Total miles: 11.4
Elevation gain: 2,589 ft
Time walking: 10:30am – 5pm
Miles to date: 1,370.7
Day 100! Wow! I’m not sure it has quite sunk in yet…I have been walking for 100 days and am just two days from reaching the most north-easterly point in Great Britain. Everything is aching and today the tiredness really hit, but I know I’m going to make it, and it’s an incredible, if somewhat surreal, feeling!
Today was another stunning day. Not weather wise (although the first few hours were gorgeous), but the coastal scenery continues to be extraordinary. Even more stacks, sea arches, caves, vertigo-inducing geos, calm havens and rocky headlands, with the added excitement today of a couple of blow holes and a hilltop bog! The path was much better today, still steep in places but mostly well trodden and grassy. The geos (narrow and deep clefts in the face of a cliff) get more impressive, although after a few it does get a little wearing to constantly have to walk around them!
My day started with an amazing breakfast at my B&B (Thrumster House, an elegant Victorian Laird’s house – highly recommend it!), I don’t know what the Scots do to their porridge but it’s always delicious! Topped up with granola, yoghurt and berries, then a full English with toast. What am I going to do when I’m not walking and can’t eat so much…?! Catherine and her mother were wonderful hosts and the house is gorgeous. I’m thinking of holding one of my first Wildfire Retreats up here…watch this space!
Catherine dropped me back at Whaligoe and my walk started off with the must-do walk down the famous Whaligoe Steps (all 330 of them), to get down to the natural (and otherwise inaccessible) harbour in Whale Geo below. I had the harbour to myself with the exception of some small birds singing, their bubbling notes echoing off the cavernous walls of the geo. The birdsong, the gentle lapping of the waves and the whistle of the wind that didn’t quite make it into the geo made for a calming combination, lulling me into a sense of peace that made me not want to leave. I “only” had about 11 miles to do today, but given I’d ended up finishing in the dark yesterday I didn’t want to take any chances!
Back up the steps and I was grateful to Catherine who had kindly offered to run some of my stuff to Wick which meant my bag was refreshingly light. The steps were still tough though. I tried to work out whether I could have climbed them more easily earlier in the trip…it feels like my fitness has started going backwards now! That’ll be the downside cumulative effect of 100 days walking then…the Law of Diminishing Returns in action…(oh dear…definitely still an actuary in there somewhere!).
It was a beautiful morning up on the cliffs but windy again and the sea was choppy below. As I rounded the cliff top fence there was a viewpoint just up on a higher bit of ground on a slight promontory, with beautiful views of the steep coastline ahead, the sun picking up the many colours in the rocks. There is a vibrant orange-yellow lichen that grows on the rocks up here and in the sunshine it almost glows! My first geo of the day, Ellen’s Geo, was a beauty, with really colourful rocks in hues of pink, white, orange and grey. As I walked up around the head, where a single house perched up on the hill, I waved and said hello to a chap in the garden. He came over and we had a lovely chat. He told me about the hundreds of birds that nest in the cliffs of the geo in the summer, including puffins! I also learned that the little dots I could see on the horizon were the huge bases of turbines that would make up a new massive wind farm off the coast. Gosh that will look a bit different! George took a couple of photos of me (he is an amazing photographer!) and gave me some sponsorship, bless him! He told me that there was someone else on the trail too, about an hour ahead of me. I wondered if I’d catch them!
The route passed “The Rowans”, a small ridge too steep to walk between it and the sea, then headed into ground that felt suddenly more remote. At a small dip where a burn made its way to the sea the sun was warm and the spot was sheltered from the wind. Part of me was tempted to lie in the sun and have a nap! But of course I continued, past fields of wary sheep, to an uncommonly wide grassy area between the fields and the sea, where the magnificent Stack of Ulbster rose up out of the crashing waves below.
Walking along a narrow sheep track (with the odd waymarker indicating the general direction) towards a steep valley with a small burn to cross, I suddenly see movement out of the corner of my eye. A man! Below me, climbing up on one of the massive rocks coming out of the sea, camera in hand. Rather him than me, but I bet he gets some incredible photos! He sees me and we wave. That must be the guy George saw! He’s the first person I’ve seen on the trail and I wonder if he is one of the volunteers or a local in the know.
I turn my attention to finding a safe crossing place across the burn and make my way up the steep slope beyond, pausing to look back at the burn as it cascaded onto the rocks below. Then it was up and over, back to the breezy clifftops and almost moor-like terrain. Open, sparse, squelchy! And windy! But beautiful, of course. I passed by a blow hole – a hole straight down to the sea – and I could hear the waves crashing below. I was too chicken (or – probably, given the wind and my top-heaviness – too sensible) to peer right over to see the bottom, but the sound of the waves and the occasional faint gust of air that came up from below convinced me that it did indeed go right down to the water! I passed another further on, this one was less obvious, literally just a hole in the ground, without the rocky outcrops, and if it hadn’t have been for the startled bird that flew down into the hole I would almost have walked straight past it!
