Day 114 I say goodbye to Tim

I had a surprisingly bad night in my tent. Usually once I get to sleep very little wakes me, not so last night. And last night was the first time it wasn’t daylight when I went to sleep-I used my headlamp for the first time in this trip.

When I woke, I had breakfast and packed away the now soaking wet tent -there had been a lot of dew and, as it was a still (but happily midge-free) night, a lot of condensation as well. The fly sheet was completely sodden and I couldn’t wait for the sun to dry it out as I had arranged to meet Tim at 8am.

It was a lovely morning. The sky and the sea were pale blue and there was low mist in places. We set off over the bridge and along the edge of the golf course (there’s an awful lot of golf round here) stopping only to take photos.

Once the golf course finished we crossed into a field where the cows started taking an interest in us. We backtracked and made for the beach. The beach was idyllic. The tide was out, there was a seal bobbing about, and every now and then seabirds would take off from the shore and fly low over the water. And there was no-one else there.

The road and the railway line both run close to the shore although the road veers inland after a while so the path is between the railway and the beach. Indeed, at high tide you would be walking along the railway embankment a lot of the time.

The challenge of the day was crossing Loth burn-the second largest stream to ford on the JOG trail. I had been a bit worried about this earlier in the summer but the dry weather over the last couple of months has reduced a lot of the burns. In fact yesterday’s waterfall was pretty pathetic, being a mere dribble. As it turned out the burn was fine-especially using walking poles for balance on the wet rocks.

Eventually our luck ran out and after passing a naturist beach (Scotland’s only official one) and a caravan park we hit the very large pebbles. It was slow and wobbly going.We trudged along for some time until we saw a tree trunk on the beach and stopped to sit on it for lunch. We worked out roughly where we were -about to ford another burn -when, looking around I saw what looked like it might be a bridge with a JOG trail logo. This brightened me up considerably and indeed after that there was a path (although it did vanish from time to time) in the strip of rough grass between the railway and the beach.

At about ten miles in we reached a level crossing, a private level crossing. As we headed towards it, we heard a train hooting. Did we have time to cross or not? We waited, and waited, the train hooted again, this time sounding quite far away. we were just about to open the gate when the train appeared. We scooted back from the gate to get a picture and the driver waved to us.

We climbed up from the beach along a track to the hamlet of Portgower. There we saw a lady who asked us if we were walking to John O’Groats, and where we were from-Oxford I said. “Here’s a couple from Oxford“ she said to a man who came round the corner looking as if he was dressed for a funeral. Which it turned out he was. He (Murdo and his wife Elizabeth ) asked us in for a cup of tea, and pressed fruit (grapes and home grown plums) and biscuits upon us. Then we realised we were in trouble. We hadn’t bothered to correct the impression that we were a couple thinking we would just say goodbye to the lady and walk on. Now we found ourselves trying not to dig a deeper hole for ourselves, attempting to give the right answers. It was very funny and we managed to pull it off.

The route now crossed the A9 and headed off into the hills, before taking us down into Helmsdale. We found the bus stop (not marked and not where the timetable said it was) then went to a cafe to while away the time until Tim went to wait for his bus and I checked in to my hotel. Fourteen miles done.

It’s been great walking with Tim. He’s good company and he walks faster than me so even when he slows down it encourages me to walk faster.

This evening I met another LEJOGer, Louis, although he has added in the three peaks -Snowdon, Scafell, and Ben Nevis. He was heading out to wild camp but was getting some fish and chips first.