Day 113 Golspie to Brora

It turned out that we had to walk back towards Golspie to find our route this morning. We turned down a quaint little street, Duke Street (there’s a lot of evidence of the Dukes of Sutherland around here), and walked along to a ford. Our path took us over the bridge by the ford and […]

Day 112 Dornoch to Golspie

We arranged to meet this morning at The Dornoch Hotel where Tim was staying. It had been built in Victorian times and must have been splendid (110 rooms) but is now less splendid although it still sits in a splendid position looking out over the golf course towards the sea. Today’s route took us along […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Day 108 the John O’Groats Trail

Today I started off for John O’Groats. I can’t believe how close I am now to finishing, only 150 miles to go. The weather was again cloudy and hazy as I headed for the Kessock Bridge over the Beauly Firth. I passed by a clock tower which was built from stone from Cromwell’s fort which […]

Day 107 Rest day 17 Inverness

Today was a brilliantly blue, sunny day. It didn’t start off like that, it was grey, cool and overcast when I put every item of clothing I wasn’t wearing into the washing machine. As a result my fleece and down jacket rapidly became too hot as I wandered round Inverness getting my rest day business […]

Day 106 The End of the Great Glen Way and the longest day so far

My first longest day was a very long time ago in Cornwall (Day 12) when I walked from Port Isaac to Boscastle, fourteen miles. The second longest day was on the Pennine Way when Graham and I walked from Hawes to the Tan Hill Inn (Day 71, 17.4 miles). Today turned out to be 19.1 […]

Day 105 Drumnadrochit and the Loch Ness Monster

Our walk today was shorter than it would otherwise have been as the hostel was on the Inverness side of Invermoriston. After breakfast we walked back to join the path, noting as we did so that Alltsigh was where the last she-wolf in the Great Glen was killed. It didn’t say when though. The path […]

Day 104 Loch Ness and Mushrooms

We had dinner last night in The Boathouse restaurant- in the grounds of the former Fort. The Fort was taken over by a Benedictine priory, and is now apartments-some are holiday rentals. This morning we woke to find a cloudy day which makes for great walking although the photos don’t look as good. After watching […]