Day 91: Tain to Skelbo (towards Golspie) (14 miles)

Martin dropped me off at the start point in Tain by 11am following a long drive including stop off for coffee at Inverness as a treat.

The path guided me out of Tain and across the busy A9 through woodland and farmland down to Dornoch Bridge.

I can’t say I was looking forward to walking over a long bridge. But again, my prejudice was challenged. First I saw a rather plain brown duck moving in seaweed below the bridge, but her straight forehead to beak and distinctly shaped tail made me think of an eider duck. Just as I was making a note of it a rather compelling white and black bird flew in - which I quickly realised was a male eider duck. I was pretty chuffed to have made a correct identification with the less distinct female.

Having to walk for large part in the loose stone of the soft verge, this felt like a long walk but some prolonged hooting of horn made me turn around - it was Martin driving past.

Towards the end of the bridge, I was excited to see a pair of common or arctic terns (I’m not sure which) fly over - which reminded me to check the identity of the terns from the day before.

But you should have seen my grin when I eventually arrived on the shore dropping down from the bridge - the smell of the sea and sea weed was intoxicating- this was then crowned by the appearance of 2 oystercatchers. I’d arrived!!! On the North Sea coast. Brilliant. 

After a while the path swerved inland through attractive heathland with views into the hills. A small, vivid blue butterfly didn’t settle on the heathland path along side me, but its colour was arresting - I would have loved to know what it was.

Rather to my astonishment, I then saw a large, heavy looking bird of prey being pestered by a crow which looked tiny in comparison. Later I could only think it was a golden eagle - quite possible in fact looking at the distribution maps, but I was surprised to see it close to the shore.

The path followed the road towards Dornoch before swinging into Camore Woods located on an esker created by the former glaciers. They had also helped create the famous curling stones made from the unusually consistent smooth, large pebbles created in the outwash plains. Apparently in times gone by, when the local Loch and Treel froze, the town would down tools and go play curling - how far that sport has got now!

I noticed some rather weird looking yellow lichen growing on the trees on their south-west flanks as I went deep into the woods consisting largely of Scot’s pine. I stopped for a late lunch in the woods at 13:30 having established that Martin had already lunched and got diverted visiting the Tain beach, Glenmorangie distillery, and Royal Dornoch golf course/beach ….. he’s renowned for getting a little distracted from the task of walking out to meet me!!

He now had the hapless task of walking along the busy A949 to meet me only to promptly turn around as I was just coming out onto the road. However, we were both entertained by red kites flying low attracted by the tractor cutting grass in the neighbouring field and presumably flushing out small prey for them.

Martin had already found a good cafe for us to stop for coffee and cake and we arrived there at 14:30 just in time as a heavy squall of rain came through. Here I decided, having only walked 8.5 miles so far, to push onto Skelbo as there was a chance I could either make the next day’s walk to Golspie shorter (from 14 miles) or combine it with the next stage at Brora (a further 6 miles) and hence gain a rest day or at least a spare day to juggle with if there were problems further up the trail.

The weather was beautiful if a little hot and we passed across the golf course and started to descend to the beach. Here, however we realised another squall of rain was fast pushing in from the sea and within minutes the downpour hit. We rapidly got our waterproofs on but at this point, Martin elected to go back to the car while I continued.  Having perhaps foolishly not brought waterproof trousers as heavy rain hadn’t been forecast until the next day, my 3/4 trousers were drenched and starting to drip into my boots so I rapidly added my gaiters to my defence. Only to find that the squall had passed through leaving a rather damp Anne!

I proceeded along the beach feeling a little sticky with sand on my hands, poles - well pretty well everything - but went slowly as I seemed to be walking a little faster than the squall and was walking back into the edge of it. I paused and took a few photos as the sun emerged, and very quickly dried off. The delight of light weight clothing.

I love walking by the water’s edge gazing at the waves and the light playing on the thin skim of water on the sand. I realised with reluctance that I now had to turn up onto a track by the golf course towards the disused railway track. But before I got there, there was another treat in store.

Just off Embo Rocks, an Osprey flew by bombarded by an oystercatcher - a gorgeous view that didn’t need the monocular to see its eyes and beak.

Walking through Coul Links, the sand dunes were extensive and many birds were flitting about. A sedge warbler was darting into the gorse and then a young family of common white throats stayed still on the top branches of the gorse for me to take a good look at them with the monocular. A lovely sight.

I emerged onto the minor road which would take me to Skelbo and I started to wonder where Martin was. The Find my app indicated he was behind me so I phoned him to check our rendezvous. He had arrived early and elected to do a circuit which he had hoped would intercept me but I was walking faster than he anticipated. In truth I’d decided to get my skates on having watched the whitethroat as I wanted time to enjoy Fleet Bay before we left. He urged me to continue on and enjoy the views which I duly did. 

I was delighted not only by the views but by the large flock of greylag geese and then realised that there were large numbers of common seals on the sand banks in the middle of the Fleet.

Martin came running down the road and we lingered for a while enjoying this beautiful location before heading back.  Heavy rain was forecast for the following day so we wanted to savour the view whilst we could.

Tomorrow was also transit day - we would be moving base from Drumnadrochit to Lairg and there was a possibility of a film crew on behalf of the John O’Groats Trail meeting me for a quick interview if logistics worked out on both sides. It promised to be an interesting day!