An Andrews Adventure: DAY 290

Thursday 26 April 2012

He's got the keys

Again. Typical.

Charles and Dian returned from their Inverness evening out by cab at 1AM. It was funny when the driver asked what kind of music they’d heard and after they replied, “Traditional Scottish military songs” he said, “I’ll take Neil Young.” We arose the next morning to a little bit of sunshine and were pleasantly surprised when the owner of the camp, Mr. MacDonald said, “No charge.” This was because Bught Caravan Park had basically been underwater and our pitch was just a scruffy bit of gravel high enough not to be affected by the storm. Nicole gave “old MacDonald” a bag of some candy we had and he gave her three leather bound calendar holders with cool flat ballpoint pens. He also said how it was a while since he’d seen such a pretty blonde American – but in a nonoffensive way.

Photo by Dian

We pulled out at 12:30 PM and headed for the grocery store to buy provisions for the trek up north – ALL the way north to John O’Groates. On the way we stopped at a thrift store and found a wonderful wool blanket. We also stopped near a gas station to observe a man named Mr. MacArthur (yes a relative of General MacArthur) working with his 106 varieties of daffodils. He also flirted with Nicole. Dunrobin Castle was just closing but the kilted man let us in to see the fantastic gardens full of mazes and interesting shrubs right near the ocean.

A new purchase from a charity shop (along with a much needed woolen blanket)

Clynelish distillery was on our “passport “so we decided to stop there. Unfortunately the tours were over but we were able to have a taste of three whiskeys. The east coast of Scotland was full of Broom also known as Gorse, farm houses, sheep, sheep and more sheep. We also saw a real Carnegie library (one of the few still in existence in the U.S. is right at the bottom of our hill in Ocean Park).

At 7:45 we arrived at John O’Groates, the northern most town in Scotland where we could see Norway from the beach! The Orkney Islands were right in front of us. We arrived at a campground near the town of Thurso just after the gates were closed so we slept in the adjacent parking lot.