Day 4 - Fort William to Inverarnan

19th July

Cloud had covered Ben Nevis overnight, but there was no rain as the lads set off up Glencoe and over Rannoch Moor. They all agreed that the continuous climb was the hardest part of the ride so far.

Spectacular scenery, bathed in dappled sunshine.

Meanwhile, Len had succeeded in contacting his friend and former student, Keith Hoole, who was spoken of highly by the manager of the Lochy Holiday Park, since he had advised him on the extension of the wastewater system from the caravan park. Keith had retired from the Water Department a year previously, but now finds himself Project Manager of Lochaber Geotrails for those interested in viewing the amazing geology of the Highlands. There are loads of trails and leaflets, so contact Keith's office if you're interested in following the trails. Or pick up leaflets at the Tourist Information Centre in Fort William.

I continued to be frustrated at getting a photo of the boys at the John O' Groats start line off to the local paper. Internet cafes won't let you download anything on to the hard drive, in the understandable fear of contracting a computer virus or worm, and the webmail refused to send any file over 1Mb in size. Keith let me try using his office, so I was at least able to transfer files over the hard drive, but I still hadn't understood the file size limitations of the web mail.

Keith reckoned that we had reached the most westerly point of our trip at Fort William.

The sun even came out as we crossed Rannoch Moor, and I would have loved to get out of the van and take photos, but we had stayed a long time in Fort William and were anxious to catch up with the boys, which we finally did eight miles short of Beinglas Farm, Inverarnan.

We camped overnight in two wooden wigwams at Beinglas Farm which lies on the West Highland Way, an old drovers' road, just north of Loch Lomond.

Beinglas boasts a campers' shelter where you can cook, and also a licensed bar and restaurant. Full English breakfast in the morning was excellent. They even sell midge head shields for walkers in the campsite shop.

Day 3 - Beauly to Fort William

18th July

Grey and overcast to begin with, but the sun finally came out and it became warm.

The road to Fort William followed the western shore of Loch Ness and Loch Lochy, where the boys jumped off their bikes to skim stones across the water.

We passed the Caledonian Canal, which links Loch Ness with Loch Linnhe, at Fort Augustus, and by the time we reached Spean Bridge which boasts the Commando memorial, we were all in full sunshine. Ben Nevis, standing above the Lochy Holiday Park campsite, stood clear of cloud.

We recommend the Lochy Holiday Park at Fort William. Good, well-organised facilities.

Day 2 - Helmsdale to Beauly

17th July 2007

Overnight rain had passed although it was damp for the departure from Helmsdale at 10.30am.

Len and I managed to leave earlier too, since the hostel closes at 10am. Youth hostels, as I had pointed out to George, are not hotels. You're supposed to get out earlier and go do that walking or cycling that you'd planned to do.

We stopped at Dunrobin Castle, the ancestral home of the Earls, and later the Dukes of Sutherland, on the Sutherland coast. Our impression was that the family had been closely linked to royalty throughout its history. The Duke in the nineteenth century was said to be very keen on machinery and even drove his own steam engine. Was this the same man, or his father, who was responsible for much of the Highland clearances? Deserted crofts dot the landscape of northeastern Scotland.

The sea lies beyond the main wall of the garden, and two beautiful formal gardens, one of which is a rose garden, are carefully manicured. We watched a falconry display on the lawn, with Goldie the eagle and a large Harris owl and a falcon. The speaker explained the different modes of hunting of each bird and had them flying close over the heads of the audience. Hunting birds were reared and used all the time before guns became reliable, but have fallen out of favour since. Falconry is still a sport of royals though, in the Gulf sheikdoms of United Arab Emirates.

After lunch at the castle, we motored on, bickering a bit about how long we should stay at the Glenmorangie whisky distillery near Tain. Len was anxious to overtake the boys who had made good headway the previous day, so we compromised and I was able to go and buy some 18 year old Glenmorangie from the shop.

As it happened, the lads had already slackened their pace and we overtook them on the A9 before Dingwall, where there was yet another Tesco to stock up on bread and milk. Beauly (Beau Lieu), west of Inverness, was our destination for that night, at the Lovat Bridge campsite

There were some beautiful views of lochs and forths on the route. Two heavy showers drenched the boys again before they arrived at the campsite by the end of the day.

The campsite was basic, but set by a fast flowing river and very scenic. The boys were told off for trying to use the games room. Why does a group of 17 year olds strike panic into the hearts of people? We did manage to wash and dry all the clothes in a local launderette, which meant a good start for the next day in dry clothes.

John, who had lost his wallet on the road earlier on, reacted badly to a balti curry taken in town. Not a very good day for him.

Day 1 - John O' Groats to Helmsdale

July 16th 2007

Weather overcast as rain theatened from the south. Departure finally at 10.30 am from the Start/Finish line outside the Groats Hotel. We didn't use the signpost for which there is a charge for photography. The signpost is removed by its keeper each day at 6pm to prevent illicit snapshots.

From left to right at the start line: Josh Wicks, John Jarrom, Josh Knowles, Tom Chambers, George Hutton.

After Len and I had finished packing Bertha, and taken a few sneaky photos with the signpost in the background we got underway too, stopping at Duncansby Stacks very near John O' Groats. These are two formations similar to the Old Man of Hoy on Orkney, in layered Old Red Sandstone. A lighthouse stands at Duncansby. We took the footpath to see the stacks passing an incredible seabird nesting sanctuary. Fulmars, gulls, cormorants and even puffins can be seen nesting at different levels down the cliffs.

