It was decided by Laura, Rowena, Alex and Caroline, who were all great friends of Eloise's, that a sponsored bike ride through Scotland would be a particularly appropriate way to raise money - doing the journey on horseback would have been more so but unfortunately a few members of the team are not as horsey as the Plunketts, to say the least, so that was discounted immediately! Eloise used her bike to get around in Edinburgh and London and had done the London to Brighton bike ride one year so the mode of transport was agreed upon, although it was not one that any of us was used to as at that stage none of us even owned a bike! We then had to establish both the point from where we would set off and the final destination, both of which were relatively easy to do. The Plunketts have holidays on Pabbay every year and we had all been fortunate enough to have been guests there in previous years so that was an obvious starting point. Eloise had been at university in Edinburgh and had then relocated there from London with Andy and, as it's a lot closer to Pabbay than Cradle Farm (!), the Plunkett's home in Oxfordshire, that was decided on unanimously! We then had many discussions about which specific causes the Trust would be supporting. Please go to the Who we support page to see who will be benefiting from the money raised.
We then set about the task of letting everyone know what we were up to and posting out letters detailing the challenge ahead and asking if people would be kind enough to sponsor us. We could not have anticipated the overwhelming generosity of everyone who supported us. Thank you again.
The event itself was a mixture of hard work and great fun. We were joined for the first leg (44 miles) by Celia Plunkett, Eloise and Katie's mother, who did amazingly well especially as she'd had no training and it gave us a great start. We were incredibly lucky with a number of things the first of which was the weather. It was during Wimbledon fortnight and, when matches were being postponed in SW19 due to rain, we were enjoying the sort of sunshine you might expect in Barbados as you can see in the photos. We had all spent vast amounts of money on waterproof jackets and trousers anticipating that Scotland in the summer would be its usual rainy self but we ended up lugging them the whole way down in our panniers (except Alice who luckily left hers in the car by mistake). Still, we'd much rather that than be rained on for the whole week. Not one of the six of us over the 214 miles that we covered got even one puncture! So puncture repair kits, spare inner tubes and pumps were other things weighing us down unnecessarily. We were also particularly fortunate in finding useful and spectacular bicycle routes at opportune moments. One that we recommend for any keen cyclists is the Ben Fogle Cycle Route that we stumbled upon by accident on the down hill section (luckily!) with amazing views of Loch Earn.
We arrived in Edinburgh after five days and collapsed in Holyrood Park with a fantastic welcome from Andy who brought us champagne, a red rose each and a can of coke - all tastes catered for! We were just beginning to think about heading off for a well needed bath when, out of the blue, a helicopter landed about 50 yards away from us and out popped the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh who gave us a wave, but no sponsorship as yet…..
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