Sparks!

Good news today, very good news!

I was amazed to discover this morning this article on the BBC website: £1bn plan to electrify rail line - a £1bn plan to electrify the main rail route between London and Swansea has been announced by the government.

This is the government giving the go-ahead to electrify the Great Western Main Line, which, significantly for me, runs through Didcot Parkway and branches off to Oxford. The new policy, which one could argue should have been pursued decades ago, makes even more sense nowadays for a whole host of reasons. Electric trains are faster, quieter, cleaner, cheaper to build and maintain, more efficient, and can carry more passengers. There's even a name for the surge in patronage due to the improved performance on lines that are electrified, it's often referred to as the "sparks effect".

It seems that government has finally, in the context of transport, grasped the meaning of the old schoolboy question: "Option A costs £10 to start and £2 a year, Option B costs £20 to start but £1 a year. What is the better choice over 30-40 years?" The answer is blindingly obvious but it requires one to look beyond a 5-year time horizon, which is difficult for many politicians.

Indeed it seems that Andrew Adonis, Secretary of State for transport, has written this article in the Times today. Most notably he says:

"The nation that pioneered the train has squandered the legacy of Brunel and Stephenson. It’s time to say ‘all change’"

This coming from someone in government is unheard of in the last few decades! In the past we have always had individuals who have taken no particular interest in making real improvements and who have moved on at the first opportunity. What a change!

"At present rail accounts for only 6.3 per cent of journeys, half the proportion of Switzerland and a fifth of that in Japan. There is no good reason why Britain should not aim for much higher proportions."

Were this from another man it would be reminiscent of John Prescott's announcement about reducing car traffic that never stood up to the test of reality. The difference with Adonis is that he's already supporting his rhetoric with action, as anyone who has been following the story of high speed rail development in the UK and the huge leaps and bounds it has made in the last year will know well.

I think transport, especially public transport, has long been a Cinderella department in government and to have someone who is a visionary and a genuine enthusiast running the DfT making the case for change and improvement rather than seeking excuses for inaction and parroting the party line is absolutely brilliant.

It almost gives me a reason to hope that the otherwise long overdue general election doesn't come too soon. I want Adonis's pet projects like this and high speed rail to gain so much momentum so that it becomes incredibly difficult for a future Conservative government to pull the plug, which they will undoubtedly want to do.

Shiny Happy People

Okay, time for quite a light post after the heavy blogging of our Scotland trip. This quiz has been doing the rounds on facebook, but hey it can't hurt to put iTunes on "My Top Rated" and fill it out for a little light relief this lunchtime.

RULES:
1. Put Your iTunes, windows media player etc on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it sounds!

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Never to Know

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Runaway

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Last Port of Call

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Like the Rose

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Silver Strand

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Fear of Flying

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Go West

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Game of Love

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
The Turning Tide

WHAT IS 2+2?
Why does it always rain on me?

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BESTIE?
Ten Feet High

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Who's to say

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Robin Hood Theme

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
All You Wanted

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Bid Og Ni Mhaille

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Traffic

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Dimming of the Day

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Our Farewell

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Intimacy

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Gunmetal Grey

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
The Riverboat Song

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
So Young

WHAT DID YOU LAST SING IN THE SHOWER?
Unforgivable Sinner

WHAT SONG DO YOU LIKE TO MAKE LOVE TO?
Song for Ireland

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Shiny Happy People

Day 17 - ...and home!

Today was another day, a whole one this time, spent on the train. Leaving the hostel at the early hour of 7:30 we caught the 7:55 direct service to London Kings Cross; the only direct train of the day, with a scheduled journey time of about 8 hours.

As we headed south we were treated to more beautiful mountain scenery. Were we not travelling first class I could see being train-bound for so long becoming quite uncomfortable, but as it was the seats were large and comfortable, we were plied with tea and biscuits, and the time simply flew by as our train wound its way through the highlands. I was glued to the window enjoying the scenery all the way, enjoying the landscape that was much like that we'd cycled through, and yet very different in terms of the actual shape of the mountains and valleys.

Rosie preferred to read her book.

As we approached Gleneagles the occasional showers turned to thunderstorms, and in fact quite soon the train came to a halt. We crawled forward one signal at a time for about half an hour, which we discovered later was due to lightning hitting one of the signals in that area!

We arrived into Edinburgh about 30 minutes late, but we were quickly on our way again, heading south along the coast past Berwick and Lindisfarne. Rosie persuaded me to play scrabble with her, which was a mistake as I once again lost horribly. There must be something about that bit of line!

When we reached york we were once again delayed, this time by a fault with one of the train's power cars. To be honest the prospect of arriving into Kings Cross an hour late didn't bother us; we would have had three hours to kill in London anyway before we could get a train from Paddington. Besides, we were comfortable and an hour delay on an 8 hour train journey didn't seem like much.

