Synthetic Scottish Sentimentality

After a freezing cold night in the tent, fully clothed in my sleeping bag, I wandered into town, just like a sacred cow (again). My sentimentality for the Highlands and all things Scottish had washed off in the extreme cold inside the tent, exposing it’s synthetic and fickle nature. It would soon return. I found a breakfast place and it was very good. I had the ‘Mega’ for sick squid. Not hugely mega but very good. I walked up to the train station to get a bus back towards Dunnet Head, but I was an hour early. The waiting area was freezing so I sat in the ticket office area and fell asleep for half an hour in the warmth. I got off the bus on the road that I’d walked along and trekked through the cold wind along the track and across peat moors to Dunnet Head. The views en route were typically jockiful.

  
  
It was 5 miles to the head, passing a hidden peat cutting area where peat was laid out to dry for burning. A practise going back centuries. 

  
Eventually I arrived. There is a car park, mostly German and Dutch cars, a viewpoint on top of the hill, a viewpoint by the cliffs and a lighthouse. That’s it folks. But views befitting the northern extremity of this sceptred Isle.

   
 
I walked up the hill to the viewpoint, which didn’t reveal much through the dreach, so I started back across country. Hidden over the back was a token of remembrance to someone who’s name had been written in ink on the wooden cross but which was now illegible. It was touching and I was touched. 

  
I came up to the road back to the village of Dunnet and saw this sign. Existential? Does it mean a place where elderly people eventually orient towards to pass to the next life? Could it refer to the temporary nature of the earth, solar system, universe and infiniverse? A place that is here but, as all things, will pass. Or just a bit wider piece of Tarmac for two cars to get by each other? Who knows.

  
I got back to my starting point just as the bus turned the corner. Yes! It was starting to rain heavily and I kept mostly dry. A couple of beers in town and a bag of fabulously fresh fish and chips, eaten in someone’s doorway, and an early night at 8pm in a cold tent. Another 10 miles under my belt. Let’s see what tomorrow may bring.

Night night.