Day 56 - Never put your money on Wolves

 

Keith and I were following the coast just about all day today, and the first mile saw us walking around Royal Dornoch Golf Course, of which multi-Major winner Tom Watson once said ‘the most fun I have had playing golf in my whole life.’ You did gain the impression that there was ‘a bit of money around’ with caddies escorting some groups and the fairways in better condition than most of the greens I have ever played on.

From Embo, we skirted round the Loch Fleet estuary where a group of seals was basking on a sand bank. One fella was shuffling along at some speed in the background, presumably having spotted a particularly attractive fish to get his teeth into. It was here I received a message I knew would not have a happy ending. A friend, who for now shall remain nameless but will doubtless reveal his angry self in the comments section, was in the final five of a ‘last-man standing’ football prediction competition. You pick a different team to win each week – i.e. you can’t pick Manchester City every game – and only go forward if your team wins. The stakes were high on this one, with £800 winnings for that last man; ‘friend’ had predicted that Wolves would beat Everton… the message hung over me all day. And, well, sorry Graham… (It won’t help you, but my evening recovered when Warrington scored a try in the closing three minutes to defeat Catalans.)

We had to briefly join the A9 to go over The Mound, yet another Thomas Telford design, this one to regulate the tidal flow to and from the loch. I would guess he never anticipated the volume of traffic on the A9 but, then again, he was a clever bloke, that Telford.

It was only a mile or so after leaving the van that I realised I had left behind Sticky, my faithful walking pole. It’s only the second time I have been Stickyless during my journey and it did feel as if I was missing a limb. The walking was pretty easy, though, with decent paths and little climbing that allowed us to eat up the ground. Indeed, when we finished after 20 miles, 16 of them had been under 20 minutes and the four that weren’t included lunch, seals, comfort breaks and stressing about Wolves letting Graham down.

Lunch was timed nicely in Golspie, leaving us just seven miles to complete in the afternoon and to also take in the picturesque Dunrobin Castle, above, which has been in the Earl of Sutherland’s family since the 12^th century. Times have clearly become a little harder for His Lordship, as the castle is now opened to the public and he and his family are forced to live in just a small portion of the 189 rooms. Dunrobin by name but not Done with Robbin’ just yet.

We arrived in Brora just before the heavens opened and, if the forecast is right, it looks likely to continue to rain until we set off in the morning, so we will settle for that. Our site tonight is in the Brora Radio Intercept Station, built at the start of the Second World War to monitor enemy radio signals, feeding them through for decoding at Bletchley Park. Operations continued until 1986 and the caravan warden informs us that radio and television signals are still very strong here despite the mast having being removed. Indeed, it’s one of the few times we have had a DAB radio signal in the last week.

A tough 27-miler tomorrow that includes passing Scotland’s only official naturist beach. I can only hope Keith keeps his clothes on.

 

They are seals, not rocks

 

GCHQ disguised as our caravan site