a spooky way forced me to leap over it. How interesting it is that when I took to closer examine the carcass it was completely hollowed only with the skin and bones and whatever there was inside the head, but also without any smell of either rotten flesh or sea. I take it this was the work of seagulls, as someone once told me they were the police of the seas where vultures were their desert colleagues. Finally reaching the lighthouse by Duncansby Head I was offered the spectacular view of the two twin colums of rock split of the shore standing free like a temple to the sea just behind it and enjoying this for a while then made my way back to John O' Groats. It now being a more humane time of day there indeed I met some folks. Mainly people setting over to Orkney on the ferry (a joy that I was , for lack of money, barred from) but also one chap who happened to tingle up and down between Land's End and John O' Groats on his racing bike every now and then, or whenever he had a weekend off, as he said. Well, with their help I told the obligatory picture by the waymarker and then set for the postoffice to send a card to my parents, letting them know that my journey had (almost) come to an end and I was still alive. But now it was time to hitch a ride home!
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Edinburgh to John O'Groats

I have indeed managed to get all the way up to John O' Groats, but my way there was somewhat different from the route I had planned. After Newcastle I got up to Edinburgh on the good old National Express bus, but orientation there was a little more difficult. After managing to find my way from the drop off point to the railway station, I eventually managed to find the now-closed tourist information but was somehow still able to locate a few hostels near-by, in one of which I ended up staying. I hadn't been aware of it, but it now was the time all the students came to Edinburgh so most beds were actually "reserved" for them.

The Scottish Parliament

Anyhow in the hostel I had the chance to chat with two guys staring out at the University of Edinburgh this September, one of which was going to study English and the other, an older guy from Lithuania, who was first doing a prep-year and then going to do some post-grad in something so strange I cannot even remember. They were speaking really good about their first days &c. and it all sounded like a good place. Being out and about the next two days was not so much to my liking though - forget what I said about Land's End - Edinburgh High St is like a Scottish uber-Land's End with the most commercialised castle to one side and the Scottish parliament and Holyrood Place to the other. Still, the castle was good (apart from the way they extract money from visitors) and I spent an afternoon in the Parliament's gallery, listening to the several discussions, one of which, co-incidentally, was about the unhealthy balance and more healthy ways to further increase tourism in Scotland. Quite interesting, if not always a painful realisation for a liberalists heart, to see important decisions being made with an almost empty house and the low interest many politicians seem to have in matters personally not relevant to them. On the last day in Edinburgh I climbed Arthurs Chair, just outside Holyrood Place and the Parliament, which offers splendid views over all Edinburgh and let me realise that there must be much calmer parts to the city than what I had seen (Thanks to Nic for the hint!).

From there I went to St Andrews, but again was turned away fairly quickly as it seemed the whole Kingdom of Fife had been completely booked out by the arriving student's parents. So there was nowhere to sleep and I marched up to Dundee where I arrived by nightfall. Here I found a hostel where I could stay for a couple of days and rest my bones. I went back to St Andrews by local bus for a day and took a walk all around town and the golf course - oh what a wonderful place. You don't need to know it - you can literally feel instantaneously that St Andrews has the lowest crime rate in Britain.

Bridge to Dundee

The couple of students I saw arriving in their halls were all buzzing around like little lost bees but I got a little glimpse of the uni none-the-less and when it was time to go back to Dundee by dusk I felt quite set on wanting to study here; or at least try my chances. Dundee itself was not excellent to say but the least, Dundee city centre by dark was scary, and it soon occured to me that here I was staying in a crime hotspot, oppsed to St Andrews where I planned to spend these two nights. I joined the library to get done with half a day which I had to wait for the next bus to leave for Perth, as I had thought about getting up to Aberdeen by bus and then taking the train to Inverness but couldn't afford it. The local bus to Perth was at £1.60 about £84.20 cheaper than the previous option and although it took half a day the journey was well worth it. I saw the whole spectrum of towns, villages and hamlets throughout the way and all the people getting around. From those wearing suit and rolex right to those with unwashed muddy track suit bottoms and once-a-month-combed hair who had bartered some goods behind an inconspicious hill half way to Perth.

