John o’ Groats Trail Day 5.
Distance today: 12.9 miles.
Total distance: 89.5 miles.
Accommodation: campsite.
Marie recommended that I skipped the first part of the official route because it only took you up hill and there wasn’t much to look at. I thanked her and then proceeded to completely ignore her advice because of my ever-so-slight OCD tendencies. I had to stick to the official route. Where possible. Or convenient. It was actually a nice gentle start to the day – like a warm-up walk before the proper walk. It ended up taking me along a country lane complete with a few ramshackle houses, and then on through fields and a gathering of cattle begrudgingly moving out of the way of a stile. And there was even a cheery encounter with a little lamb which either thought I was its mother or wanted to be my friend.
Once I reached the coastline is was pretty much long, empty, sandy beach or near beach for the rest of the day. It definitely made a welcome change to the slog of some of the previous sections of the trail. The trick walking on the beach was to find the Goldilocks sand. Not too many stones, soft but not so soft you sink in and waste a lot of energy.
At one point a small river made its way down to the sea and very effectively blocked my path. With no handy bridge to cross it (unless I was prepared to climb up onto the railway bridge) it was off with the boots and socks and clearly taking my life in my own hands, wading tentatively across. In reality, it was a foot deep at the most and made fairly straightforward with the help of my trekking poles. Not that I wanted to do it twice and nor did Bob who had just done it in the opposite direction before I arrived. Bob was a few years older than me and was walking Land’s End to John o’ Groats – in smaller sections, I think. More significantly, he had left his mobile phone on the other side. Once I’d reached dry land I managed to find his phone and then, at his request, threw it to him. Not sure I would have done that with my phone but they were safely reunited and I had done my good deed for the day.
Eventually made it to a place called Dalchalm, on the outskirts of Brora. This was the location of the Brora Club Campsite which was obviously more set up to receive caravans and mobile homes but thankfully still had a strip of grass put aside for tents. £12 for a pitch. Bizarrely, a few yards beyond the fence there were people playing golf on the local 18 hole course. Once I’d set my tent up I went for a wander in the hope that the golf club might have some cheap food. It was probably about a mile or so to get there and disappointingly, beer and crisps was all they could offer. It would have to do.
