Nearly 2 weeks ago I got back from what I had planned to be a 500-mile self-supported cycle around the north coast of Scotland. I’ll write another post about the trip, covering why I did it and how the first 6 days went, but this post is about the final day of the trip. What went wrong on the 6th night and why I had to finish the trip early.
When you imagine the north coast of Scotland in October you probably think of dark clouds cast over moody mountains with never-ending rain. That’s pretty much what my 6th day cycling the NC500 was like. I rode for mile after mile into the rain without stopping. Swooping across a mountain pass surrounded by a vast landscape, with the misty silhouettes of pine trees on the horizon.
After 55 miles of cycling, I couldn’t wait to stop when I hit the 300-mile marker which was the signal of the end of day 6. I was in the middle of nowhere, with Durness being the last place I had seen another person, and that was 12 miles behind me. I felt happy to be setting my tent up on a flat piece of grass just off the coast road. I couldn’t wait to get out of my wet clothes and into my sleeping bag where I would be warm and dry for another 12 hours at least.
To start with everything seemed fine. It had continued to rain as I pitched the tent but there wasn’t a hint of a breeze. I’ve put the tent up so many times that I can do it on autopilot in 5 minutes. It didn’t take me long to get into the sleeping bag and put my head down for 5 minutes to rest. I must have been pretty tired though because I dozed off to sleep immediately, without having dinner or anything.
I open my eyes from my accidental nap a few hours later in the dark. The wind had picked up and the tent was loudly flapping about, which had been the cause of me waking up. Not ideal, but the last few nights had been a bit windy as well. I put my earplugs in, pulled the hood of my sleeping bag tight over my head and went back to sleep.
I was woken up again about an hour later when the wind collapsed my tent. I’ve got a trekking pole tent. Not ideal for a bike trip, but it’s tried and tested in all sorts of weather and it’s also the lightest and biggest tent I own. With 12 hours of darkness each night, I wanted enough room to actually be able to sit up and move about. Anyway, the wind had gotten strong enough that it had blown one of the trekking poles down landing on my head and causing a lot of flapping wet fabric.
I let out a deep sigh. I’d have to get out of the tent to fix it. It was still raining outside and I really didn’t want to put wet clothes back on. If I was really quick the dry clothes I had on should be ok. I opened the zip and shot out into the dark, phone torch in hand ready to quickly re-peg the guy rope to hold the pole up. I soon realised however, it wasn’t going to be a quick fix at all. The peg hadn’t come out of the ground (I’d weighed them down with rocks because the ground was a bit muddy) but the guy line had in fact snapped in two.
Swearing loudly, I grasped about for the two ends of the line to try and tie it back together. All the time I was doing this the wind just got faster and faster. Whilst I hopelessly tried to tie a knot with cold, wet fingers, the flapping tent was pulled hard by the wind and pegs were ripped out of the ground. The tent went flying forward across the ground and I had to lunge after it to catch it. I very quickly lost hope of fixing it there and then and had to crawl back into the heap of tent fabric on the floor.
In all of the chaos, a few items of my waterproof clothing had blown away into the darkness and my airbed deflated for some unknown reason. The wind was now battering the tent around me, as guy ropes and tent fabric whipped my face. I prayed the wind would quickly pass over and I’d be able to get back out and re-pitch.
The wind didn’t pass over though. In fact, it just got worse. After an hour of lying on the cold floor, with water seeping into the tent, the wind got strong enough that it was pulling my tent along the floor with me in it. I knew I was in trouble. The tent was tangled in all sorts of ways around my body and in the darkness and all the flapping, I couldn’t really find any of my stuff inside it, including my sleeping bag. I was getting colder and quickly realising I couldn’t just stay here and see the night out.
I considered my options. Ahead of me was a few hills and God knows how many miles until the next village. Durness was too far behind me to reach. Besides, there was no chance I was going to be able to pack my stuff up or ride a bike. The wind was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I checked my phone. No signal. Shit.
I could try and find somewhere more sheltered. But where? The land was so open around here that there was nothing to shelter behind and the only way out was to go uphill, which in my experience would only be worse.
After two very miserable hours, I concluded that my only available option was to ring 999 and ask for help from Mountain Rescue or someone. But was that necessary? Was I being dramatic? Another strong gust of wind pushed me along the ground and I felt a cold chill of water spray up my back. No, I didn’t have a choice. Asking for help was the only way I was getting out of here tonight without abandoning all of my stuff. If I tried to wait it out who knows how bad it would get. I pressed the numbers into my phone and dialled.
When I got through to the operator, I asked for mountain rescue but I’m not sure if the lady on the phone could hear me. The wind and flapping tent were making so much noise. She put me through to the police instead, and with my phone on loudspeaker, pressed up against my eardrum, I tried to catch what the man on the line was saying.
