Day 122 Going home

We spent the night in Thurso, at the third MGM hotel of the trip. You will remember that the previous two were in Tyndrum and Fort William. This one was definitely the least showy of the three. Not a sparkling mosaic in sight, and only one picture of MGM himself. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant where I had my first deep-fried haggis, in the form of haggis bonbons. They are a fairly common starter in Scotland but as I mostly go for a pudding rather than a starter, I had not had them before. Still no deep-fried Mars bar though.

The next day, we were just about to leave for breakfast when we had an unexpected visitor tap at the window.

Breakfast today, at a cafe/bar called the Y Not? was a major departure for me – avocado and tomato on toast with a poached egg. Not a slice of black pudding in sight. We walked down to the sea and along the front

Our plane didn’t leave until 9pm so we had the whole day to enjoy ourselves. We drove west along the north coast to Bettyhill where we stopped to look at a Pictish stone in the graveyard. It is thought to be eighth or ninth century.

We carried on along the north coast behind several motor homes (even though it is an A-road it is single file in a few places) until we reached Tongue. The scenery was spectacular -Caithness was flat and as we moved further west into Sutherland it became rocky and mountainous.

When we turned off the North Coast 500 route, the road emptied. We drove through wild, isolated countryside seeing hardly another vehicle.

There is however, a well-known pub, The Crask Inn where we thought we’d stop for lunch. It is Britain’s most isolated pub and, rather strangely, is owned by the Episcopal Church of Scotland (that’s the equivalent of the Church of England rather than the Presbyterian Church of Scotland). The dining room was full of dog-collared ministers having lunch -I think it must have been a special day out as they all collected outside for a photo later- but the bar was empty. I had my last haggis of the trip in the form of a cheese and haggis toastie.

We carried on south then took a detour to Dornoch and a trip down memory lane. We walked around, then onto the beach and back through the golf course.

Next was Tain where we parked on the Main Street and walked along it admiring the buildings-and the hanging baskets-and lastly we sped to Munlochy to visit the clootie well.

It was a bit early to go to the airport so we made for the Allangrange pub in Munlochy where I had been given a Coke on the house. This time we paid for our drinks, but sadly, the barman from last time wasn’t there. There was some live music though.

And that was it. Off to the airport, where we amused ourselves looking at the expensive whiskies-there was a Japanese one for £11000 and a few Scottish ones for £5000. We asked the assistant if she ever sold any and she said she sold about two a year of the £5000 ones. Needless to say, we didn’t buy one. Then it was onto the aeroplane and home -we arrived just after midnight and fell into bed. It was good to be at home again.