Day 1

By 9am this morning we were in Caithness, the start of our travels.  Drove across the top of Scotland and it was super to be back, seeing the superb beaches, trees, rivers and a completely different sort of scenery.

We called in to Balnakeil Craft Village near Durness.  Lovely glass work and excellent chocolate were purchased, and then we realised Ollie's paw was bleeding.  He had partially ripped the nail off his dew claw, so I bandaged it up and a very kind couple gave us a boot to put on Ollie's paw.  They had a spaniel and four boots in case of emergency, spaniels being prone to accidents!

Ollie coped with the boot okay and we had a wander along the beach at the Kyle of Durness and found some interesting stones and, surprisingly, bits of pottery.

Another walk a bit later on as we went up to see the caves at Inchnadamph, where bones of lynx, polar bears, reindeer and arctic foxes were found.  Quite a trek, over pretty rough ground and hard going for Ollie and us, so we didn't quite reach them!  A super walk though, lots of interesting wild flowers, terrific views, the river and waterfalls.  We also found a credit card, dropped by a Canadian couple who we met going up the hill as we came down.  When Mike gave it back to them, they didn't even realise they had dropped it!  

The midges were hellish in the evening and we couldn't even open a window a crack without the van filling with the damn things!  Great clouds of them!  Ollie licking at his foot, but the bandage is still on and there is no more bleeding.