TraceysTrek

See my whole journey and donate at TraceysTrek.uk

Best bits: champagne

Worst bits: very long day, saying goodbye to Eric and Ann

Distance: 25.1 miles

I didn’t sleep very well last night thinking too much about Angela, but not in a bad way. I was happy and sad all at the same time. After a very hearty breakfast courtesy of Lee and Lynn, we departed for Burghead.

That was where I said goodbye to Eric and Anne and then they took Priscilla on to Nairn Harbour the finish point of my journey today.

The tail end of Storm Floris was blowing a hooley in the harbour and across the beach. I had a 6 mile walk along the beach where the tide was coming in. The first section was quite sandy and then as the tide encroached it became very pebbly and much harder to walk on. Added to this, it started to rain very heavily and I had to get the waterproofs on. Fortunately, it only lasted about 40 minutes. Then the sun came out for a short while. The wind whipped up the sand creating a mini sandstorm.

As I rounded the point at Findhorn, it started to rain again but I was just in perfect timing and was able to run into the Captains Table where I had a cuppa and some millionaires shortbread. Unfortunately, it was still raining when I left.

The next couple of hours was walking along roads with the rain coming on and off. I had a good good phone signal and took the opportunity to catch up with a few phone calls. As I walked past fields of potatoes, the crops looked decimated by the recent storm, all the leaves were limp and rain damaged. There were many trees that had fallen in the storm yesterday and had already been cut up and moved away to allow traffic along the road. There was detritus everywhere leaves, branches and pine cones. The smell of the recently cut pine trees and broken branches created a very pleasant odour.

There were many cars pulling trailers of foliage passing me.

The trees that had been violently snapped in half was similar to my early feeling of grief and losing Angela as though something had ripped me apart.

I took it as a bad sign when I saw a field of cows and they were starting to lie down, fortunately at that point I was only about a mile from Forres which would be my next stop at around 12 miles.

It had been quite some time since I crossed railway tracks but today it wasn’t meant to be as the gate across was securely padlocked closed. I had to look for an alternative route to get across the tracks and into Forres. After a short detour, I arrived at Tesco’s where I popped into the Costa Café for a baked bean and cheese toastie a cup of tea and a big bakewell tart.

Suitably refreshed I was off again and decided not to backtrack but to continue along the main road as there was a footpath. I hadn’t gone very far when a car stopped on a side road and the people in it were waving to me. It was Jenny whose mother’s house I parked in front of at Cullen. She was with her husband Simon and son Frankie. They had spotted me with my pink high viz jacket and wanted to give me a cheer on.

I took the little road that ran parallel with the A road however it then brought me back out onto the A road. There was no footpath so I had about a mile of walking on the verge before I finally managed to get off. I sat in a little bus stop and caught my breath and had a few snacks and some juice before I went across a little bridge over the railway and came to the entrance of Brodie Castle.

As I turned off along cycle route number one onto a woodland road some of the overhead powerlines had been broken by falling trees. There was so much detritus everywhere. I was glad that I had made the decision not to walk through the woodland area.

By this time it was 5 pm and I still had another 7 miles to walk! At least it was quite sheltered from the strong winds on this path. I managed to get a sneaky look at Brodie Castle, perhaps a visit another day.

It was a very long road into Nairn. The wind had taken its effect on me and I was pretty exhausted. It took all my inner strength to keep going just plodding away one step at a time. Eventually after about two hours, I arrived at Nairn Harbour where Priscilla was parked up. I dragged myself up the step and through the door and plonked myself on a seat. I was desperate to get my shoes and socks off.

Then I had about a 40 minute drive to Fiona‘s house just north of Inverness. I really enjoyed driving over the bridge and the fabulous views that it afforded.

As soon as I arrived, we had gin and tonic and Fiona had food ready. We ate our meal and then it was time to open a bottle of champagne to celebrate Angela‘s birthday and our anniversary. We played Maisie and George’s version of I’m gunna be 500 miles whilst I opened the champagne.

Then we decided to ring Emma and guess who was there? Maisie so that was perfect. I was able to thank her in person for the beautiful rendition she has created with George. We were on the call for almost 2 hours chatting away to each other whilst Fiona and I drank the bottle of champagne. It was after midnight and far too late to take a bath so I just jumped in bed in Priscilla and fell fast asleep almost immediately. No time to manage the blog today.