In Perth I didn't do much but have a walk in the park, a good night's sleep and discover that the a ticket on the train to Inverness from here was only around £25. What a bargain. I took the ride and was amazed to find this the most romantic railway journey I have ever had. The beauty of the scenery we passed by far surpassed the childhood memories I have from many a railway journey up the black forest and set me into the romantic mood with which I used to dream of a ride on the Canadian Rocky Mountaineer train through Alberta and British Columbia.

Loch Ness

When I arrived in Inverness it was clear that instead of heading straight up to John O' Groats I had to revisit some of that spectacular landscape afoot. So I set out the next morning and walked the Great Glen Way back to Fort Augustus on the far end of Loch Ness. Some locals I met made me say Drumnadrochit (a village on the way) a few times in the hope to get some laughs but I left them disappointed when my Alemannic heritage let me at ease with all the rolled Rs and CHs. The walk was spectacular! Loch Ness was beautiful, though I didn't spot the Nessie, and the backland off the mountains surrounding the loch even better. I never knew we had these vast and empty, untouched lands so close to our doorstep here in Europe! It was clear for me that I would have to come here again and walk the whole of the Great Glen (Glen being geographical "split" or "break" that divides Scotland). Inverness itself was quite alright as well, a sleepy little "city in the highlands" as they say (without the sleepy bit I believe, for that's just my opinion). The next day I spent preparing for my walking up to John O' Groats and the hitchhike back, but by the end of the day came to the realisation that due to the layout of the roads and the absence of bridleways it was wiser to break it down in two and make camp in either Thurso or Wick.

Vast emptiness on the Great Glen Way

Over the last days in the hostel I also made friends with a ginger Finn who with her son had just been west by Ullapool. She told me of a little segragated community that she visited there, where apparently there are neither roads nor maneuvrable paths leading to the community. They reach it either by boat over a largeish, mountain encapsulated lake or by a day-long walk through the forested mountains surrounding it - if the weather permits. She told me how they had a little school none-the-less and still relayed all messages by postal boat. Since she had been there the first time half a decade ago they had installed wind turbines on all the houses for wind energy but otherwise were still quite unevolved, if that word seems appropriate. She made it sound like a romantic little place full of to-fantastic-to-be-true the-first-Glastonbury-remembering society-opt-outs. A definite on my must-visit list. Friendly as she was she left me with two jars of self-picked and -made cowberry jam. So rich in acid it doesn't need preservatives if I may believe her words.

Well, off to the north then!
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Scotland, here I come!

Admittedly, it's been a while since I wrote something last. I felt a bit depressed lately, which is not to describe a mental condition but rather the sensory feedback that my latest stops evoke in me. From Cardiff, where I spent a few days reading, seeing the castle with its imposing keep and the surrounding parkland I made my way to Aberystwyth. However I couldn't find anything to sleep there for the night so had to move on farther north to Borth where I spent the night in the youth hostel. Borth was nice, I rented a film from a local shop for the night and hat a nice chat with a a girl around my age who had been "forced to see wales" by her parents.

Cardiff Castle's keep

The next day I walked down to Aberystwyth again, which was nice as I came over the hills by the cliff, seeing not only the cable car but also Aberystwyth open up below me. I spend the day at he museum and a scarcely visited pub and the next morning went to see the remains of the castle and some part of the uni there. After Aberystwyth, which was quite different from what I had ever expected (as seems usual with most places now..) but nonetheless very nice and rich in history and surrounded by a beautiful scenery, I caught the national express bus to Liverpool, then to Manchester, then to Leeds and finally to Newcastle, where I am now.

Liverpool Cathedral

I was in Liverpool for only two days, then one day in Man and another in Leeds. That was quite exhausting and depressing in the way that all those places seem to be very similar in structure, history, flaire and current affairs, yet very different in organisation and actual culture. I hardly took any pictures and didn't feel like doing all to much once I had arrived in Leeds. Well.. I just somehow felt inevitably reminded of the German Ruhrpott - is that only me?