Down the road from the huge, new eco-Tesco at Wick, we stopped off at the Caithness Cheese production point, a small dairy where a man and a woman make the cheese from whey and compress it in cylinders. Herbs and spices are added to the curds by liberal shakings from Schwarz catering products. We tasted some of the fresh cheese and bought 3 mature ones. A four year old boy standing outside in an oversize sweater proved very pleased to see us. It's rather deserted up there. As the old man said, there's no jobs and the people have to go away. But the social security is good!

They bemoaned the new Tesco. The small shops that used to stock their cheese locally for sale to tourists, were finding it hard to make ends meet as a result of the competition from the new store. They were going to have to find other marketing outlets for the cheese. Government regulations meant that they couldn't use all the spare milk to feed the calves and a lot has to be thrown away.

Dark clouds had been threatening all morning and heavy rain began to fall halfway between John O' Groats and Helmsdale, so we were all pleased to get to Helmsdale Hostel.

Helmsdale Hostel is now independent and has been refurbished by an enterprising lady called Irene Drummond. She had heard that the Scottish YHA intended to close it, when it would have been pulled down and the land used for building flats. The place has character.

Don't believe anything you might hear from the Scottish YHA about the hostel being closed. It is well and truly open and hospitable.

The lads were soaked by the time they reached the hostel at 3.30 , but Irene had stoked up a roaring log fire, the beds in the dormitories were made, and there was an amply furnished kitchen with settees, books, games and a very large table to sit and eat and or talk. Which we did, with Jamie and Tim who were biking the other way and expecting to finish at John O' Groats the next day, and with Ian, who had been panning for gold in them thar hills.

Two en suite family rooms are also available.

We found a tremendous and possibly unusually furnished restaurant in town called Le Mirage. Look out for the mixed grill. Photo shows the guys consulting the menu beneath a pink fringed umbrella!

What is a JoGLE? And why George, Josh, Josh, John and Tom did it

Every year, an unspecified number of people get the urge to cycle, or walk, or just generally travel from Lands' End at the southwestern most tip of Cornwall in UK to John O' Groats in Scotland, the most northeasterly settlement on mainland Britain.

George, John (who celebrated his 17th birthday the day after his return), Josh, Josh and Tom, all 17 year old students at Hind Leys College in Shepshed, decided to do it the other way around, from John O' Groats to Lands' End since they reasoned that it would be like going downhill.

All the advice is that you should start in the southwest and travel north, since you are likely to get the prevailing westerly winds behind you, a real boon in Devon and Cornwall, but this didn't deter the Famous Five. Hence, John O' Groats to Lands' End: JoGLE.

I'm not quite sure how the idea emerged to cycle the JoGLE. Requests began in April for new bikes and tents in order to do the trip. Two lads, John Jarrom and Josh Wicks want to go on a Conservation field trip to Honduras with the school next year and each need to raise £2000 to cover their costs, so I suspect that the JoGLE was proposed as a fund-raising idea. As for George Hutton, Josh Knowles and Tom Chambers, the challenge was the thing. They chose to direct their fund-raising to Cancer Research.

They were influenced in this choice by the fate that had befallen one of their former team mates at Loughborough Rugby Club. Tom Walker developed a very aggressive sarcoma in his right upper arm last year and had to have the arm and the shoulder blade amputated shortly before Christmas. Sadly, the cancer had already spread to his lungs, and at the time of writing, the prognosis is not good.

On a much happier note, their schoolmate Alex Tranmere is in remission from cancer after chemotherapy.

If you would like to donate online, the website address is http://www.justgiving.com/joglers

It's one thing to decide to undertake the JoGLE. It's quite another to get it underway.

Although it had been a matter for discussion since April, none of the boys seemed to have sat down and planned the route and what they would do about accommodation on the way.

I gave George an ultimatum in mid-June when I went away for a weekend. Have the route planned out by the time I get back, with stopping-off places, or the JoGLE doesn't get underway. He did. It did mean that I had to spend three days on the phone booking hostels and campsites, but that was something that had to be left to me, because campsites are extremely wary about giving space to all-male parties, especially when they're under 18. It was the last three stops that had to be changed, because one hostel was full, one campsite refused to take the party full-stop, and then Adele, John's Mum, got this terrific offer of Embla farm to R&R on.

In late June, parents met to oversee the plan and to organise everything needed for the journey. On the weekend of 14th-15th July 2007, everyone travelled north. George and John rode with Len and Sue Hutton in the support vehicle, variously labelled Big Bertha or the Starship Enterprise, with bikes on the back, while Josh, Josh and Tom took the train following their bikes forwarded by courier earlier in the week.

A word of advice, book your train ticket for yourself and your bike as soon as you can to get a reasonable fare. Only four bikes are currently allowed on a train, and some operators don't allow bikes at all. The parents of the three boys had to pay almost £400 to get three bikes to John O' Groats via courier. We had read on a Scottish Youth Hostel site that Interlink was recommended, but our experience was that Interlink was not helpful, and would not have taken the bikes in any event because the packages would have been too large.

At the John O' Groats campsite, not large, but very well maintained and on a lovely piece of real estate, the manager told us that people arriving from Lands' End often take their bikes up to the Post Office to obtain packaging and actually POST their bikes home!

This is a photo record of the start points on the JoGLE, which can be used by the lads to prove that they did it.

The first photo shows George and John mounting their bikes on Bertha just before we set off for Scotland. We stayed overnight en route to the north in a fantastic B&B called Ciar Mhor at Dunblane.

The second photo shows all the lads at the shore edge at the John O' Groats campsite on Sunday 15th July 2007.

The third photo is a panorama taken from the shore edge of the John O' Groats campsite looking across the Pentland Firth towards the islands of Orkney. A beautiful, translucent light.