John O'Groats to Land's End - Day 007 - Alness to Inverness

Day: 007

Date: Tuesday, 07 June 2022

Start:  Alness

Finish:  Inverness

Daily Kilometres:  39

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  239

Weather:  Cool to mild and mostly sunny with a cool breeze

Accommodation:  AirBnB

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Chicken & bacon sandwiches

  Lunch:  Breakfast sandwiches

  Dinner:  McDonalds

Aches:  Dave - very sore feet.  Julie - cruisin’

Highlight:  After our map app led us to private property with no way through as we neared Inverness, we took a chance on another trail and descended a long way down a hill, fearful that we may have to backtrack.  Even as we neared the dual carriageway, which we hoped to reach, there was no viable way of getting there until, at the very end of the trail, we found a little foot trail and a gate that led us onto the dual carriageway edge.  Getting across the four lanes of high-speed traffic was another story.

Lowlight:  At the end of a long day, various construction sites in the last few kilometres meant that we had to walk extra distance when we least needed it.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We got away from our accommodation at about 6:45am, conscious that we had a long distance and Dave’s sore feet and new boots to contend with.  Ominously, a stop was needed before we even got out of town to apply some more blister pads to a problem area highlighted by the new boots.

It was a sunny morning and warmer than yesterday.  We saw a lot of young children being walked to daycare and school, and gave them a wave whenever we had the chance.  Later, we passed one small village school where they were about to start their sports day and must have been very happy about the weather.

Apart from a long section along a pretty bike path through shady woods, most of our morning walking was along narrow country lanes through rural countryside.  We stopped in the village of Evanton around 9:00am and bought some breakfast which we ate on a bench outside in the sun.

After breakfast, our route took us down some more narrow lanes until we joined the main road for the 1.5km low bridge crossing of Cromarty Firth before climbing on a narrow lane up to the village of Culbokie where we bought lunch from the village store and, again, ate it on a bench in the sun.

The narrow country lane out of Culbokie was through beautiful forest and had little traffic making for a very pleasant walk.  This was in contrast to a kilometre stretch of road we had to negotiate after the next village and just after school closing, where we were constantly having to climb onto the narrow verge to avoid speeding traffic.  It was tiresome and unnerving.

The next stretch involved some more pretty country lanes before we had to retrace our steps when our navigation app took us to private property.  After messing around for a while looking for an alternative way through, we found our way down to the busy dual carriageway into Inverness which we had to cross … twice …. with difficulty.  Those familiar with the scene in the Steve Martin movie, Bowfinger, where he persuades Eddie Murphy to run across a busy Los Angeles freeway for a movie he is making by telling Eddie, falsely, that all of the drivers are stunt drivers will get the picture.  It was no fun, especially for Dave trying to run on very sore feet.

Anyway, we eventually reached the high bridge across Moray Firth into Inverness and crossed it in a freezing strong crosswind which made the journey very unpleasant.  Now in Inverness, construction prevented access to the optimal route, so we had to find our way through a maze of back streets in an industrial area before picking up the proper trail along the River Ness and following it to Inverness Castle, the official end of the John O’Groats Trail, which we reached around 7:00pm.  Leg 1 of our journey to Lands End done!

From there, it was another 500m to our accommodation which we were very pleased to reach around 7:30pm.  Dave’s feet were again very sore, but the boots do seem to have made a difference and a scheduled day off tomorrow should help further.  Julie, again, went out after we arrived and found some take-out to bring back for dinner.  Sleep in tomorrow.