Anyways, now I'm in Newcastle, caught a cold, or possibly the flu (and you know what man-flu means!), its raining and the city is much much bigger then I would ever have guessed! What a shame I can't stay and wait until I'm really up and fit again, but so far Newcastle seems to be extremeley rich in culture and there are loads of nice galleries, especially the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts was fantastic! But somehow the Geordies here do sound quite different from all those I have ever heared down in London before,

The 9 bridges connecting Newcasle and Tyneside

I think the intonation patterns between the generations might differt quite reasonably.

But tomorrow! Tomorrow I will go set foot upon the all mighty lands of the Kingdom of Fife, Scotland. St Andrews to be precise. I'm really excited already and just hope my cold is going to get a bit better by the time I get there. Keeping in mind the time and resources I have left over, I have had to make the sad decision to cut my intinerary down a bit however. That is, I will now only go to Edinburgh and not to Glasgow, then to St Andrews by bus and from there walk to Dundee, then see how I get up to John O' Groats and stuff the next day. Should there be money enough I will risk a short hop onto Orkney, if not I will hitch a hike home straight away I guess. But it now is a definite that I will hitchhike home, I've just got enough of busses now! If I could afford it I would want to walk it all back, dear.. who's going to Lake District with me next year then?
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Footloose, Land's End, Surfing, Cymru, ...

I'm in Cardiff, or Caerdydd, now. Well.. I sort of had a little alteration regarding my travel itinerary. I have not gone to St Ives at all but have instead decided to go for some windsurfing fun over the weekend. I left the hostel in Penzance on Friday to walk the roughly 16 miles from Prenzance to Land's End, which was just a fantastic trip!

First I was walking alongside the coast via Newlyn and Moushole, then I decided to go a bit land-in and walked up to the little village of Paul where opposite the cementary I was greeted by an old and grey-bearded roaming dog who would then

My doggish friend

accompany me for the next 4 or so miles to Lamorna.. I don't know if he was just looking for comradeship or if it was hunger keeping him around, but he really cost me some nerves at times. He almost got run over by a car one time only to then go on and cause another car to almost collide with a vehicle coming down the other direction when he wouldn't understand to at least not walk in the middle of the bloody road.. As nice and adventureous our short companionship was I felt rather lucky when some twenty minutes and several people shouting at me and blaming me for not keeping "my dog" under control, I eventually managed to get a policeman in ca passing car to stop. It took the constable a good fifteen minutes to chase and arrest my doggisch road-safety enrisking friend. A last "goodbye, comrade!" wandered my mind but this was definitely the better of our two journeys for that slightly dim vagabond.. Still he got me into some talking with the locals later on who were keen on knowing why a constable with dog was standing by the road in the middle of nowhere.. Sadly I didn't have all that much time for chatting and so marched on. I still had to catch the five o'clock bus back from Land's End to Penzance in order to make it to Coverack for the night - this is where I was going to spend the weekend windsurfing. One thing I have to say though is that the landscape around Cornwall really is astonishingly beautiful! It's really great walking all those little hidden footpaths across fields, over loose walls and through weird stonecirles, passing by medaeival graves and every now and then an amazing view off the cliffs and down the sea... Finally then I arrived in Land's End, my feet hurting and my head blurred from all the nice things I saw on the way there..

Now Land's End itself wasn't really what I had expected. Even though I knew that

Land's End

they had a shopping centre there and that one's got to pay for having their picture taken before that famous waymarker, I was shocked of how much the Lonely Planet must be right in judging Land's End as well as John O' Groats (which I'm still hoping to see in a while) as being solely massive tourist traps. There'd been about three or four houses which I could imagine people living in, the rest of the place was formed by shopping centres, a big playground for children and some exhibitions, one of which was the Doctor Who exhibition. Damn it, this place is really breathtaking! If only it wasn't scattered with all these shops and that! At least one can still imagine how it must have been without all that one day gone by..

