Day 60 - Along the coast

A view of the Caithness coastline south of Dunbeath.

The splendid view from the grounds of our hotel for yesterday and today - the Navidale house Hotel at Helmsdale - offering plenty of opportunities for bird watching or just relaxing.

Entering Caithness also marked the 900 mile marker. You may recall that the 300 miles was achieved at Norton Lindsey; the 600 miles was at Lindsay Tower; so I expected that the 900 mile marker would have some Lindsay connection. However the best that I can do is that the daughter of the Countess of Caithness married the 14th Earl of Crawford, George Lindsay, in 1621 - OK it is a bit tenuous! I understand that tickets are still available for the Royal National Mod (whatever that is!)

The 20 mile target to Dunbeath was achieved without any great incident. This leaves 38 miles to go to JOG but I have now decided to carry on to Duncansby Head, the extreme tip of Britain, which is a further 2 miles. I still hope to finish on Monday afternoon although I have just heard the weather forecast for tomorrow which is for heavy rain and gales. As I still have about 8 miles along the coast, before heading in land, it may not make for easy walking.

All of today's route was along the A9 and most was along the coast. This led to having to walk up and down several steep hills as the road dipped down to the villages along the coast. I am however told that there are now no more major hills left to encounter. The traffic was light so never became an irritant although the lack of cycle lanes etc meant that it was essential to concentrate the whole day to avoid tangling with the vehicles. A particular problem was that several times a car was about to pull out to give me space when the unobservant driver behind decided to overtake into a narrowing lane, making the first car veer back into "my" space. A similar problem occurred several times when cars going in the same direction as me decided to overtake which meant that they came very close to me, which was a surprise as I had no idea what was happening behind my back.

From what I have seen of Caithness so far it is more like I expected the far north of Scotland to be. There are isolated farms and cottages in bleak countryside and the land doesn't look to be very fertile. This contrasts with Sutherland which is both attractive as well as productive.

Lisa posted a comment yesterday asking what was in the Lindsay & Co showroom that was pictured in the blog yesterday. My shopping consultant informs me that the showroom is for the nearby hardware store and it displays such items as lawnmowers and other gardening equipment. Lindsay & Co also had a gift and card shop on the other side of the road.

Now that I am nearing the end of the journey I have mixed feelings - I want to finish the task and to achieve something that I have planned for years, but I think that I will miss the new routine that I have grown used to. I guess that I will have to wait a few weeks to come to terms with the events of the last two months. What I will not be doing is taking up Phil's suggestion that I turn around and walk back to Lands End!

I met a couple today who have just set off on their way to LE. They are doing it the long way with their route covering 1300 miles compared t0 my 950. They are doing the Pennine Way and also the South West Coath Path, both of which I decided were too long when walked as part of LEJOG. They expect t0 take 13 weeks to complete the walk. These are the first walkers that I have met who are going south - I have seen only I other going north (Benno - who I am sure is enjoying watching Holland in the World Cup!). the couple did however tell me that they had met a chap about an hour ahead of me who was going north - they said that they "didn't respect him" because he was doing the walk in stages over a period rather than doing it all in one go. They did however think that my schedule was acceptable! I have seen several end to end cyclists today and I expect to see more walkers and cyclists as I approach JOG - there are numerous routes used by endtoenders but they all converge at JOG!

"Walks. The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird." - Jules Renard

Cheers

Keith