Walking Lands End to John O'Groats 2025 for Alzheimer's Society

Having checked out of our Lairg base, we arrived back at Lybster and set out at 11am. I’d slept restlessly during the night tracking Georgie, Maria and Jordan’s progress up from Surrey. I couldn’t wait to see them! The path took us out of the village and down steep steps into the first geo. Making our way out of the geo the view back south across to Dunbeath Castle and mountains in the far distance was beautiful. The path was lumpy and overgrown for awhile, which Martin didn’t enjoy, but we were relieved to arrive at a section where the vegetation had been cut. Smooth going for a while, we arrived at The Bridge overlooking a stunning group of stacks and arches, and here Martin decided to turn back. He was to meet the incoming party at 15:00 at Whaligoe Steps and didn’t want to be late. As it was only 12:15, I chose to continue and was delighted to find waterfalls at the head of the geo. I chose to cross low down rather than over the footbridge to enjoy the view up the waterfalls. Fulma...

With a long drive to get to Dunbeath, Martin and I set off for the day’s walk at 11am.   Walking away from the harbour and the impressive harbour house, and looking across to Dunbeath Castle, the path wrapped around the cliff corner to an attractive picnic area by the old herring processing house, and pebble beach before climbing steeply up to the cliff top. Within minutes we arrived at a spectacular geo, along with a sea stack and sea arch. Only a few minutes further and we came to another geo with two stacks. But that wasn’t all. Not in the least. The stacks were populated with fulmars and guillemots. And Martin pointed out a couple of birds just below us assuming them to be more guillemots. They weren’t - they were razorbills and we had a glorious view of them. But as I was taking photos and admiring them I spotted a puffin fly into the cliffs a little below them …. And then another.  To our absolute delight there was clearly a colony of puffins on the grassy slopes below u...

 If I had to sum up the day it would be: Guillemots. Thousands of them.  I’ve never seen anything like it. We thought the colony on the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path last year was amazing. But today was extraordinary. We agreed to have a slow start as the guidebook indicated 4 hours walking. I realised that my ankles and knees had been stiffening up, and my glut had twinged on the way down into Berriedale harbour. It dawned on me that my insoles had again lasted over 500 miles and it was time to replace them with the new ones in the supply box. This made a difference immediately, but the transformation at the end of the day was remarkable - no stiff and aching joints! We arrived back at Berriedale just before midday and stopped for coffee and excellent fruit loaf at the River bothy cafe. They wished me well on my walk and we set off at 12:30. The harbour at Berriedale is one of my favourite places - the hamlet, the sharply curved harbour entrance with the protective promontory cl...