Day 105 Tain to Helmsdale

 

 Date: Saturday 21^st  July 2012   Distance: 37.92 Miles

 

Thursday 19th July

 

We took the train to Edinburgh around 6 pm and stayed in the Premier Inn near the football ground. Although it was fine there were signs of very wet weather e.g.- Sandbags by the hotel’s front door.

 

Friday 20^th July

 

We left on the 10.35 train to Inverness. A party of boisterous scouts had filled up the luggage racks but not considered the fact that other passengers might have their luggage there too and on leaving for camp at Blair Atholl, they took ALL the luggage with them including some that quickly had to be retrieved from the platform!

 

We visited Inverness Museum to while away the hours till our train for Tain. We played 2 beautifully made games- 9 man’s Morris and an unpronounceable Viking game. Bob won on both counts as he assimilates rules better than I do. We were impressed with this very hands on, interesting museum.

 

Tain trains were very infrequent and the next one wasn’t till 5.15. The evening weather was lovely and we had good views across the estuary till well after 9.30. Our B and B was nice enough and we walked near the sea shore watching a bat in sunlight catching flies near the station. This was the beginning of never seeing it properly dark.

 

Saturday 21^st July

 

It was a comfy bed of memory foam and a super shower room! The lady of the house had originally come from the Midlands and her children had gone to the same school as Bob in Hinckley (obviously a lot later) her daughter is just back from Afghanistan and another is in the RAF serving for a time at Lossiemouth, where my brother  was stationed.

 

There is an unusual configuration of houses and gardens. Their garden makes a L shape as it goes behind all the others and is the only one with a back entrance- lucky for them.

 

We left after a good breakfast in sunshine and joined the main road at the roundabout. There was quite a bit of traffic heading for the County Show at Durnoch. We went over the Durnoch Firth bridge over the estuary. When it was built it was one of the longest in Europe at just over a mile. We left the main road not long after for a single track road to Durnoch (much nicer for cycling) We reached the pretty town with a small cathedral (parts dating 13th century)  The church was dressed for a wedding later. Huge glass containers with candles inside lined the aisle. We were told by one of the congregation that the lady vicar unites the bride and groom with tartan windings around their hands.

 

Comical gargoyles and bosses are on the church exterior and inside the ceiling has been redone resplendently.

Opposite the cathedral is Castle Hotel, originally 16th century Bishop’s Palace,with oodles of character. Creeping plants cover the turrets and high walls. Not far away is the old jail now used as a gift shop. There is more to the town than we actually saw and despite seeing the odd kilted fellow we didn’t see much sign of the county show.

There was not much to see at Embo but then there was ruined Skelbo castle followed by sandbanks on Loch Fleet with a colony of seals basking in the sun. The wind was against us as we went to the bridge to take us down the other side of the loch. As we reached the bridge, to the left were salmon pools but we didn’t go down to look. After the bridge we phoned the B and B just to check we had a bed and met a man in a transit van supporting someone doing Lands End to John o Groats in aid of meningitis trust, Rosemary foundation and Samantha Dickinson brain Tumour trust. It was a very professional looking leaflet- we had no. 936!!

 

We had lunch at Golspie at the Coffee Bothy but it was too early for anything but soup and bacon butties. There were cafes later so we could have waited. In a couple of miles we reached Dunrobin Castle, seat of the earl’s, then Duke of Sutherland. It was £17.50 to go in between us. Bob said they haven’t ”done robbing”. We looked around the inside, which we mostly thought wasn’t a patch on most National Trust properties, even though we don’t approve of the slightly sterile way the Trust does things. The 18th century Green Room with stippling on walls and doors was pretty and the children’s playroom was probably my favourite with lots to look at. The children’s bedroom was totally white!

 

The garden was laid out formally but I liked it. From the ground floor exit you could see across the sea – possibly to Lossiemouth. There were fantastic views from the windows. A more distant view of the castle gives it a fairytale quality. There is an attractive blue clock on the tower and turrets. A lot of it is 19th century but with some older bits. We were shocked that they didn’t own up to the connection with the Highland clearances though it might have been in the blurb somewhere we didn’t see it. The monument put up by the Duke of Sutherland of himself on the top of the hill has to be watched by the police against vandalism and even bombing. There is still a lot of anti- feeling. A lady room sitter said it was his wife who ordered the clearances in his absence. We left hoping to find out more about why they did it. We thought that it was motivated by greed - for use of the land for profitable sheep farming.

 

It started spotting with rain and there were several long hills to climb. We arrived in Helmsdale a little while before 4. We’d outrun the rain. We went to the museum by the river and sat outside with tea and cheese scones- very tasty! It cost £7 between us to go round the various exhibits and we learnt more about the Highland Clearances in the words of actual evacuees. In the early 19th century thousands of people were evacuated for” improvements” in the Strath of Kildonan to make way for huge sheep farms.

 

There were rooms laid out to represent the Smithy, a cottage kitchen, a shop and there was story telling using film, lots of artifacts like the pictish stone that seems to crop up everywhere possible  and a minimalist approach to art display (but it worked) for the current present day artist- Annie Cattrell who works in glass and paper. Her blown glass lungs, intricate and superb, hang on the bare walls and a series of engraved glass blocks depict various cloud formations.

 

We liked this museum very much but it closed at 5 and we only just managed a visit.

The B and B, Kindale, provided us with a large tasteful bedroom with a not so nice