Day: 001
Date: Wednesday, 01 June 2022
Start: John O’Groats
Finish: Wick
Daily Kilometres: 42
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 42
Weather: Cool, breezy and mostly sunny
Accommodation: AirBnB
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Porridge, toast & jam/breakfast bar
Lunch: Gummy sweets/jam sandwich
Dinner: Pizza
Aches: Dave - aching legs, blister. Julie - nothing
Highlight: Perfect weather for the first day of our hiking jouurney
Lowlight: Could have done without the narrow uneven footpads, thigh high in grass and nettles, that we had for a few kilometres at the end of a long day.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We reached the town of Wick just before 8pm last night after nearly 48 hours of trains, planes and buses (and one taxi when a bus failed to turn up on schedule) from our home on the NSW Central Coast.
For today, it made sense, logistically if not physically, to catch a bus from Wick to John O’’Groats and then hike back to Wick. That way we would only need a very light pack, and thought we might even jog some of the distance. Physically, it did not make as much sense because we were jet-lagged, I wasn’t as fit as I would like, and the distance was over 40 kilometres.
We left our accommodation at 7:30am on a cold clear morning after making ourselves some breakfast and walked to a supermarket on the northern fringes of town to buy some drinks and snacks for the day before catching the 8:30am bus to John O’Groats. We reached there at 9:00am, just as the Post Office opened, and mailed some pack transport covers back to a friend in London where we will collect them before flying home in mid-August.
From there we walked a kilometre to the little tourist trap of John O’Groats where we took the obligatory start photos before beginning our journey to Lands End around 9:30am. For the first ten days, we are following the John O’Groats Trail to Inverness. The trail is a work-in-progress, so we know there are going to be sections that are poorly marked, and in others, no trail at all..
First we walked up to Duncansby Head and the lighthouse which marks the north-east tip of the UK and then headed south along the clifftops, very appreciative of the perfect weather that gave great visibility. The Orkneys were visible to the north over a smooth blue sea and the water lapping up against the shore was crystal clear.
For the first four or five hours, until we reached Keiss, we followed the edge of the cliffs south past awesome coastal stacks and narrow slot gorges whose precipitous walls were populated by nesting gulls in impossible nooks and crannies. There were also occasional historic ruins, some dating back 2,000 years, perched in the most extraordinary places. And. stretching out far ahead, and somewhat demoralisingly for me, was our route for the day with the Noss Head lighthouse, just north of Wick, visible in the far distance.
The trail going varied from excellent to very rough, with occasionally boggy patches meaning we had wet feet much of the time. Often we were squeezed between the farm fence and the cliff edge, sometimes requiring careful gymnastics where the clifff had eroded.
Of course, the walking wasn’t enough for Julie, who occasionally did a set of push-ups, as required by her participation in the June Push-Up challenge to raise money for mental health awareness. I was getting very tired by our break at Keiss and it was becoming clear it was going to be a late finish.
Fortunately, the tide was out for the next section, meaning that we could walk on flat hard sand rather than on a trail in the dunes behind the beach and, even better, the ford of the River of Wester was only ankle-deep (apparently it can be chest-deep). We made better time but when the beach ended and we returned to the cliff-top walking, I found it very tough and the pace slowed.
We eventually passed the Noss Head lighthouse and began the last section to Wick, which comprised some difficult overgrown trail and then a long roadwalk. We finally reached our accommodation around 7:30pm at the end of a long but satisfying day.
Not sure how I’m going to go tomorrow!
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