Today we left Brora and headed to Lybster
Today Barath and Mike (clearly something important on his phone lol) were walking with us and Lynn joining us later in the day. Newly promoted Director of Catering and Logistics, Elizabeth, was looking after us for the day.
As we drove to East Helmsdale, where we finished yesterday, the sun was breaking through into the sea in places giving some lovely views. There was some anxious looking at the weather forecast this morning but the current storm passed over very quickly just before we started walking. Then it was straight into a long hill, climbing about 150m – a nice way to warm up in the morning.
Walking to Berriedale there were plenty of nice views on both sides of the road – sea views and hills in the distance. Once we saw the escape lane sign we knew we had arrived at the steep up and down that we remembered well from last year. It was not as bad (although still tough) as we remembered, probably because we were on day 2 last year and the penultimate day this year. There was a coffee shop at the foot of the dip but we had no intention of carrying coffee / scone up the hill (another 150m) so we passed on this occasion.
Nearly at Dunbeath we stopped for a while to watch a pair of sheepdogs herding a large number of sheep around a huge field. It is so impressive how the two dogs worked together with only whistling form the shepherd. Carrying on up the (inevitable) hill from Dunbeath we stopped at a delightful tearoom to get a coffee / scone to take away. Asking for a latte we were told we could only have a milky coffee – but it was delicious as were the scones.
We started to get views of the huge offshore wind farm and one off many isolated churches / graveyards that populate this area and then enjoyed two herds of young cows. In the picture above they spotted us and started jostling each other to get a better view as they all came to wall so see what was going on. Then, on the other side of the road, another herd of youngsters ran down the whole field to keep pace with us walking – there was a lot of bumping into each other as they raced down the field. We then said goodbye to the A9 at Latheron and continued up the A99 towards John o’Groats.
We passed Lybster (our home for the night) and continued on down the road for about 10 km to shorten tomorrow’s journey. The light and clouds were causing wonderful imagery as we spotted a lighthouse we hadn’t seen on this route last year. We stopped for the day at a location called Whaligoe which appears on google maps but doesn’t actually have a signpost!
Tomorrow is our last day as we head for John o’Groats.
