rocks Archives - helpful mammal

CCXLII – Newburgh to Aberdeen

IT HAS taken me a while to get around to writing up the last day of my April 2023 trip (over four months, in fact) but that delay should not be in any way taken as a commentary on the experience. On the other hand, it is very much an indicator of my propensity to get distracted by stuff and things since then. On the day, 19 Apr 23 yielded a very pleasant stroll along a sandy beach. A ten-mile stroll, plus a few extra miles on each end. And they went something like this…

CCXL – Fraserburgh to Peterhead

CLOUDED skies and a chill breeze awaited me upon the fourth morning of my April 2023 trip, as I emerged from my hotel and went in search of a breakfast more appetising than the lacklustre effort that had been on offer there. On walking days, breakfast is serious business and I required a more fulfilling refuelling. The question was, would Fraserburgh deliver?

CCXXXVI – Forres to Lossiemouth

THE last day of my October 2022 trip began with the gentle sound of raindrops upon the windows of my hotel room. Once again, this eased off during breakfast but most of my morning’s exertions would still be cooled by the lightest of misty drizzle hanging damply in the air. I didn’t mind this in itself – I quite like the rain – but it did threaten to hide any scenic views that my day’s walk had to offer. The walk would be from Forres to Lossiemouth along part of the Moray Coastal Trail…

CCXXVIII – Lybster to Berriedale

ACCORDING to the Met Office, what I should have seen on 1st May, as I threw back the curtains of my hotel room window, was a wall of white mist. What I actually saw was that the mist was missing; the weather was clear…

CCXXVII – Wick to Lybster

THE last day of April 2022 began with my awakening early enough to be downstairs and ready to eat the very moment breakfast service began in my hotel. Then, pleasingly filled with both bacon and enthusiasm, I headed outside to walk through Wick and then southwards to Lybster, the name of which I had as yet no idea how to pronounce (it’s ‘libe-ster’ not ‘lib-ster’).

CCXXV – John o’ Groats to Wick

THE morning of the 11th of March was bright, dry and blustery with the bluster turned up to eleven. This was excellent insofar as it meant that not only would I not be rained on but that the wind should have helped dry the ground out. The only issue was that, if the previous days had been ungodly windy, then that had just been the warm-up – the wind had now become an abhorrent entity embodying meteorological malevolence. If I exaggerate, it’s not by much…

CCXXIV – Dunnet to John o’ Groats

A LITTLE over a week ago, as I write this, I awoke in my hotel room in Dunnet and threw back the curtains to find a cloudy sky and puddles on the ground. The heavy rain, forecast to appear for an hour the previous day, had stubbornly remained through the night. But, while it had clearly continued until not long before I awoke, I was pleased to see that it had finally stopped, which meant I could start on my trek for the day…

CCXXIII – Thurso to Dunnet

AFTER a two-year hiatus in consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was with relief, joy and not a little trepidation – after all, just how out of practice would I be? ― that I resumed my perambulatory pastime in early March 2022, returning to Thurso to continue clockwise along the coast…

CCXX – Tongue to Bettyhill

FOLLOWING my thirty-miler from Durness to Tongue, I slept the sleep of the absolutely steam-rollered. Come the next morning, my body was not at all keen to stop sleeping and carry on with the walking part of my walking trip.

I couldn’t blame it.

CCXVIII – Durness loop via Balnakeil and Faraid Head

I RETURNED to Durness in early October 2019, arriving mid-afternoon as that was the time that the one and only bus pulled into town. I made my way to my B&B (which had power this time — yay!) and sat and had a cup of tea.

‘Okay,’ I thought to myself, ‘now what?’

Except I already knew what as I’d planned that out already…