Scottish National Trail: Arriving at Cape Wrath (day 20/21)

Today: 35km | Total: 755km

Over the finish line! We made it from Edinburgh to Cape Wrath covering 755km in 21 days. Arguably with some public transport or hitchhiking at times to stay on schedule, but still walking every day 25-30km. Conditions turned out ok though the trail is not for beginners especially once you hit the later sections (cape wrath trail, rob roy way etc). Looking back, the month up in Scotland was nothing short of amazing and i can only recommend others to come and visit. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 ♥ Well done to 👧🏻 for pulling through (she was one of the few girls to arrive at the Cape).

I now look forward to a week in London with Alex, a shave and to recharge before the next adventure begins… 🚲 🇦🇹 🇸🇰 🇭🇺 🇷🇸 🇭🇷 🇧🇬 🇬🇷 🇹🇷

Laura’s comment: Finalmente lo logramos!!! Estoy muy feliz por este nuevo logro de Ronny y por supuesto mío también. Puedo decir que no fue fácil, caminar durante tanto tiempo, con terrenos difíciles, aveces el clima no era el mejor 😓 … Pero valió la pena, cada momento, cada sonrisa, cada lágrima, todo. Escocia realmente conquistó mi corazón. ♥ Ahora una pausa en mi país, con mi familia y tiempo de preparación para nuestra próxima aventura! 😎

A night in the camper

We ended up spending a fair amount of time at the Rhiconich hotel bar. Chatting with locals was fun and covered issues like the ownership of estates (like the Danish guy buying up all property he can up here and then getting rid of all deer) to 9-11. On the latter the local fire brigadier believes the story while the local policeman doesn’t and is like me in the conspiracy camp 🌁🗽✈️👳🏽‍♂️.

Talking of the police guy… He is the only one up here and in charge of the largest area in 🇬🇧. Nice guy. At the end of the evening he offered us to sleep in his camper (the station was literally opposite the pub)… We gladly accepted of course. It was still raining outside and it saved us putting up the old NEMO tent.

While at the hotel we treated ourselves to pheasant 🦃 casserole for dinner. It was decent though i remembered it much better from a trip to 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 years ago. Well, better than pasta again.

Heading to the beach

Next morning started with ☔. Glad to be in the camper 😁 (two Belgian guys had camped out and now prepared their day in the public toilets to escape weather and midges). By 9am we were on our way to Sandwood Bay, the last stop before Cape Wrath. The path was almost entirely alone single track roads (as they are so typical up here). We stopped for a second breakfast (bacon & black pudding roll 🤤) and again for a Spar supermarket in Kinlochbervie for a few last supplies.

By 3pm we got to the bay. It was cloudy and windy. The waves came rolling ashore. We, however, hid with our tent behind the dunes where there was no wind and a sweet water lake. Off for a 🛀 and then hot soup. Delicious.

No chance we move further today. Tomorrow the final 12km to Cape Wrath and the ordinary society shall have us back. Instead we had time to read (half way through my book ‘the subtle art of not giving a fuck’) and play monopoly deal).

Are we gonna get shot 🔫 💣?

From Sandwood Bay it is only 13km to Cape Wrath. But the trail requires a last good effort across pretty wet ground, several river crossings, some steep ups and downs… Challenging. We were lucky with the weather though, as the ☀ was out. Beautiful.

One final challenge was crossing a live firing range of the military. You can get info in advance and when shooting is going on they put up red flags along the outer perimeter. We relied on info we got from team belgium that we would be fine this weekend.

However, the flags were up 🚩 🚩 🚩. Damn it! 6km from our destination and we can’t get further? Tough on your mind when you had mentally almost arrived already at the cape. We consulted with dutch hiker marike (and her dog) and a group of Scottish hikers. Conclusion – they probably just left the flags up.

So we climbed the barbed wire fence and marched for Cape Wrath together with the Dutch lady and her dog. The path was wet, loads of deer about (to the very excitement of the dog) and by 3pm we finally made to the Cape.

Arriving at Cape Wrath

755km and 21 days after we set out in Edinburgh we had arrived. It felt great to see the lighthouse appearing against the blue sky. Memories of the 3w tour are plentiful and will take some time to sink in. What an amazing journey we had.

At the cape a couple runs a small cafe. There we met team Belgium 🇧🇪 again – Chris and his son Sam and a more senior hiker (also Chris) tackling the trail at a tender age of 69y. We all enjoyed the odd beverage and a whole evening of conversations. Chris gave me some super handy tips for my upcoming bike trip as well. Safe travels to all. Was a pleasure!

Cape Wrath is the most northwesterly point of the UK mainland. Wrath literally means turning point. It is fitted with a by now automated light house and, weather permitting, has sunsets to die for.

Back to civilization

From cape wrath you can either walk back to catch a ferry towards Durness or get a seat on the only bus service that is permitted to service the cape. We opted for the latter and by early afternoon pitched our tent one last time before hitting the pub. Chris (UK) and Marike (NL) were also about. Quite gezellig 😉