The great thing about Scotland is that there are toilets everywhere. Nice ones. Toilet paper. Soap. Paper towels. Driers that work. Clean places where one can… toil, in all kinds of out-the-way places. And if you basically start at ‘middle-of-fucking-nowhere’, then ‘out-of-the-way’ is pretty much a given. Oh, and it is beautiful. Eye-wateringly beautiful.

Yesterday we left the north-west corner and drove 120 miles to the very north-eastern tip of the mainland; John O’Groats. Who, as you can see, looks a lot like Mel. The drive follows the ragged coast, up and down the mountains on single-track roads for the most part, coming down onto stunning beaches. Yes, beaches, in Scotland. Beaches to rival the Australian ones. But a little cooler. In a pleasant way. Less pleasant when it starts raining. As it often does.

I’ve been to Lands End, in Cornwall, the southernmost tip of the British Isles, and was tragically disappointed that its just an arrow on a rocky beach. ‘Lands End’!!!! It looks remarkably similar to many other bits of rocky beach. No fanfare, no town, no nuffink. Just ‘Lands End’. So I expected more from the ‘other end’. From John O’Groats. I thought it was a town, a settlement, a place of deep maritime significance. But in fact its just that sign. ‘Here ya are’. Cross it off your list. Then go to the ice cream bar, and go buy some shortbread and tartan teddy bears.

John O’Groats was a 16th century pirate.
John O’Groats was a warrior of unparalleled ferocity. With Mel Gibson he fought the British and it took 37 arrows to finally down the fucker.
John O’Groats was the 3rd string goalkeeper for Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Blind from birth, he chose a career…
John O’Groats invented whisky. In 1253 he took just one single malt and accidentally distilled it whilst trying to make a washing line for his wife. Mrs O’Groats. 10 years later he found it, stuck it in a bottle and the rest is history.
(Note to self: when you have wifi, google John O’Groats.) Wifi is pretty rare up here.

The east coast is nothing like the west or the north. Its more ‘normal’. No massive inlets and lochs and mountains. But we shall spend the next few days exploring. As we do.

Happy Monday

A xxxx