Tuesday 13th June 2023
We are staying in a holiday lodge in Balnagall, outside Tain. Today’s set up was was quite easy; we drove via Embo leaving a car near the Holiday Park and drove on to Golspie.
Yesterday, when we drove up to Scotland, it was extremely hot with 30ºC when we went through the Southern Uplands. Fortunately, after some thunderstorms yesterday afternoon, today’s temperature is forecast just to be in the high teens. We set off down Duke’s Street and onto an easy track along the shore which led to the Golspie promenade. It is quite pleasant with several benches.
Where the promenade runs out, a path along the shore continues through the golf course and this was all easy walking. After the golf course the John O’ Groats Trail (JOGT) turned inland around the Karting Track.
We stayed on the seaward side where there was also a good path and this led to the extensive Ferry Links which go all the way to Littleferry. The tide was very high and initially we could not walk on the stony beach and followed a good path through the dunes.
Further south, where the beach widens, there was good margin of sand and we walked right down to the tip before starting to walk up Loch Fleet.
Here the tide was still too high so we reverted to walking the path through the dunes to Littleferry. This little hamlet seems a desirable place in which to live and is really quite smart. Loch Fleet is quite a substantial sea loch for this part of Scotland and we would have to walk around it. We followed the JOGT route through Balbair Wood to the level crossing at Kirkton.
Here the path crosses the railway line and turns left following a path through fields. As we approached the level crossing, the lights started flashing and the barriers came down so that felt like very poor timing. It was not a scheduled service – just a solitary locomotive.
As we passed Pinegrove Cottage, a man gave us some advice on the route and told us to watch out for a pair of ospreys which were nesting in the trees alongside Loch Fleet. We were delighted when we first heard their call and then spotted a pair of ospreys and a buzzard which one of them was seeing off.
In my route planning I had considered taking a wider loop of Balbair Woods and coming to the railway at Pinegrove Cottage but I had been unable to find out it there was a crossing point of the railway here. I now know there is a crossing point though not one controlled with barriers and so we could have taken a slightly more coastal route after all. The path continues through some rough pasture (rather than walking the field margin as we did where we had to negotiate tall nettles and an awkward fence in the corner) and into some woods. It was pleasantly cool in the woods and so we found a log to sit on and have coffee.
We emerged from the woods and joined the A9 then walked along the verge to the bridge over the Fleet. It felt very hot having left behind any shade in the woods. The short bridge spans a single channel which appears to carry all the water from the River Fleet. The Mound is, I think, just a causeway which completes the crossing to the other side. We had to walk the verge along the causeway until a narrow path leads off to the left enabling walkers to avoid any more of the A9.
The path leads to the minor road that heads towards Skelbo. Though the tide was out, the estuary was not an attractive prospect for walking. The shore a mixture of sand and mud and retains a lot of water and so we followed the road which is right by the shore anyway. There is a view point where we hoped we could find a bench to sit on for our lunch. There were two benches, both fully occupied by twitchers, presumably hoping to see the ospreys catching fish in Loch Fleet. They also had camper vans parked right by the benches. We wouldn’t have wanted to sit with them anyway so we found a rock on the foreshore a little further along on which to perch for our lunch.
After lunch we had a short distance along the road before turning off on a track leading to the south jetty for the former Littleferry. There is not much of the jetty remaining but the ferry must have been important before there was a road bridge across the Fleet. A path then follows the shore and turns south where the Fleet meets the sea. The tide was probably fully out and so we had an uninterrupted walk all the way to Embo.
Though the day had warmed up, there was now a gentle breeze which kept us comfortable. Having finished our walk at 15.30 we drove on to Dornoch to a café called Milk and Honey which was recommended to us by our neighbours back in Yorkshire. It is indeed an excellent café but it closes at 4pm but we made it with twenty minutes to spare. After a very welcome pot of tea and some fantastic cake we drove back to collect the other car from Golspie.
Just Coasting 