Today the sun was shining, all day! We set off from Tain, soon reaching the dreaded A9, but fortunately there were wide verges, and after half a mile we detoured on footpaths until we rejoined the road to cross the mile-long bridge over the Dornoch Firth. Having crossed the bridge we descended onto a Heather and Gorse lined footpath along the edge of the Firth, and then joined a narrow tarmac road all the way into Dornoch. We arrived in time for a pub lunch, before making our way to our accommodation. A really lovely day!

A Backward Glance

The sun was glaring at us through our bedroom window this morning, from the time Carol woke by all accounts. I was keen to enjoy the Chaise Longue in our room for a couple of hours more because we only had a short walk today, but that was not a good enough excuse. I thought of leaving a note on the seat that read, ‘This seat is dedicated to the memory of David who always liked sitting down’. Both immature and premature I’m told and I didn’t have the brass to do it anyway. Walking verges of the A9 under a cerulean (that’s blue, Peter) sky with the sun’s warmth on our back packs was bordering on pleasant, especially when we saw for the first time ‘John o’ Groats’ on a road sign. After a very long slog we got to the Dornoch Firth bridge and had pedestrian pavement under our boots for its half mile length (21 spans of 144 feet). The views over the water were great, and in that windy noisy place, I had a quiet still sense that we were entering the final home strait. On the far side of the bridge we saw the small ‘John o’ Groats Way’ marker pointing over the Armco crash barrier and down a grassy bank. This was something we were both getting rather good at, so we nipped over like a couple of pros and were walking along the much more enjoyable path by the water’s edge in no time. We were in another world of purple flowering heather, a playground for all the many other colourful flowers around our feet. As we got closer to Dornoch we passed the noisiest tree I’ve ever come across in my life. There must have been a hundred crows (or ravens, not sure which) arguing and screeching in it, but I couldn’t see a single one of them! Arriving at the outskirts of Dornoch we got speaking with a man who said he’d spotted us on the bridge (probably when we were jumping the barrier). He was white washing his long garden wall, and I thought he’d got about as close to the finish as we were, proportionally. The gentleman was happy to chat with us whilst, in the sunshine, paint dried hard on the brush he was holding. At ‘The Eagle’ pub we sat outside for an on street snack of coronation chicken in baked jacket potato plus a cold pint of O&L. We got chatting to a couple of blokes on the next table and when I remarked that Costa del Dornoch was a little known sunny seaside resort, he explained they enjoyed a local ‘micro climate’ and that it never rained in Dornoch. When I expressed unbelief, he very convincingly went through all the meteorological science to back up his claim. Finally, I’d met someone who could lie even more convincingly than me, which left me feeling both impressed and angry at the same time. Even the A9 couldn’t spoil today’s walking and talking.