Sat 16 Sept Durness to John O Groats to Wick

Very grey day but dry today for our drive across the top North Coast. Called into the Info Centre and got couple of photos of the beach with motorhomes on the cliff.

The youth hostel at Durness was used for communicationskills during WWII and the village hall had a memorial plaque to John Lennon who used to holiday here as a young man, he last visited in 1969 with Yoko and the children.

Very remote up here with little sign of life, occasional house dotted of nthe hills, the  up a 15° gradient hill. We caught up with Pat and Les at Tongue turn off then the heavens opened for a short, sharp downpour, bit of single track road then back on 2 lanes,  pretty good surface.

Sunshine came in through the overhead skylight as we drove to our lunch stop at Strathy, Pat and Les pulled in behind us, they decided to go know  to Melvich and take that road south.

Nuclear power development and reactor at Dounreay.

Stopped at Thurso for diesel £1.23 got £60 for 49 ltrs, the  on through Dunnet the most Northerly point, very different landscape here, flat and brown where the hay is waiting to be harvested or has already been cut and bales in the fields.

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3pm into John O Groats,  the sun was shining and was a lovely afternoon  for our wander round, couple of cafes,  souvenir shops, information centre and of course the sign post. The original Dutchman Jan de Groot built his octagonal house with 8 doors and with an octagonal table for his 7 sons, so none would feel better than another, in 1488. He ran a ferry to Orkney and charged 2p per trip and the coin became known as the Groat, locally he became known as John O Groats and the area took on his nickname.

John O Groats octagonal house

Orkney Islands in the distance

Wick

Another signpost was painted on a wall showing New Zealand and how far to Bluff....so that will be our mission when we take Bessie back to NZ.

Bought a sticker for Bessie and a T Towel showing Lands End to John O Groats, had a coffee and not very fresh scone.

Pat rang to say their road was closed and have gone on to campsite in Wick. We drove there but stayed on the river, in town free stop with long parking bays for motorhomes,  in fact all around Wick were lots of good parking suitable for motorhomes.

Omelet for dinner with stir fry veges.

Bit of a noisy evening  being Saturday, the restaurant crowd were not too bad, lots of restaurants around included Weatherspoons which was in the oldest building in town. Then in the wee small hours the young crowd were coming from their night out talking and waiting to be collected, so car doors banging and driving off. But on another night would probably have been fine.