JOGLE Day 1: Shrewsbury To Edinburgh

JOGLE Day 1 – Shrewsbury to Edinburgh

Before we could cycle the length of the U.K. we needed to decide our start and end point. Cyclists commonly ride to and from John O’Groats End (JOG) or Land’s End(LE).

Stew and I Live in the Midlands, which means that both John O’Groats and Land’s End are quite far away. We rationalised that Land’s End is closer, and therefore easier for our family to drive to. So, that meant someone could come and collect us at the end. By default, we would be cycling JOGLE.

There’s no easy way to get to the top of Scotland from Shrewsbury.  It’s a fourteen-hour train journey and the closest of 2 stations, is Thurso, the second is Wick.

Based purely on practicality and budgets we bought two tickets from Shrewsbury to Thurso for £82.80, which we were pretty buzzed about! I’ve left our top-tips for booking cheap travel at the end of this blog post!

Our journey – Shrewsbury to Crewe

Since the train journey was a mega fourteen-hours we decided to break it up with a night in Edinburgh. Our train would pick us up in Shrewsbury and we’d pick up a connection in Crewe. Easy, right?

We had limited holidays left at work, so we booked the 18:10 train from Shrewsbury. Since we were cycling in partnership with the digital agency we worked in, our boss kindly called it a day early and the staff headed to the pub for a drink and a mini bon-voyage.

After drinks, we made our way to the station and arrived early – I wish I could say the same for the train.

Waiting for the train was unnerving, we were watching the minutes pass-by, getting increasingly more nervous. Trains travelling along the same line came and we contemplated jumping on them instead, as we only had about five minutes to make our connection and Crewe is a pretty big station! I would’ve done it, but Stew was a little more nervous, because our tickets were booked onto specific trains (the downsides of splitting tickets – see top tips). We waited, in hope that our planned train would arrive and somehow make it to Crewe on time.

Eventually, the train pulled and we breathed a huge sigh of relief, although we weren’t safe yet; there was a connection to catch. We hauled our bikes onto the train and we made it to Crewe! We weren’t sure about what platform we were on, and we were panicky about making it to the next train, but much to our surprise and very much in our favour the next train was due to arrive at the exact same platform! Our connection time, less than five minutes due to delays was going to be enough.

Crewe to Edinburgh

On the Crewe to Edinburgh train, we ate a pizza picnic with homous and excitedly talked about what was ahead.

Before the adventure could truly begin we had to find an AirBnB in the centre of Edinburgh, in the dark, and we had our bikes. We walked around the city, trying to follow Google Maps . It wasn’t as easy as it should be. We were tired and fuses were short. It was our first AirBnB experience, so we really didn’t want to expect.

The Edinburgh flat was in a nice area, we walked up the street excited to see where we were, but then we set eyes on the flat we were staying in. It was a little run down. Nevertheless, as instructed by the host we let ourselves in and entered a small square hallway with a door on each wall – which one was ours? We had no idea, but we messaged the hosts on the app and they directed us; they were out at dinner. They told us to lock our bikes outside the flat, which made us very nervous, but we were too tired to do anything else.

Our hosts showed us where we could find breakfast and we woke up to our bikes where we left them.

We ate a quick breakfast and made our way to the train station for the second nine-hour train that would take us to Edinburgh.

Top tips for cheaper train tickets:

• Book in advance. We booked 2 months in advance
• Buy a railcard. We used a two can travel railcard and it’s so worth it! On one long journey, the card will pay for itself. It’s £30, you apply online, upload a picture (they ask for a passport photo, but they’re super relaxed). You don’t actually need the card to book the tickets, but you do need to have it on the train.
• Split the journey. It’s often cheaper to split a journey, so when looking for train tickets make sure you don’t buy the ticket from start point to end point. Try booked from start point to connection, connection to connection and finally connection to end point. Here’s how our journey worked out: Shrewsbury – Edinburgh (£26.40 each), Edinburgh – Inverness (£5.50 each), Inverness – Thurso (£8.50 each) and a booking fee (£2.00)

One last tip for travelling with a bike – don’t forget to book on your bikes! This is critical for some lines -Virgin. Some trainlines are a bit more forgiving, sometimes, sometimes, you can get away without booking a bike on Arriva Trains and ScotRail. Bear in mind -bookings will take priority. If there’s no room and you don’t book you’ll get refused or booted off the train!

Post written by: Zoe Ashbridge