My train was leaving Wick at 06:18. That meant that despite the train station being only half a mile away, I really wanted to be away by 05:45 at the latest. I didn't want to be rushing!

Of course, I was awake early anyway, what with the on off rain and light. So I packed up and set off along the river to the station.

I was about half an hour early! Still, better to be early than late. I waited around for a while before the driver let me on to the train. I was asked to remove my panniers, so I did. There really wasn't any need for this, but I wasn't going to argue. Plus I'd taken the bags on and off so many times that I can do it in seconds by this point.

The train rolled out and we were underway. Around 4 hours to Inverness. I went passed a lot of places I'd ridden through, so it was interesting to see them from the train. when I wasn't looking at the views I was asleep. Nodded off quite a few times.

The train did start to fill up as we got further south and a bloke got on with a mountain bike. His bike didn't really fit the bike rack thing as it was a hardtail MTB with an aggresively sloped top tube, so my bike alreay being there made no difference. He just lent it up against mine and all was fine.

When we got to Inverness I only had about ten minutes to get off, put my bags back on and make my way to a different platform. I did this no problem. The train was much, much busier than the last one, but there was nobody else with a bike, so I just bunged it on without taking the bags off - there was nobody to tell me otherwise!

This train was the best part of 4 hours, but it went pretty quickly. The only thing was that neither train had a refreshments trolley. I was a little surprised, but I had already got a load of food for this potential issue.

Once I got to Edinburgh I had about 45 minutes to kill. This was no problem as I got myself something to eat and stretched my legs a bit around the station.

The train to London had the stupid bike cupboard things. Fortunately I was the only one with a bike on the train and it wasn't too much hassle to cram the bike in there.

This journey was another 4 hours plus, but again, it went pretty quickly as I just dozed through the journey.

Once in London I just had to get across to Liverpool Street. Pretty straight forward as I've done this enough times to more or less know the way. There was a train just about to leave, so I got a ticket, got on and was back to Chelmsford after half an hour or so.

So.... A very long day, but nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be. I was very fortunate that there were no other cyclists on the trains. If anyone else had been finishing LEJOG and getting the train, things could have been very different as there really isn't much room for bikes on any of the trains. Well, except for the last one from London where you can just cram as many bikes into the vestibules as you like and nobody ever seems to mind.

So now I am home! Big clean up operation tomorrow....