Forss House Hotel Thurso

... verge repeatedly, sapping energy and morale. <br><br>I'm intrigued by how huge all the animals are out here - cows, sheep, even the flopsy bunnies are all enormous! Must be something in the rain! <br><br>Stopping for tea at the Portland Arms Hotel in Lybster, the lovely barmaid offers me some of their home-made shortbread. It's buttery and very sweet and gives me a much needed energy boost, especially as my right foot is ...

... the rabbits playing in the fading light. An early one for me as it's a long day tomorrow.<br><br>Things that made me smile today:<br><br>The sun coming out<br>Seeing a red deer as I leave the offroad section at Skirza<br>The ease of setting up the tent and using the JetBoil stove. Thanks Robin - they're brilliant!<br>A late night text from a friend checking I'm ok and cheering me on<br>

... in itself. There is no direct bus from Inverness and the quickest route seems to involve a slow bus to Wick and then another even slower bus (from the other side of Wick, of course!) to J O'G itself. Gazing out of the window I try to take in some of the landscapes I'll be walking over the next week and ponder why on earth I thought this was a good idea! The narrowness of the A99 and the twists and turns north ...

... 14 degree weather. We also had some excellent cheese, but we didn't sample any of the 8.5% alcoholic beer. <br><br>The next part of the tour involved most of the ancient sites. We saw Skara Brae which is a stone aged village (from about 5000 years ago). It was uncovered in one of the huge storms they regularaly have up here, about 150 years ago. there are stone huts which were orignally in the middle of a midden, complete with stone ...

... bit like the skies here- I guess we can blend in with those rather than the road now. It handles quite well and with the exception of the windscreen wipers and indicators being on the ewrong side, it's quite easy to drive. Navigating Edinburgh (and indeed the rest of the country- with the exception of a minor detour though the smaller streets of Perth) was actually not too bad with the help of our big colins Atlas. <br><br>Once you get out of ...

... quasi-polar bear territory.<br><br>As a newcomer to this cold-water surf scene the term &#8216;ice-cream headache&#8217; never really entered my consciousness. The water would be heinously cold were you to swim barefoot - so you wear booties, which can feel like water balloons while you&#8217;re paddling out past the shore dump in water temps that literally wiped out the titanic passengers. Maybe in the future scientists will find a gene in seal DNA that prevents humans from ...

There's something amazing about knowing that you have everything you need to survive with you. I have clothes, food, shelter and transport. What more do I need?<br><br>There's something a little bit less amazing about having all that stuff with you when you try to get it on and off several busy trains. Why did I bring so much stuff??<br><br>Train ride up was fairly uneventful, it just took a long time. I always thought that Inverness was a long way North ...

... on a dirt track so small a U-turn would be impossible. There was no going back, and no roads off the dirt track. The SatNav system was picking up no 'points of interest' whatsoever, so I just kept driving. Eventually the soulless voice told me there was a post office in the vicinity, so thinking that would mean a town, I headed for that. I ended up in this village consisting of about 3 houses, but I could see a roadsign ahead, so went to have a look ...

Today, we reached the most Northern point of mainland Scotland, near John o'Groats, fifteen miles out of Wyck. We left Inverness about ten o'clock. First, we drove to the woolen mill, but the prices were high. The sun was out as we drove out of town, and the sky was virtually cloudless. Soon, however, as we gained a bit, but not too much, in altitude, the fog engulfed us. The scenery, we had been ...