Julia’s Journical

We woke up our first morning in John O’Groats. Cassie and Jimmy had left early that morning for a tour of the Orkney Isles. Lindsay and I were planning to enjoy a day in the sunshine we had experienced the afternoon before. But the sound we could hear when we woke up was rain raining down pretty hard on our tent.

We sheltered in the tent waiting for the rain to lighten up. It didn’t. So we decided to tour John O’Groats in the rain instead.

We walked up to the local petrol station/post office/ grocery store/bait shop (John O’Groats is not very big). We bought a nice big tin of tomato soup, some bread and butter for dinner. We put these safely back in the tent and started our tour.

We walked past this old abandoned hotel

it looked quite eerie sitting there all sad and forgotten.

We then walked the other direction up towards the headland.

…the view was just stunning!

We wandered around on the rocks, looking at the beautiful colours.

This was about 6pm at night, it was raining on and off but with glorious sunshine poking through the clouds.

Instead of sand there were smooth rocks

Lindsay made a new BBF

I walked casually down the path ahead of Lindsay.

We spotted some Thistles, the national Flower for scotland (are Thistles flowers?)

This part of the coast is where many shipwrecks have occurred, debris from the wrecks was washed up on the beaches.

Throughout Scotland there was old stone houses that have fallen apart from disuse.

That evening when Cassie and Jimmy came back from their tour Lindsay and I started cooking dinner for them. But realised we had bought a tin of soup without one of those ring pull thingys! We stood around the car wondering who we could borrow a can opener from.
Jimmy went and asked a nice looking english couple who were in a camper across the road from us. They said they had watched us discover our problem and realised they also didn’t have a can opener either! We then tried a camper with a french family sitting inside. Jimmy waved the can at them,  they passed the can opener out the door. We were saved!

We ate quickly as it started to rain again and we climbed into bed.

The next morning we packed up fairly quickly and drove off in the direction of the Isle of Skye via the coastal scenic route.

The view was so amazing we stopped a couple of times to take photos.

Our first stop we decided to take a group shot. Cassie and I waited patiently while the boys set up their fancy cameras to do a selftimed photo:

The camera went off too soon.

The next shot, Cassie and I ran at the boys as they ran towards us…resulting in this

Our 3rd attempt was a bit more successful.

We jumped back into the car and drove on, stopping again to take photos of view.
I was feeling a little bit loopy that morning and was practising my 1 legged airplane along the side of the road.

An hour later we stopped again.
This place was stunning! The Professor told us to go here (the Professor was the name we gave the GPS)  - he was so clever.

The old boat ramp leading into the water:

And the old Pier:

They were so picturesque, but we saw this sign as we were leaving the pier:

Oops!

We stopped again for another photo op. The boys ran off with their fancy cameras clicking away.

Cassie took a walk on the rocks:

while I lay down on the lovely warm rocks

I sat up and Lindsay got this shot, which is now the header for my blog!

This is the red car with the Berowra sticker proudly stuck to the back, in which Jimmy did all the driving.

This campercan we over took 5 times in one day, the last time we overtook them they were having a picnic by the side of the road and we all waved at each other!

We stopped again to investigate the Smoo Caves. With a name like that we figured it had to be interesting!

Looking into the cave:

The inside of the cave was huge!

It once was used by ship builders as a workshop!

There was a a waterfall that you reached by walking along a bridge through to another smaller cave within the big cave.

The force of the water was so extreme that it literally took your breath away. There was so much moisture in the air that I had difficulty breathing!

The little harbour leading to the cave felt like it should be in a fairy tale.

We stopped again later that day to admire our first views of the Highlands:

We saw these old ruins:

That night we arrived at the Isle of Skye.

We decided to try wild camping, which is legal in scotland as long as you clean up after yourself and stay off main roads. We found a nice spot near the water in a farmer’s field.

We were there maybe 3 minutes when the midgies (sandflies) arrived. I feel itchy just writing about them! There were swarms of them everywhere. They went up your nose, in your ears, in your mouth and in your eyes. And they bit you leaving you so itchy!

The smoke from the campfire was the only thing that seemed to deter the annoying pests.

Cassie had some tropical strength rid that sort of worked. I guess the midgies decided they were not tropical.

Cassie and I went for a walk by the water whilst he boys collected firewood. A creepy man came and stood 2m away from us staring at us, there was no one else on the beach. We got a bit creeped out and walked away from him, where he continued to watch and follow us. He then started digging around in his bag. And I decided he must have a gun or a knife or something and started running back to the campsite and yelling out to Lindsay. Cassie was close behind calling out to Jimmy. They guy followed us back through the gate, saw the boys and hopped in his car and drove away.

We were camped very close to an old graveyard

so we were a bit nervous to begin with. Once we had burnt all the firewood, and Jimmy had even had a go burning cow pats, we gave up on fending off the midgies and climbed into the bed.

Wild camping gets pretty freaky when you are all alone in the middle of nowhere. Lindsay thought he heard someone moving around near the car. The next day Jimmy and Cassie said they had heard something or someone moving around outside too. Eeeek!