Day 109 A short day

Today was a welcome short day as my feet had definitely felt yesterday’s walk with the backpack. Tim and I breakfasted at the B and B with the other guests, two of whom were doing the North Coast 500 (the road round Scotland from Inverness on the east coast to the west coast level with Skye and round the top back to Inverness) on their motorbikes. It was going to take them three days…

Having rather more than three days to go we set off before them across the bridge over the Cromarty Firth more a mile long- then left the A9 to walk up onto a track and over a level crossing (climbing over two sets of gates) before reaching a minor road that essentially took us to the end of the walk

The road was reasonable with quite a few cyclists and also quite a lot of raspberries growing beside it, and after some miles we reached Evanton. We had plenty of time so stopped at a cafe. The Cornerstone Cafe is owned and run by the Church of Scotland and we had a long chat with the minister (in his apron) who, in his earlier life had had a career with Littlewoods. In fact, he had worked at Littlewoods in Oxford and when he first arrived he stayed at the Turf Tavern. We also had coffee and Tim (who hadn’t had a cooked breakfast) had a slice of lemon drizzle cake.

It was only a couple of miles into Alness so when we came to a graveyard by a ruined church we had a look round. As we were leaving we met an American cyclist from California who had cycled from Amsterdam. We spent some time talking to her about her plans before walking into Alness.

It was still only 1.30 and too early to check in so we availed ourselves of the lunchtime special offer at the Station Hotel (2 lunches for £15).

I went off to find my B and B but as it was still early there was no-one there. I repaired to the Millennium Garden which was just along the road and sat reading for an hour or so.