Day 111 Dornoch

No, Dornoch is not a Scottish expletive (as in “Dornoch, I’ve dropped the toast butter side down”) but a very cute town only 8.5 miles from Tain. Tain is all Victorian grandeur but Dornoch feels more small town even though it has a Cathedral and a Castle.

Today was again mainly road walking and we had to cross the Dornoch Firth bridge. We left Tain-I could only manage a small breakfast today (by which I mean a reduced cooked breakfast and no toast) after the excesses of yesterday. We stepped out along the A9 and then along a small road until we reached the roundabout for the bridge.

The bridge didn’t have a pavement for quite a long bit at each end so we hopped on and off the tarmac depending on the traffic. The verge was large pebbles so not the most comfortable to walk on. At a lay-by at the end of the bridge we climbed over the barrier and down the embankment to a waterside path.

The path soon gave way to a road where we spent our time again jumping onto the verge to avoid a stream of upmarket cars, presumably heading for Dornoch. Tim was all for road-walking the entire way but allowed himself to be persuaded to try the forest path. This path was a) quite pretty and b) there was a picnic bench

The next thrill of the walk was a round house site (Bronze or Iron Age), fairly quickly followed by a standing stone.

The route then took us to the road where we walked along a soft green verge (there was a pavement but pavement is hard on the feet) into Dornoch.

Once again we were early so, once again, we had to have some cake to while away the time. I had a beetroot, ginger and walnut cake and Tim had something with blueberries. We were still early so we had a look round Dornoch-the castle (now a hotel), the cathedral (from the outside) and, good news for our lunches tomorrow, the Co-op.

We went our separate ways and arranged to meet for dinner at the Eagle Hotel which Tim had already booked which turned out to have been a good move as there aren’t many places to get dinner in Dornoch on a Sunday night.