On Saturday I climbed through the mist and the slanting rain to the 1,344 metre summit of Ben Nevis, my 92nd and final mountain. The summit is the coldest place in Britain with a mean temperature of 0.3C and is scaled by 100,000 people a year. If the tourist track to the top is a motorway then the summit is a service station, the highest picnic area in Britain. After so many lonely summits it was odd to be surrounded by dozens of people. Ben Nevis may be the biggest but it's certainly not the baddest. Yet the people who walk [View Full Entry]

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Much cycling, extraordinary Scottish scenery and getting lost on mountain tops have been the themes of the last week. I headed north west from Inverness to Ullapool then north to Durness, Britain's most north-westerly mainland village. John Lennon went on holiday there and the villagers have built a little memorial garden for him. The climb to Ben More Assynt, Sutherland's county top, was harrowing. The mist engulfed me and I wandered blindly around in the dark. It's easy to become disorrientated in these conditions, but when you are 1,000 metres up in the clouds, without a map and knowing [View Full Entry]

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At 1,309 metres above sea level Ben Macdui is the second highest mountain in the UK and situated in the centre of the Cairngorms it is remote. The Cairngorms National Park contains the largest mountain and arctic area in Britain, is twice as big as the Lake District and boasts 52 summits over 900 metres. My plan was to walk into the Cairngorms, camp overnight among the hills, and climb the mountain the next day. So I set off around 5pm, cycled three miles along a track before leaving my bike. After an hour of evening walking the rain started. It [View Full Entry]

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Let me start by stressing that I have used no artificial products, sun-in, lemon juice - anything - on my hair, as some people are suggesting. It is merely the fact that a healthy outdoor lifestyle and hours of sunshine beating down on my head has blonded my hair. So I went to Northern Ireland. I booked myself on the 4.15am ferry from Cairnryan to Larne. I slept overnight in the ferry terminal and ending up bedding down on the floor of the children's soft play area. The room was sweltering and swarming with sodding midges and every other flying insect [View Full Entry]

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I was playing a bizarre game of Scrabble in a hostel in Norfolk with a guy from Northern Ireland, a woman from Northampton and a South African. None of them had ever played before and despite me repeating the rules countless times they thought they could they could spell words backwards and count the extra scores every time a new word was added. The Irishman's first word was whore and he attempted to put wog down as his second. But he did come up with one useful suggestion after I told him about my trip. "Why don't you go to Northern [View Full Entry]

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I'm currently encamped in Airdrie, between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Yesterday I did the short walk to Scotland's lowest county top, Cairnpapple Hill, and had to pay £3 for the privilege. The hill is owned by Historic Scotland as it's one of the best known prehistoric sites on the mainland, with evidence of human activity dating back 5,500 years. Ancient Britons built a henge up there, but out of wood not stone, and it was a burial site. Weather is unhelpful and blustery, praying it brightens up before I take on the highest mountains. Below is the copy of an article in [View Full Entry]

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On July 5 after almost 2,500 miles in the saddle I crossed Carter Bar, the border pass into Scotland. Set more than 400 metres high in the hills it is the most spectacular way to arrive in Scotland. The last few days have been the most challenging yet most exhilarating. My route took me north-west through the Yorkshire dales to the Lake District where I climbed three of the most famous mountains in England, The Old Man of Coniston, Scafell Pike and Helvellyn. Though problems arose when I came to climb Mickle Fell, Yorkshire. No road goes within four miles of [View Full Entry]

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Take a look at http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/jonnymuir/CountyTopsEW.php - this shows what hills/mountains I have climbed and when. And http://www.hill-bagging.co.uk/jonnymuir/CountyTopsSC.php to show what's coming up. Click on the map to the right and it shows the random route I've had to take. It's not about facts and figures but so far 2,141 miles or 3,440 km and 47 hills and mountains. The River Trent marks the western border of Nottinghamshire with Lincolnshire. And in a small village called Newton-on-Trent there's a toll bridge over the river. Cars stop and drivers pay a man in a [View Full Entry]

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Today I should reach the halfway milestone - 43 hills out of 86 - and 2,000 miles. But I'm trapped in King's Lynn for now as bike needs emergency surgery. To complete the 86 in 86 days I should finish on Ben Nevis on Monday August 7. East Anglia is pretty ... but as dull as the ditch water which runs through the Fens. Still got another day to get out of this flat desolate part of the world. and escape into the Peak District. So on Saturday I thought I'd try and crack out a 100-mile day. The roads are [View Full Entry]

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Back in England and I've bought a tent - albeit a tiny one. It fits one (thin) man and weighs 1.5kg. Carrying a sleeping bag too. This means that I have fitted panniers to my bike, which I hate, but is a necessary evil. Hostels were proving too expensive and unreliable. Camping gives me the freedom to carry on cycling until dusk and stop where I want. On Wednesday night I camped wild for the first time. Well, it was kind of wild, on the boundary of a cricket pitch in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire. I always imagine camping as a liberating [View Full Entry]

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