The next treat was the drop down into the peaceful Sarclet haven, another natural harbour no longer in use. Like so many other of the beautiful havens I’ve seen, this one had a ruined building (presumably once again a herring factory). It was hard to imagine it once being a hive of activity, it was so calm and quiet now, the only sound and movement the gentle lap of the waves on the rocky shore or the louder splashes of larger waves near the mouth of the cove. I rested for a while on a rock, once again surprised at the short distance I’d covered given the time that had passed. I munched on some flapjack, gazing out over the water and realised that I shared this quiet place with a lone seal. He spent a fair bit of the time underwater but would come up from time to time, give me a good look, then bob around for a while, looking rather unconcerned and content with life, before diving back down to swim around under water again. When I climbed up out of the haven on the other side I was struck by how clear the water was – I could see all of the rocks at the bottom but also my seal as he swam around. Amazing!
The next few miles were full of more open-moorland-next-to-the-sea walking, more long, deep, narrow geos (as pretty as they are, and all individual, I won’t miss the long treks in and out around each and every one!), a fantastically impressive sea arch, and very damp boggy ground! I don’t know if it’s just that my memory of the Pennine Way has faded but I swear I seem to be getting far muddier these last two days than I did through the Pennines! This particular section was due to the area being a moss – a boggy or swampy area – that drained into one of the geos (Ires Geo, in this case). At points I gave up trying to jump over the worst bits and just ploughed through, occasionally ankle deep!
As I rounded the head of Ires Geo, a slightly larger geo, I nearly didn’t stop to pay particular attention to it, but then I heard the haunting sound of seal song echoing up around the walls. It makes me think of the legends of selkies and sirens! I peered down to have a look and sure enough, several seals were hauled up on the narrow beach or bobbing around in the water. I watched them for a moment, they always bring a smile to my face, then as I was about move on I was surprised to see a bright red speedboat zipping along, full of neon yellow life jackets with heads and arms. The boat slowed, turned, and gently put-putted into the mouth of the cove. I expected a tumult of splashes and grunts as the seals raced to the water but this must have been a regular enough occurrence that it didn’t seem to perturb them significantly. I left the sea goers to their seal watching, wondering whether they’d spotted me up on the cliffs above, watching them. Seals are quite common in these parts…hikers, it appears, are a much rarer species!
I was feeling tired by this point, even with several miles still to go, and it was an effort to keep plodding on. My ankles were feeling it in particular today, I think from the last few days of uneven grass and steep slopes. I was nervous that in my tired state I would miss my footing and go over on an ankle, which did happen from time to time but thankfully not severely enough to do any damage. Not for the first time I was grateful for my sturdy boots! I have felt myself gradually getting more tired more quickly recently, but today was the first day that I really thought, do you know what, I’m ready to finish now. Mentally and emotionally I’m not quite sure I’m ready for it to be over but physically, yes, I’m glad I only have a couple more days.
A few more spectacular sights, most notably the stacks at Girston, the seaward side of which were full of caves and sea arches that the sea rushed through with each wave, and the Stack O’Brough a little further on – a massive lump of a stack with a sea cave running right the way from one end to the other. From here the Castle of Old Wick was visible, and Wick itself on the skyline, oh happy sight. One quick glimpse of a tall and precarious slender sea arch (blink and you’ll miss it!) and it was on to the castle ruins. Not much left but it is impressive in its situation – built on a narrow promontory with sheer cliffs plummeting down into the sea on either side.
From the castle it was pretty much a case of just following the well-trodden path into town…still another weary mile or so…but straightforward at least. I passed an old tidal swimming pool (looking highly unappealing!), an old quarry and the harbour. It was weird, seeing all the houses across and around the bay…I hadn’t been anywhere this big since Inverness! I was so tired I almost felt like I could curl up and cry but thankfully my B&B, paid for by an incredibly generous person I’d met on the trail in Wales, is right by the harbour and is very comfortable. I even have a bath! Wet boots and socks off, a cup of tea, a biscuit (or three) and FaceTime with a dear friend and I was feeling chirpier. After a bath I felt even better!
This evening I wandered into town to find some food, for some reason having selected the restaurant furthest from my B&B, and passed some fishermen sorting through crates of crabs. One had escaped – not only the crates but also the fishermen’s attention – and I point it out to them (instantly regretting it…I should have supported the crab’s bid for freedom!). One of the men gets up and fetches the runaway, saying something completely unintelligible to me. I ask him to repeat it. I smiled, laughed, and walked on. I had absolutely no idea what he said, or even if it was in English! The Scottish accent is thick up here!
Full of food and a wee stretch of the legs and it’s back to my cosy B&B, with the aim of catching up on a few of the blog posts that are still only half written. Instead I have spent at least half an hour trying (and failing) to dig a rather painful, annoying, but ridiculously small splinter out of my thumb. Ah well… day 100 complete…hoping I wake up feeling a bit more energetic tomorrow! Also hoping the weather calms down…it is incredibly windy here and a bit wet. Apparently we are expecting gale force winds at the tail end of Ophelia….glad I’m not camping out there tonight!