If you haven’t heard of #freeLEJOG, start catching up here. Otherwise, enjoy the final chapter!
Good travelling is characterised by a great number of very painful goodbyes.
It is a difficult thing to accept; that the better the time spent in the company of new friends, the more torturous will be the moment you venture forth once again in the knowledge that this episode of your life is over — done for, never to be returned to, incapable of being relived in any form but in some happy daydream — and that even your memory will one day let you down and it will be as if it had never happened at all.
This is what I experienced as I pedalled down from the upper valley of Great Langdale, a whole universe into which I had slotted so neatly, yet from which I had willingly departed after just a few days in pursuit of my mission, of a conclusion to my experiment.
Had I been more footloose… if I had set out with nothing to come back to; if all I was gunning for was a new way of life in which having nothing and needing nothing would be my ultimate expression of freedom… then it is likely I would have stayed there much longer.
I’d finally found a way of going about things that made sense. A foot in the door, one way or another, allows you to spend time in a community, and if it’s one which values co-operation over personal gain it’s not long before you’ll find a place to lend a hand, build some trust and have some fun. Your needs will be met from all sides, as long as you aren’t greedy, and some juducious stockpiling will get you a pretty long way — by which time you’ll have got your foot in another door, one way or another.
But that is not me. I’m a fraud, a jester, having temporarily put the mundanity of modern life on hold to pretend to be someone else, to pretend that my circumstances really were as down-to-earth and simple as that, to provide some light entertainment to people seeking a temporary distraction from reality.
I’ve known the truth all along. This so-called experiment — supposedly done in order to prove a point and lead by example — was also an expression of my own longing for life to really, actually be that simple, thinking no further ahead than the next meal or place of rest, possessing nothing but common sense, a good heart, an eye for an opportunity and the ability to laugh when things went wrong; becoming the envy of the rest of the ‘free world’ in the process. The truth is that it was just as much for my own entertainment — my own temporary distraction from reality — as for yours.
Just three days of cycling separated me from the train, booked in advance of leaving home for Land’s End, that would snap me out of this fantasy, one in which real people lived, and back into the life I have wound up in and from which I am ever seeking to escape, if only temporarily, just like everybody else in it.
Back to a world of authoritative-looking letterheads filled with passive-aggressive demands for money, words of false friendliness with threatening undertones, written by psychologists in the pay of monstrous automatons whose function in this world is to churn up people and spew out cash.
Back to a world of calendars and deadlines and counting the days until the next payment’s due to the person who owns our home, stands above us, keeping an eye on the bank account; for I am nothing to them but a monthly source of cash at whatever rate the market will bear.
Back to a world in which we are forced to compete with unseen strangers for the ability to do any more than chase after pay packets — slim ones that will sustain our basic needs while we chase after slightly fatter ones that will, one day, hopefully — as we’re reminded by all the more successful imaginary people out there — ease off the pressure a little and allow us to relax; to start doing what we’re really supposed to be doing with our lives.
But I digress. For I was, in reality, not up to my eyeballs in abstractions and figures but cycling through the northern reaches of the English Lake District, wind in my face, prickly heat up my back as I ground the gears up another incline, the weather threatening to finally turn but managing nothing more than a few spots of rain and a turbulent-looking but ultimately benign sweep of black cloud overhead. Wild, bleak land; mankind’s hand had been relatively gentle here, the earth now left more or less to its own devices and allowed to heal.
I camped just shy of the Scottish border, between Carlisle and Gretna. My first attempt to heave the bike into a spinney full of tangled undergrowth had failed, so I had now elected to sleep behind the hedge that ran parallel to the motorway. My Tesco Value 2‑man tent had so far been used just once, in fair weather, and I was pleased to discover the following morning that it had performed admirably at keeping out the handful of showers that passed over during the night.
My route ducked in and out of National Cycle Network routes, taking all-but-abandoned minor roads through the fells of the Scottish Borders and Midlothian. There were few people around to talk to, and with a shopping basket still overflowing with bread and cheese and other assorted delights I had no need of anything but water, which I drew from taps in churchyards and public conveniences.
I suppose I was actively seeking solitude for these last couple of hundred miles of riding. I needed to recharge anyway after the madness of the Langdales, but I also knew that the end of this ride was drawing close, and I wanted to spend a few days — just a few days — reliving the uninterrupted simplicity of life on a pushbike that I’d been so spoilt by on remote solo journeys in years gone by. My head was now blissfully empty of thoughts — just pure connection with the winding road and the act of pedalling, observing life on Earth as it passed by, feeling the strength in my legs, now, and covering mile after mile of new and unexplored ground… and what better place to carry out such a meaningless pursuit than in the silent backcountry of Scotland?
Another wild-camp, another day of riding, climbing high upon the moors, dodging thunderclouds close-up, and then a familiar outline appeared on the northern horizon through the summertime haze: the stark buffer of Salisbury Crags, stoically defending the volcanic pile of Arthur’s Seat from incursions to the West. This was Edinburgh, and it would be here, not at John O’Groats, that this little ride would end.
Fitting, really, for Edinburgh was the place where all of this began, nearly eight years ago now — all this cycling, all this adventure, all this restless chasing of impossible goals.
It began on the Meadows, sitting under a tree with a book just bought from Blackwells on Southside when a prophetic text message arrived from a mate.
There’s a time and a place for nostalgia; I felt I’d earned the right to indulge in it here, whiling away the last few carefree hours before the night train to London and early connection to Bristol.
I ate my last slice of bread with the remaining cheese outside Waverley station. My basket was empty, and here I was, at the end of the road: my experiment a complete and resounding success. Some would scoff; tell me that because I had not cycled to John O’Groats I had failed, the last three weeks of my life null and void. But notions of success and failure in these things are and will forever be defined exclusively by me, a non-cyclist on a bicycle, in competition with and accountable to nobody. I had set out prove one thing, and it wasn’t whether or not it was possible to cycle from one end of the nation to the other. Thousands of people do it every year.
Speaking of travelling without any money, you might well ask how train travel factored into all of this. And yes, I’ll admit it: I booked the trains before I began this journey. A single from Bristol to Penzance, then another from Inverness to London via Edinburgh, and finally a ticket from London back to Bristol. Booking in advance, and using every trick in the book to bring the fares down, I managed to get this itinerary together for £65.25. And yes, it would have been nice if I could have avoided paying somehow, or covered the costs during the journey, thus making the pre-trip and post-trip ‘free’ as well.
Hang on a second…
I opened a pannier. Dug out that plastic-wrapped wad of paper, the one stuffed into my hand by the manager that night in the pub kitchen in Great Langdale.
I unwrapped it, unfolded crisp, sharp-edged notes inked in indigo and orange and turquoise. Counted them.
I’d been bequeathed with banknotes from the tip-jar to the value of £65.
Which means that my entire trip; from front door to Land’s End, the length of England, into Scotland, to Edinburgh and back to my front door; a three-week bicycle journey more affecting and poignant and damn well interesting than any I’d undertaken before…
…had cost a grand total of 25p.
And I’d done it on a bike I’d rescued from the tip.
Now tell me you can’t afford to go on a life-changing journey by bicycle!
Next week I’ll be giving away my bike and gear for free to one adventurous soul to continue this journey. Check back soon to find out how…
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