Anyway, later the day back in Penzane I received a less than happy message as I was told by the local Computer Repair Store that the SD Card out my camera was totally broken, nothing they could do, all my 500, probably more, pictures of the last week were gone.. hum! But o' well, that won't put me down now! So I hopped onto my bus to Helston, there onto another down The Lizard to Coverack where I had booked a Windsurfing course for the weekend. I really miss that place, which happens to be just a little village with half of it's cottages or even more being holiday homes of the rich, but nevermind, people've been extremely friendly and, surprisingly, very trusting. I was able to book beds, dinner, the surfing course, all without any deposits, I've not even had to give my full name for anything.. For both the B&B's that I stayed in I could just have walked out without paying if I would have wanted. Wonderfully refreshing! The first day there unfortunately was no wind whatsoever. But Robin, the guy who's running the local windsurfing centre, got out some sit-on-top kayaks and let us have fun in the waves, without charge. He also switched my course dates to Sunday and Monday. Sunday was nice, but Monday even better.. We've had winds of force 4 to 5 and waves so high when one was in the depression between them you couldn't see them! I spent the whole day fighting with the sea and every now and then when I was able to stand the wind and not taken down by a wave either, able to stay on my board for a couple of minutes, I felt like having ruled over nature! I've certainly got to go back there one day and do this again! It was so, wow, it was like back when you are a kid and you just don't worry about anything...

Cardiff Wetlands

Since yesterday I'm in Cymru (Wales) now, but leaving aside the many bilingual roadsigns and leaflets, havn't heard a single word of spoken Welsh yet.. I hope that I'll be able to hear some as I go for the smaller places farther north in Wales.. Today however I just took a day off, I read Elaine Long's "Jenny's Mountain" instead of actually doing something.. I never had thought I could like such writing, but well... well, well.. Guess I have deserved not only resting my legs for today but the brains and any remaining sense of sophistication as well - cheers!
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Leaving, Exeter, Penzance, Land's End..

So then, last Saturday I left for Exeter where I stayed for the weekend. A damn nice place: hell loads

River Exe

of history, stuff to do and a beautiful scenery all around the city! Also the promenade along the River Exe is one of the nicest I have seen so far.. The place is not all that overcrowdedly touristy tourist trap kind of thing but yet quite holiday-ish. They've got lots of free guided tours round the city with some wicked old local chaps who'll with glowing eyes tell you more than you'd ever wanted to know about this place. Also it seems there are amazingly many fit women around... and the best, the vast majority of tourists actually was British. Mmm, didn't really want to leave - but well, what'd this be about if I wouldn't?


So subsequently to exploring Exeter I spent a day in Plymouth. A little shock here, it was so totally different from what I had expected at first. Plymouth is very diverse I think.. The Barbican, or harbour area, with asontishing resemblance reminds of the opening sequence of Monkey Island, mediaeval in it's impression and with its wound alleys reaching out to all sides but well kept and restored.. Arr! I wanna be a pirate sometimes. There've been tourists like swarms of mosquitos all around but that

The Mayflower Steps

might've had to do with it having been a bank holiday Monday and - of course - 'cause Plymouth is just so incredibly touristy. Behind The Barbican, towards the city centre, they just start prepping things up it would seem, they've pulled down a couple of houses and are getting up a few nice modern ones; however, there is no way you wouldn't notice all the dull and run-down blocks they put up after WWII. Then there is Coxside opposite the Barbican which is a nice and neat residential area I think, everything seems quite new here and apart from parents pushing their children on the swings there's not much going on... Also I had a little go on the naval base which was amazing as well.. I never saw that big a battleship before, let alone the submarines.. Probably one of the most diverse cities I've ever been to and I certainly got rid of that romantic misconception of Plymout that I harboured.. though I still would go for the Mayflower as well as the Pirate thingy..

Right now I'm in Penzance, on the Penwith peninsula down in Cornwall.. it's a lovely

Newlyn Harbour

little town with the massive Mount Bay ashore. Yesterday I walked to Marazion and had a little preambulation atop Saint Michael's Mount (wonderful castle, splendid view!) and learnt lots about the historic relevance that Cornwall had militarily - apparently. For tomorrow I plan on going surfing near St Ives and after writing this I'll go walk the coastal path down to Land's End. I'll probably write again from Cardiff or Swansea (the next two cities I aim at visiting, respectively) and perhaps I might get around to putting up some pictures as well then..

Alright now, I'll go have some fun round the coast!
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