Day 110 Road walking

My B and B host had offered to take my bag to Tain for me as he was meeting a friend there. It was with a light heart and light feet that I walked to the Station Hotel to meet Tim.

Today’s walk was along roads apart from a section on a forest track. The forest track section was longer and would have no views so we opted to stay on the road.

Today being a Saturday morning there were a lot of cyclists about -our route followed National Cycle Route1. There were a surprising number of runners as well. There were not however a surprising number of picnic benches and after seven miles we started eyeing up people’s garden furniture. However we eventually found a pretty good tree stump on which to sit for elevenses.

The road was a good choice -it wasn’t busy and there were houses and farms to look at. Even better the blackberries were ripening and I found some blaeberries for Tim who hadn’t tried any.

We were making speedy progress but when we saw a sign for a picnic table we felt we should investigate even though it was only 12.30 and we were pretty close to Tain. After almost giving up hope we found a very fine picnic bench in the corner of the car park with a helpful notice board

After lunch we made for Tain, crossing the A9 and passing the old workhouse (the Warden’s house was very nice and the women’s quarters and the laundry are still standing) and the suburbs until we reached the centre of town.

We were a bit early to check in (13 miles today, Tim sets a cracking pace) so we stopped at a cafe and had tea and cake (Victoria sponge for Tim-he wasn’t going to have anything until V Sponge was mentioned-and carrot cake for me). We also decided to book dinner there as well . They could only fit us in at 6 but that turned out to be ideal.

Dinner was very good but we both agreed that we had eaten too much in the last couple of days given the amount of walking we had done. After dinner we could hear the drone of a bagpipe. I left Tim to investigate and went back to my room which looked over a car park where a pipe band was tuning up.

I went back down to the street to see that the road had been closed. The hotel owner told me that the band was due to march for the first time for two years. The street was filling up with people, there were lots of small children excited about staying up late, and then, round the corner, came the Royal Borough of Tain Pipe Band.

It was great. They played for a good hour. They marched up and down and played at both ends of the street. Then they were able to stand down and went to chat to their friends amd family. A marvellous end to our day.