Roy's walk from Lands End to Cape Wrath

To Cape Wrath - The End!

2008-08-13T10:25:36+02:00

Well, home at last after an eventful finish!
Mick and I met at Kylesku as planned, and camped virtually under the new bridge over Loch a' Chairn Bhain. It is a stunningly beautiful part of the world, but unfortunately the local midges were out in force and HUNGRY – for human blood! Even dressed in full battle armour and Eau de Midge the situation was ... difficult. And Mick had brought only a bivvy bag and head net, so he was more exposed than I was.
We walked the next day and camped at the top of a long narrow valley above the tree line. Next morning Mick decided to abandon me to do his own thing, and meet up again at Cape Wrath by catching the ferry and shuttle bus out from Durness.
After looking at the weather forecast with 3 days to go, I decided to compress the third and second last days into one, add on a further 4 miles and get to Sandwood Bay for Saturday night. This would make a long day, finishing at peak ‘midge time’, but would give me best chance of reaching Cape Wrath in time to catch the shuttle bus to Durness without needing a last camp at the end. Although the weather turned damp until about 5pm the arrangement worked out well, and had the great advantage of finishing at Sandwood in a stiff breeze – no midges!

From speaking to people who had previously walked from Sandwood to the Cape, I was expecting an extremely hard last 8 miles taking most of a full day. As a result I awoke at 4-50am and got underway at 06-20. But I must have struck lucky in my route finding because I arrived at the Cape at 10-30am, taking not much over 4 hours, and 2 hours before the first bus!
Mick duly arrived on the bus, and presented me with a celebratory stiff slug of VERY GOOD single malt whisky (aahh!) and a book explaining how I should have done it. This involves taking a motor car and staying in comfortable B&Bs for 2 nights at each stop, with a day’s stroll around the locality each time. NOW HE TELLS ME!!!
After an eventful dash through the night involving filling with the wrong fuel in Mick’s motor, rescue and repair by a local highland garage, and a few catnaps on the way south, we arrived home at 10am on Monday morning, 11th August’08 – job done!!!!!!!!!!!!
To close I would like to thank everyone for their charity donations and for their support and good wishes, and make particular mention of Linda and Joe Trickett on the Isle of Arran, especially Linda who allowed me to commandeer her laundry room for a much needed clean-up operation (hope the smell has faded by now); to Lorna Cosgrove for her very welcome text messages of support, which always seemed to arrive just at the right time when morale was heading down to rock bottom; to Mick McHugh who undertook to retrieve me from the wilderness and helped feed the poor starving Scottish midge population; and to my dear wife Helen, who kept me on track throughout and without whom the whole project would never have got off the ground,.
Last piece of advice for life? When the Scottish midge is hungry, stay in the pub! Cheers everybody. Roy

PS The last photo is of my favourite hill - Suilven!

Roy's walk from Lands End to Cape Wrath

To Cape Wrath - The End!

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