THE ROUTE

According to the signs at each end, the road distance between Land’s End and John o’Groats is 874 miles. There must have been a bit of road building since that figure was measured because Google gave me a road distance of 839 miles. The two places are supposed to represent the extreme ends of the longest overland distance in Britain, although many sources will point out that Duncansby Head, 1.5 miles due east of John o’Groats, is slightly further.

To the nearest mile, the straight-line distance from Land’s End to John o’Groats (or Duncansby Head) is a mere 602 miles, so the Phantom jet that logged the fastest ever journey of 46 minutes, 44 seconds clearly had a big advantage over the road user.

I have always thought that Lizard Point to Dunnet Head, the most southerly and northerly extremes of mainland Britain, respectively, looked further apart on the map. Indeed, it turns out that point-to-point they are 4 miles further apart, which would have added 19 seconds to the Phantom’s time. By road, however, it seems they are 5 miles nearer. Isn’t Google Earth simply wonderful in helping me work out all this useful information for you?

Anyway, as far as I could estimate in advance, the distance of my walk (including detours to gather provisions, find camping sites, locate suitable stream crossing points and climb the odd mountain) would be around 1,200 miles. This turned out to be very close to the reality.

The table below lists my daily mileages and the places where I spent the night. Further detail about my precise route, including map references, is included in the BLOG itself.