Durness

19/5/15

With warm clothes back on, we left Scourie in some sunshine but with some stiff hills to climb

It got colder and rained persistently for several hours and our desire to keep moving was fuelled by the fact that there were no tea shops and the Riconich Hotel was shut so we settled for brief stops to drink hot Ribena/ tea from our flasks.

The long climb and decent from there was as wild and, apart from the occasional jolly truck driver (in particular Dave) the patience and politeness of the drivers was poor.

We arrived In Durness and got into our hostel room which just had room for the bunk bed but had all the necessary facilities. We chatted to the other guests including a Swiss man who had just completed his walk from Fort William to Durness via Cape Wrath.

This point in our journey is quite important, it marks the point where we stop traveling north (until we have rounded Lands End) and we start to head east before then going south.

I went for an evening walk in the icy air flowing straight off the Arctic. It's about 30 years ago when I cycled to here from Glasgow and fell in love with Scotland, I got goosebumps and returned to the hostel.