22 May 2013: 29km. Started 09:00. Arrived 18:00.
The weather was dry but windy for a short time – five minutes! – and then it rained. The showers became increasingly frequent and heavy then virtually continuous rain as the day went on. Some of the time it was even wintry with hail.
The day started well and easily otherwise with a pleasant off-road and well surfaced cycle path almost all the way to Alness where I had coffee at a bakery.
After coffee, I followed a very long but quiet unclassified road for 7-8 miles. it became quite boring and I was keen to turn off. There were areas of woodland and fields with cows and sheep as well as some fields with horse jumps. One memorable field was home to five huge bulls (all with rings in their noses). One snorted at me but I was safely the other side of a barbed wire fence.
Eventually I arrived at the turning that I had been aiming for into a forest. Initially the paths matched those on the map which was very reassuring. I arrived at what I thought was a wide track marked on the map and turned on to it. Unfortunately it was actually an area cleared for electricity transmission lines. I realised that there wasn’t really any path. It was on a steep hill and very difficult to walk along. In the end I worked out a diversion which got me near to where I wanted to be.
I was aiming for Dornoch Firth camp site and could see that next door to it there was a pub with accommodation. I had been unable to contact the pub in advance but given the general emptiness of accommodation I expected that there would be a room available. There was indeed only a single car in the car park – but sadly the whole place was booked with building contractors. However it was possible to get food there.
Despite the rain and wind and the exposed location of the campsite belying the exhortation on the entrance sign “Live Your Dreams!”, there was nothing for it but to pitch my tent. The owner suggested a relatively sheltered part of the site. I was at least able to leave my rucksack in the laundry room while I put up the tent, I still couldn’t work out why the flysheet seemed to be too big for the tent and so sagged on to the inner. Some toggles had come undone inside the tent but I managed to reattach them. Having pitched my tent, I arrived for dinner in the nick of time before last food orders. The pub man mellowed – I had a very nice pasta bolognaise and he offered cooked breakfast for the morning.
It was cold and windy even in the supposedly sheltered place I had put my tent. I didn’t bother to undress or wash and was in my sleeping bag soon after 9pm. This was just as well given that I woke at first light and dozed. At 05:45 my tent was shaken by the train flying past as the railway line was on the other side of the hedge from where I had camped.
There had been some water leakage into the tent overnight because of the flysheet problem. However it wasn’t as much as at the “wild camp”. I packed away my sleeping mat and bag before breakfast in an effort to keep them as dry as possible.
After breakfast, I put everything except the tent in my rucksack and put it all in the washroom. Having taken down the tent, which billowed in the wind, I took it to the laundry room. I wiped my survival bag (used as a footprint under the ground sheet) dry with toilet roll. Folding everything inside made it all much easier to stay dry – “cheating” but making use of the facilities. Besides which, my £7 for the overnight camp had to pay for something. The campsite worker who I talked to was prepared to turn a “blind eye” and I cleaned off everything before I left. It was of course easier to keep dry when I could unpack and pack my rucksack inside. I had survived!
Where's Kathryn? 