Arriving at Kings Cross we decided to go and find some dinner at St Pancras International. We found a nice little itallian restaurant and had a pleasant meal watching the Eurostar trains come and go. This was followed by a slightly manic ride across London to reach Paddington to catch the last train of our long journey home.

Over twelve hours after setting off from Inverness we finally made it back to my flat. A very good holiday, but nice to be home!

Day 15 & 16 - Inverness

An early start to the first day of our journey home. We were booked on an early train and if we missed it our tickets, and most importantly our bike reservations, wouldn't be valid on later services. We packed our bags, had some jam on toast for breakfast at the backpackers' hostel we'd been staying at and made our way up the hill to Thurso railway station.

The train was on time, and we joined 40 or so other passengers who were also joining the train here. We felt sorry for a couple of Australian cycle tourists who'd also stayed overnight at the hostel; they weren't allowed to board the train with their bikes because they didn't have a reservation.

The train for our ride to Fort William was equiped with 6 bicycle spaces and the guard ended up allowing 10 bicycles on the train in total. In spite of being at the end of the End2End cycle route the trains to Thurso only have space for 2 bikes, which I think is a bit crazy. I had to go to a lot of trouble to get our reservations, but they were certainly worth it!

The ride to Inverness took just under 4 hours. I thought "The far North line" as it is known - a name that could have been chosen by Philip Pullman - was less spectacular than the west highland line, but the scenery was still beautiful. Conditions started out a bit misty and gloomy, but brightened up later.

On arrival at Inverness at about lunchtime we dumped our stuff at the SYHA hostel and proceeded to kill the day and a half we had spare before our train home.

We had a KFC for lunch and then decided to go and watch a film. Inverness has no cinema in the city centre, so we spent a while trying to understand the incomprehensible bus timetables so we could reach the retail park on the far outskirts of the city - about two miles away. We saw "Night at the Museum 2", which was good fun, then went back to the city centre for dinner.

The following day dragged on a bit. We'd already sampled the delights of Inverness in an afternoon, but yet we still needed to find more to do. Bus and boat tours of Loch Ness were appealing but also expensive and frankly we were still too tired to be bothered with travelling to where they departed from. The Inverness museum was closed because it was Sunday, which we all know is the most unlikely day of the week for tourists to want to visit it... not.

In the end we wandered around all the shops and sat around in a pub for a lot of the afternoon. On any other holiday one would ask what would the point have been, but we didn't feel too bad given our need to recover from all that cycling.

An early start and a long train journey home tomorrow.

Day 14 - The road to Thurso

Distance: 45 miles

Today was our last day of cycling for this holiday. Tomorrow we start our long train journey home, and believe me the thought of sitting for hours with the countryside rolling effortlessly by could not be more welcome.

We set out from Tongue SYHA, grateful of the two mile detour to Tongue village which eased the gradient up to the coast road and allowed us to buy lunch at the village shop. The sun was out again, but there was a breeze, which made it more bearable.

In fact as we got up high the wind turned out to be a strong south easterly, blowing at least 15 mph. As we were heading east this made making headway extremely arduous.

The road, which was for the most part high up, also dipped back down to sea level on numerous occasions. The roll down the hill was slow thanks to the wind, and making progress up the other side was hard going, even though the gradients were comparatively gentle.

On the plus side we didn't get drenched in sweat and we barely saw any horse flies. The wind made it practically impossible for them to land on us, even if we weren't moving.

It took 3 hours for us to travel the first 15 miles. We stopped for lunch at a quiet village called Bettyhill, having the pasties we'd bought at Tongue And noting that once again our water was already running low.

We continued on our way, glad that each descent and subsequent climb was shorter than the last, although the wind appeared to be getting stronger.

At a tiny village called Strathy we stopped at an inn for a drink. The landlord was very chatty, probably as we were his only customers at the time, and he recounted a few stories about cyclists he'd had drop by. He also told us that lightning had set fire to a house in Thurso the previous evening, which given the violence of the storms we'd seen in Tongue wasn't that surprising! He also happily filled our water bottles up for us.

With about 15 miles to go the countryside changed abruptly, becoming much flatter and divided into agricultural fields. Near the Dounreay nuclear power station we turned off the A-road, following a quieter, flatter, inland route for the last few miles. We were following the "End2End" route, which continues beyond Thurso to John O'Groats.

Rolling down the hill into Thurso was a huge relief. We booked ourselves into the hostel, and has dinner in the UK's most northern Chinese restaurant before turning in early.

No cycling tomorrow!!!!

Zzzz

Day 13 - Crabs and Thunderstorms

Distance: 28 miles

We set out from Durness SYHA today in the knowledge that we didn't have too far to go.

There were large numbers of horse flies about, but for the most part these didn't bother us because the road was quite flat and we were able to maintain a decent speed. A sea breeze also helped. We just couldn't stop in any one place for too long.

The road followed the coast for the first 20 miles, going down one side of an inlet and then back up the other side. Quite a roundabout journey, but worth it for the scenery.

