The journey home!

31 May – 3 June 2013

I write this in light of the frequently repeated advice that “you have not finished your climb until you are safely down”.

I began my journey home with a bus ride to Thurso. The bus driver (from Birmingham) was chatty and thought I must have started in March 2012! I spent most of the morning in Thurso due to the train timings and then had a very scenic journey to Inverness. I looked out for the places where I had walked or stayed – Helmsdale, Brora, Dunrobin Castle, Evanton, Dingwall, Beauly and especially the Dornoch Firth Caravan Park, where my tent had shaken as the train sped past. Even that small part of the journey seemed a long way – it took almost four hours – but the train does stop at quite a few places and does go quite slowly. It just didn’t seem as if it was going slowly when I was in my tent at the campsite with the railway line just the other side of the hedge.

I could have flown home but I opted for train all the way as I felt that after eleven weeks walking I needed a slow re-integration. Moreover I was banned from getting home until after my daughter had completed her last AS exam – in case I distracted her. I spent two nights at Inverness, staying in the excellent youth hostel. I discovered the enormous second hand bookshop, the Rohan shop, the other outdoor shops and the whiskey shop so I was able to buy gifts for my husband and daughter. Hence despite all the things I had sent home, my rucksack was now full again. I also enjoyed browsing in the indoor market and visiting the café there. I even walked round the “historic town” route to see all the sights.

The helpful staff at Inverness Railway Station ticket office were amazing and managed to find the least expensive way for me to get back home – involving buying my journey as a ticket to Edinburgh then a ticket on from there. I spent the journey south thinking what a long way it was – even in a fast train it took ages. I was flabbergasted that I had walked so far! Some of the time I looked out of the window as the countryside flashed by; I was thinking “now I am as far south as this or that day of my walk”. I also wrote lots of thank you postcards to the multiple bed and breakfast establishments where I had been looked after so well.

I had to break my journey one final time at Tamworth to stay with my mother-in-law (and yes I had remembered to buy a gift for her); otherwise I would have arrived home before my daughter’s exams finished. She had kindly washed all the clothes I had left there, including the dog-bitten trousers, so I added those to the load in my rucksack.

Eventually I arrived back in Exeter and walked from the railway station to my husband’s place of work to pick up my front door key. The office staff took turns to pick up and be amazed at the weight of my rucksack – although of course at that stage it also contained the bottle of single malt whiskey and all the second hand books I had bought in Inverness.

I arrived home to find my daughter, having finished her last exam, hastily putting the postcards I had sent home on display in a montage of views the length of mainland UK. From the cards she had of course worked out that I would be back soon but did not know when. For the record, she got top grades in every exam so the plan to avoid distractions clearly worked out well.

I was safely home – journey complete!