I spent about 40 minutes in total on the call, often having to wait for a small break in the wind to ask him to repeat himself. It took them a while to figure out where I was, as without a phone signal they couldn’t trace my location. Eventually, they worked it out and told me that unfortunately the nearest police car was 3 hours away and they wouldn’t be able to send it. Another 10 minutes were spent figuring out other options and eventually, they were able to get through to a local coastguard who was free to come and get me.
It took them around an hour to reach me, by which time it was 3 AM and I had spent 4 hours lying cold and wet. I’d never been more pleased to see flashing blue lights when I caught them on the other side of Loch Eribol, heading my way. In fact, it was 2 coast guard services which came to me, one from Durness and one from Melness. It was so remote around here that they still weren’t sure where I was and thought approaching from both sides would be best. When they got closer I was able to use a light from my bike to alert them to where I was.
Getting from the tent to the Coastguard’s truck was a challenge, and confirmed I’d made the right decision. Just standing up in the wind was difficult, and every step on the set sloping grass took all of my concentration to not be blown sideways. When I reached the truck the man from the coastguard opened the door for me and as I climbed in he shouted over the wind “Welcome to the north”.
Whilst I sat warming up they retrieved all of my stuff from the hillside and put it in the boot of the truck, which was being rocked side to side. It felt like I was on a boat. The Melness coast guard decided they would take me as that’s the direction I was heading.
Over the next couple of hours, they took me back to their coastguard hut and decided what to do with me. It was too late to get into a B&B and they couldn’t just leave me. As I sat in the hut drinking a cup of tea I chatted to Neil and his colleague about the trip and the weather, apologising for taking up their time.
“Don’t worry about it you made the right decision. I’d rather lose a couple of hours of sleep to get you now safe than spend a day looking for your body” he said.
I thought he was joking, but he went on to tell me he’d had to recover bodies a few times when people had been caught out in bad weather and not known what to do.
After an hour of waiting around, it was decided that Neil would drive me to Betty Hill where I would swap over into a Police car that would get me to Thurso.
“Are you going to finish the trip?” Neil asked whilst he was driving.
“I’m not sure. I’ve lost quite a bit of my stuff in the wind, including my helmet and waterproofs” I said.
“Ayy, I’d get out of here if I was you. The winds are 70mph and it’s only forecast to get worse. This is just the beginning.”
A couple of hours, and a journey in a police car later, I was dropped off at Thurso train station with a choice to make. Well, it wasn’t much of a choice. I could wait a few hours, get some rest and then begin a 150-mile journey along the A9 by bike. A famously dangerous road which I had actually re-routed my whole trip to avoid. With the bad weather and lack of safety gear, that wasn’t really an option. The other choice was to get on a train to Inverness and go home early. At the end of the day, it wasn’t a choice at all. Putting myself at risk again would be a kick in the teeth to everyone who had come out in the middle of the night to help me. I knew what the right decision was so I got on the train when it pulled into the station at 6:45 AM.
After 4 hours on the train, I was back in Inverness. It was weird to think I was back here 4 days earlier than planned, full of disappointment that the trip was seemingly over. It was only 11 o’clock so I spent the day in Inverness filling myself with food and coffee as I tried to stay awake. The hostel I had booked for 4 days time let me move the booking, so I spent the night there and planned to get the first train home in the morning.
My bad luck continued, however, and the bad weather in the north reached Inverness. A month’s worth of rain in a single day led to pretty much all public transport, my train included, being cancelled with no sign of starting again for a couple of days. After a lot of thinking and consideration, I ended up renting a car and driving home. The weather, road conditions and general disruption resulted in a full day of travel. Having left the hostel at 7 AM, I didn’t arrive home until after midnight.
Tired and battered I spent the last 3 days of my annual leave at home. Disappointed but at least safe. Whilst I took a gentle bike ride down to the local nature reserve in the sun, the storm continued to cause havoc in Scotland. I read on the news that landslides not far from where I had been had caused 10 people to require a helicopter to come and airlift them out of their cars. I’d felt embarrassed to have rung the emergency services for the situation I had gotten myself into, but looking back I definitely made the right decision. Things could have gotten a lot worse if I’d just gritted my teeth and bared it in an attempt to finish a challenge only I was invested in.
So in the end I have 200 miles of adventure left. I’m not sure when, but I know one day I’ll go back to finish it.
I want to credit this blog post to the hard work all of the Coast Guard volunteers give to ensure they can help people in need. Without them, I honestly don’t know what would have happened. I will forever to grateful that in the middle of the night, they didn’t think twice about getting out of bed to come and help me. Thank you Durness and Melness Coast Guard!
Get Up Go Outside 