It was good that today was short because after a gentle 20 miles along the coast the road turned inland and featured no less than four incredibly steep climbs (>14%), which pretty much finished us off. The first couple of these weren't too bad because we had the benefit of a cool sea breeze, but the latter two were in stagnant air so once again we baked and got mobbed by biting flies.

It was such a relief to get to the top, feel the breeze, pick up some speed and be able to look forward to a bit of downhill. Pausing to eat our lunch we met a backpacker who'd just come up from Tongue who told us we had a nice cruise ahead of us. He was right; the roll down to the causeway across to Tongue was a nice relief and well earned.

We were very early arriving at the Hostel so we took the opportunity to go back to the causeway and kill some time on the sandy beach and paddling in the sea. This proved interesting, as the apparently lifeless sand in fact concealed numerous large crabs, which didn't like to reveal themselves before they'd had the chance to scuttle over my toes, making me jump.

When it started to rain we headed for the hostel. As the rain got heavier we decided we couldn't face the mile walk to the village and to buy whatever we could from behind the counter at reception and call that dinner. Pasta, tomato sauce and cooked sausages, as it turned out.

The rain turned to thunderstorms, with loud bangs every few minutes. The power supply for the hostel went down several times during the evening failing completely in the end, as did the phone signal.

Tomorrow is our last day of cycling. It probably sounds silly, but an extremely long train ride with nothing to do but sit sounds very inviting to me right now. We're both very tired!

Day 12 - Castles and caves

Today was a day of rest, thank goodness, and after a slow start to the day we set out to have a look around the local area.

Our first stop was the beach, which was sandy and very pleasant. We had a paddle in the sea, looked in the rock pools, and bemoaned what we didn't have with us such as a bucket and spade, snorkels, wetsuits, bodyboards etc. Rosie took the opportunity to build a sandcastle, which I augmented with a moat bridge and gatehouse before leaving her to it and going to find a shop from which to buy lunch.

After lunch we decided we'd go and take a look at Smoo cave. From the road this was actually quite nondescript, but following a path down into the inlet it was at the end of yielded the gaping mouth of an impressively large cave. Inside we found a note saying that if we wanted the tour it'd be £3 each, and to find Colin who would be sitting outside.

Colin turned out to be a quietly eccentric Scottish fella who'd probably spent too long alone in dark caves, but he was very friendly and, producing a rubber boat from under a viewing platform, proceeded to row us around inside the small flooded inner chamber of the cave. He explained that the outer cave was a sea cave, but the inner cave was made by fresh water; he also showed us the "Scottish Piranhas" (freshwater brown trout) in the inner cave by throwing breadcrumbs into the water so we could see the fish jump for them.

After this we returned to the beach for a few hours until, for the first time in a week, it started to rain.

Today has been a nice break from cycling. The wonderful thing about this remote corner of country has been that it is so quiet. The beach was beautiful but almost comletly empty, and looking around the cave it was just the two of us and the tour guide.

All in all a fun day.

Day 11 - Trial by flies

Distance: 37 miles

A slow start to today. Breakfast at Kylesku Hotel was just as delicious as dinner last night; smoked salmon with scrambled egg. We passed an hour or so by the slipway; Rosie had a paddle in the water and I saw to a slow puncture in my rear tyre and took the opportunity to replace my rather worn brake pads.

We set out north from Kylesku with the full intention of taking it easy today. Unfortunately the road had other plans for us, with a number of steep climbs appearing in succession. Normally these wouldn't have presented much of a challenge to us but we were definitely feeling a significant cumulative fatigue given this was our third day in succession of cycling.

There was one bit of good news however, the insect repellent in the new sunblock we'd bought in Ullapool appeared to hold off the horse flies; they'd land, but immediately take off again without biting.

This good fortune held until just after lunchtime when we began our final ascent to a place called Gaulin House before our run down to the northern coast and Durness. It was at this point that our invertebrate pursuers got really hungry and invited all their friends to a party.

The sun was beating down mercilessly, the wind was behind us so the air around us was completely stagnant and it was just full of flies; flies that weren't going to let a little repellent get in the way of their lunch. We were exhausted, but the only way to escape was to keep going.

False summit followed false summit, and still the road continued to climb to our horizon. Worse still the road was single track, so we had to keep stopping for vehicles coming the other way. Never have I felt so demoralised to see that I have yet further to go.

The turning point came quite unexpectedly in the form of a headwind; all of a sudden a gentle breeze began to blow from the north. The road was still climbing, but the gradient was much gentler and we were able to reach a speed that made it impossible for the flies to keep up with us. It was an enormous relief to escape from them, and this feeling turned to elation as the road began to descend and we could see Durness in the distance, 8 miles away and all downhill.

The hostel and the pub where we found dinner were both incredibly basic, but it was all well earned and we were grateful.

Now for some serious rest and recuperation!