Helmsdale Hostel

... that you could show other noblefolk your area. The local Duke went one step further and even hired a crazy old man Hermit to live in his land, so that he had something extra special to brag about! We stopped at Ossians hut, which sat just over a waterfall and watched the salmon try to jump upstream to their spawning areas.

Back on the bus - a quick lunch at the Tipsy Laird, which for those who watched Monarch of the Glen (a BBC show a few years back) was ...

Today is time to get back on track, I am in East Leake and I need
to get back to Scotland. Luckily Daniel doesn't wake me up too early
and although I don't set off as early as I need to, I get a good nights
sleep.
I
get my gear swapped from the Land Rover and into the BMW and get set
off at around 10:30 ...

... off somewhere in the evening? Would I ever! He also gives me great advice on how to avoid the A9 and take a more scenic route to Dornoch and Tain.

I practically skip down the road to Loch Fleet, a beautiful place that the Vikings called Loch Fljotr and is now a nature reserve. There are more seals sunning themselves on the sand banks, lots of birds and more blackberries to munch on.

By lunchtime ...

... only seems to have room for three boats, I agonise over whether or not to continue to Golspie, six miles further down the coast. It would definitely help cut the mileage of the last day this week to Inverness, which could be as much as 25 miles!

I push on and stumbling around yet another bend of the busy A99, I spot an opportunity to go off-road and walk along the shore. The best decision I've made so far! The path leads through Sputtie burn and down onto the ...

... of Caithness things get interesting! This is a series of hilly, exposed hairpin bends that head to Helmsdale - there's no shelter and the road is very narrow. Despite my huge pack I'm struggling to stay on my feet and keep having to jump into the tiny space behind the crash barriers that is full of gorse bushes to avoid being squished.
The road here has obviously been altered extensively over the years and I'm ...

It rains on and off all night and I awake to a sodden tent and a damp sleeping bag where I must have rolled into the side. Great! Luckily the rain clears and the skies brighten, enabling me to dry my tent off on the outside of my pack.

Today's trek down the A99 is painfully slow. The landscape is quite bleak out here and the flow of traffic, much of it large lorries and motor homes, means jumping on and off the ...

So were here at the castle.. Spent the whole day doing nothing... There is not much to do around here expect walk into the woods in the extreme cold.. Castle is dead during the day.. no one around.. it really sucks not having a car. We have decided ...

... and thought it would be really cool to stay there, so that's where I was heading. (www.sleeperzzz.com) I don't know if this place was on the way or not (you'll see why in the next entry), but I had to stop and take a photo for my friend Joe. He'll understand why!

... up onto the Sutherland plateau; about a 1000 feet above sea level. Once on the plateau the cycling was fine, just undulating roads where we could average 15mph easily. The unfortunate thing about being up on the plateau was that we were in the clouds meaning we were cycling through a sea of constand drizzle which permeated everywhere. It got to the poiunt where we were actually looking ...

... the usual 2 pints of cider and again I was feeling "pretty good". I chatted with some guy and asked him if he was single and he responded with "I'm a single malt". lol I was feeling pretty happy after this so I talked to Michael, asking the dumb question of; why do most of the cars have sunroofs when it rains so much! He replied with "wishful thinking". lol Leaving the pub, I kept waving to guys from a bachelor party. The things cider does to me. On ...