Wednesday 10 July: Dornoch to beyond Brora
I wake up early with a plan. I will get cash from the local bank’s cash dispenser, then some food from the local bakery for my lunch. Hmm. The local bank doesn’t have a cashpoint, and the local bakery, though there are wonderful smells coming from it, doesn’t open for two more hours. This town knows that it is an unspoilt traditional place and isn’t going to change for anybody – so there. Can’t say I blame it.
I set off with the feeling that I have lots of time today. After all, I don’t have that many miles to go and I have made an early start. I pass the ruins of Skelbo Castle, where King Edward I’s men waited for Princess Margaret of Norway. They were expecting her marriage to Edward’s son, which would solve the problem of Scotland’s sovereignty. She died of sea-sickness on the voyage.
Along the shores of Loch Fleet, I am being fairly incuriously watched by a lot of seals. They are lying on a sandbank basking in the morning sun. I join the A9, the main road going north. I take a detour down a long drive to have a look at Dunrobin Castle, the ancestral home of the Earl of Sutherland. If Drumlanrig Castle should appear on Scottish shortbread tins, then this castle should appear on – what??? Nothing is large enough. I search my vocabulary for ‘big’ words. ‘Gargantuan’, ‘massive’, they all seem pathetically inadequate; the place is jaw-droppingly HUGE. Imagine designing, building and owning something this size. I feel like Gulliver arriving in Brobdingnag, or as if I might have arrived here after climbing a beanstalk. Any minute I expect the ground to start shaking and a giant, no doubt wearing a kilt, to appear, and start booming about ‘Smelling the blood of an Englishman’. The place has got everything that a castle should have: courtyards, moats and the rest – but to the power of ten. It is Hogwarts or Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast. I stand looking at it with my mouth open for about ten minutes. Words completely fail me and feeling very small, I go back to the road and carry on with my journey.
I stop at Brora to buy a packed lunch and have a rest on a jetty, then I eat my lunch on a sandy beach in the sun. I set off again and go past an old chap who is watering his garden, and ask him if he can fill my water bottles. I fill them at every opportunity when I cycle. He asks me if I would like to come in and have a cup of tea? I realise that my initial reluctance to go into a stranger’s house is ridiculous. We have some tea and a pleasant chat. I feel that I have lots of time and wonder what all this alarmist talk is about the next section being ‘really difficult’; then I set off and soon find out. The climb starts and just carries on and on and on. It becomes high moors with nothing here except derelict cottages, small farms and the sight of oil rigs far out into the North Sea. I suppose I must be as fit now as I am going to get, but my leg muscles start to scream at me. I finally arrive at the farmhouse I have booked into and realise I should have paid more attention to the warnings about how hard this bit of the ride really is. I feel shattered! The farmer’s wife brings me a large tray of tea and cake, which I consume in grateful silence.
Thursday 11 July: Beyond Brora to John o’ Groats
I have an early breakfast in the farmhouse kitchen, then cycle to Lybster and sit in the harbour to have a chat with a man who has a nice-looking sailing boat. He tells me all about the sailing plans he has, for when he retires the following year.
Rather than do this last bit of my ride along the coast, I go inland to Watten. There are some 5,000-year-old burial cairns mentioned in the local guidebook. They have been completely restored and you can crawl into them. I do. They feel incredibly eerie. I have never been inside anything 5,000 years old before.
The wind has changed direction and is now a north-easterly, blowing straight into my face. I finally reach the north coast of Scotland, about five miles from John o’ Groats. I have been visualising what this view would be like for days now: the coast, then endless sea as far as the horizon. It is a bit of a shock to see the coast, then a small strip of sea, then more land. The land is of course the Orkneys, and between them, even nearer, is the island of Stroma, and on this clear day it really does look very near.
I reach John o’ Groats and cycle to the end of the pier where the boats leave for the Orkneys. I think this must be the most northerly point. I suddenly feel at a loss as to what I should do now. I sit down and it slowly dawns on me that I have made it. I start to reminisce about a lot of this ride; it has been really great.
I start to smile, then I phone home.
© Jim Anderson, 2025
Jim Anderson 