Walking 1000 miles from Lands end to John O'Groats in aid of The Air Ambulance (starts april 7th 2024)

Wednesday 6 August 2014

Day-5 A change of plans

The day started overcast but dry no complaints here, so fed and packed we headed south past the hill and foundations of Dun Viden Broch,which in its day must have been imposing! Today in the dull grey light it just managed a little mysterious!
Carrying on the rain started a fine but persistent drizzle that required waterproofs, donning these in the shelter of an old farm chimney stack we carry on to Rhifail and much to the chagrin of the folk of Skelpick we made it back to the road! This carried us easily to Skail where you can see Alfie Inspecting a neolithic burial! (he passed it Jim!) fascinating spot and in the newly returned sunshine incredibly peaceful. The same can't be said about Alfie whenever sheep are within sniffing distance!
The road carries on for miles and at lunch we fill my water container in the river... Very clear water and I'm told a renowned salmon fishing river,all the same I purified the water and cooked up coffee and pasta, while doing so a car pulled up to say hello, apparently they had also seen me in my wanderings along the north coast! Fame at last! in this case I got a second helping, turning on my phone I received a message from radio Northampton saying they would like to do another over the phone interview today!. Packed and pushing on we round the corner to loch Naver avoiding my planned route via the river Mallat, the reason for this is my route took us off path through boggy terrain and after the mornings rain not worth the risk!
The phone rang at the appointed time and a rather surreal interview was had with me in the middle of nowhere chatting away! Can only be good for the charity.
Walking along the Naver with great views of the mountains only being spoilt by swarms of Scottish midges attacking we stopped at caravan site for a quick drink then rather than stop we upped a few gears and raced to the hotel at Altnaharra for dinner tonight, and a use of there bunkhouse to avoid the midges!
A good twenty mile day with plenty of interesting history!