Land's End to John O'Groats 2011

17th Nov 2011 | 1 note

Dad- “can you try and look a bit happy please?”

No, we’re not still wandering the labyrinthine lanes of caithness (just kidding, i’m fairly sure there’s only one road up there) in search of the coast. That bit was fairly foolproof. Harder, somehow, has been finding the motivation to write up the ending after returning to reality.

Here’s a rather belated update of our last few days, written from the luxury of my desktop computer.

Embo to Brora-

’Grannie’s’ wasn’t what i’d expected. we arrived to find what appeared to be a small town made from static caravans. it took us fifteen minutes to nervously traverse the grounds in search of reception. even so, we were both amused and horrified to see campers DRIVING from their tent to the site shop. it was quite a strange setting for a holiday park; and having waltzed in from the back of beyond it was a little surreal to have a karaoke bar and swimming pool at our fingertips. we managed to skulk away from the zombie-like holiday makers and pitch up behind a sand dune, about three metres away from the beach. Made chilli, drink cider and watched the sunset (that’s right -sunset- it actually stopped raining for a few precious hours). Anyway we set off the following morning and walked along the beach for a few miles. we’d hoped to cut out a good 6 miles by wading across the 100m or so estuary of loch fleet, rather than walking round to the bridge. unfortunately we misjudged low tide (by misjudged, i mean i guessed wrong) and the water was too deep to cross without swimming. so that was a fairly miserable 6 miles, punctuated by bitter glances shot at the rising water. Walked along a mixture of roads and coastal paths, past Golspie and Dunrobin castle before arriving in Brora. i was having a bit of an epic sugar crash and kept falling over and bumping into things (so nothing out of the ordinary), so i ate 4 kit kat chunkies before we stumbled into an indian for tea. we’d still got a couple of miles to walk before we reached the campsite at dalchalm, but neither of us could be bothered to move, and by the time we left it was dark. not the best idea, judging by the difficulty we had finding the campsite.

Brora to Helmsdale-

leftover curry for breakfast. om nom nom. before we left, we met a man walking in the opposite direction. turns out he is walking john o’ groats to land’s end via all 16 cancer research centres in the UK. It’s going to take him 6 months, so he will be walking throughout winter. here is his website, it’s really epic challenge- http://www.whereswallace.org/

A short and unexciting walk along the dreaded A9. It’s not nearly as bad as we’d expected, and not nearly as bad as the A roads heading into Edinburgh. arrived in helmsdale in time for lunch, before wandering the last mile to our b&b. our plans to walk back into town ( back into village? hmmm) were dashed by more horrific weather, so i heated up supernoodles in the sink while sarah demolished her stash of snickers.

Helmsdale to Dunbeath-

The lady at last nights b&b had promised us wonderful views, should we follow the minor road to the top of the hill. unfortunately we awoke to very dense fog, and could see nothing. visibility was so poor that when the fog lifted for a moment, we realised that the road was perhaps only 50m from the sea and we’d had no idea. Not great conditions to be stuck on the A9; we walked with headtorches on, and i managed to peel a bit of hi- vis ‘stuff’ from a roadsign and stick it to my clothes, but it was pretty difficult to see cars coming until they were virtually on top of us which was a bit stressy. after lunch we climbed above sea level and conditions improved slightly. we sat at the side of the road and waited for my dad, who’d driven up to meet us. walked the last few miles and arrived at the campsite where dad had arrived with his car of luxuries. ate pasta, drank cider and saw the milky way.

Dunbeath to Watten

i think this was just about our longest day, at 24 miles. it was made to seem longer still by the monotony of the single, dead straight road we followed for the last 13 miles, and the crazy wind that drove sideways rain at us and tried to push us back to land’s end. arrived at a very basic campsite, tired, wet and cold, and attempted to pitch our tents in the gale. morale wasn’t at its highest, so when the owner of the campsite offered us a static caravan on the cheap we were pretty excited, and spent the last night in luxury.

Watten to John O’Groats

another long day on boring roads, with nasty horizontal rain. yes, it’s a theme. i really couldnt motivate myself to walk, as we seemed so close to the end, but it felt like we’d never get there. dad acted as a support vehicle and brought us snacks and a warm place to sit throughout the day. as we reached the final five miles we decided to alternate walking and running to speed up our progress. To say that John O’groats was an anticlimax would be somewhat of an understatement. the famous John O’Groats sign had been whisked away 15 minutes prior to our arrival; the John O’Groats hotel was a ruin and the lady in the John O’Groats shop was grumpy. I found it really difficult to get exited by the fact that we’d finished, it was quite underwhelming and we just wanted to get home and rest.

Anyway, we did it. We’re both really grateful to anyone that sponsored us; all the kind strangers who helped us out and befriended us along the way; and all the lovely folk who came to visit us. We had some tough times, but we also had some really amazing, hilarious, adventurous times, and I miss it.

3rd Oct 2011