I must say thanks to Orkney Islands Council for their speedy response to my e-mail, pointing out the difficulties I had when booking a pitch at Point of Ness campsite while I was there last week. The web booking form is difficult to navigate, especially on a phone and I ended up paying for the same two nights at two different camp-sites.

I don’t know yet if they are going to rectify the problems or even refund my money but at least they have sent an aknowledgment of my e-mail. I have never known a council elsewhere to respond so swiftly, so maybe there’s hope I’ll receive some redress.

UPDATE: Orkney Isles Council have refunded me for the two nights I didn’t use. Well done to them.

I’ve come to the last day of my cycling and camping trip to the Northern Isles. I spent fifteen nights in my tent, and although about fourteen of those were wet, it served me well. Now that I’m home, the process of drying and packing away begins.

I met a lot of fellow cyclists. Some pretty serious, like the guy on the train from Thurso to Inverness who had just completed LEJOG and was already planning a trip to Korea. Mostly the folk I met were similar to myself,  cycling because we enjoy it and taking our journeys easy.

Nevertheless,  I am looking forward to planning my next trip and hoping we get some sort of summer, even if it is an Indian one.

Just travelled overnight on the ferry to Lerwick and was surprised to be the only cyclist. There were a few cars and campers with bikes on racks but I was the only one pushing a bike on. Compared to ferries in the Western Isles, at the same time last year, where there were dozens of bikes on every one.

I wonder why?

.. but it’s not the worst cycle storage on trains here in Scotland. I’m on the intercity from Glasgow to Aberdeen.  At least the bike doesn’t need to be hung up by the rear wheel! Squeezing the handlebars through the narrow gap in the doors is a pain. It meant my panniers needed to come off even if the bike would have fitted in the space with them on.

A couple of times I’ve thought about buying some kind of navigation device such as a Garmin or even using an app on my phone but always talked myself out of it. There are a few reasons why and here are the main ones.

• Cost. As far as I can see a half-decent bike computer will cost well over a hundred pounds. Reading up on these it looks as though anything less would be false economy.
• Need. I think I have got lost once in the last four or five years that I’ve been cycling and that was because of a mis-placed sign.
• Aesthetics. I go cycling to escape the world in which I am surrounded by technology. Taking it with me (apart from a phone for safety purposes) would seem to defeat that purpose.
• I like maps. I can get all the information I need from a paper map or a physical guide-book.
• Power. These things need charging every so often and if there’s no power source available, do I need an old fashioned back-up anyway?

Maybe I will change my mind or someone will convince me of the advantages of an electronic navigation device but until then, paper wins.