July 1 -helmsdale to past Berriedale was awakened at 1:30am by 2 drunk guys singing in the square. Earlier in the day was treated to an interesting engagement ritual where the couple sit in the back of an open truck and are driven around the town, followed by cars honking, and
people are expected to throw things at them, like flour, or water, or anything. Today was my first hike rated as “very hard” and it was. The worst thing, and something I wasn’t prepared for, was walking through head-high bracken. It was like swimming in a bad way. My trekking poles were useless. At one point I had to take a compass heading to keep on track. I fell twice and the second time I wasn’t sure I was getting up again. The rest of the walk was easier- even the very steep walk down to a burn with a trail that was often undercut and falling would have meant a nasty slide - even this was not as hard as walking through the bracken. I saw a deer which made a large grunt as I saw it and ran very fast down that ravine. There were many fences to cross with a heavy pack- one was 7 feet tall, several with barbed wire - and I crossed them all. For the barbed wire I bought special gloves and a door mat to put over the top. This worked really well, but I lost my door mat in the bracken- never to be found again.... luckily I didn’t need it again that day. This was a short walk of only 9 miles but it took well over 10 hours and I used up all my water because it was over 80 degrees and there was no shade. When I got to Berriedale I had hoped to go to the tea shop, but it closed at 4. I had no water, but the owner was nice enough to let me fill up all my water bladders in preparation for my further walk and tomorrow. I needed to do 11 miles to keep on track, so I pushed on, across a very interesting swing bridge, which swung more due to my pack. I had to push up a high uphill, past a cemetery and my phone ran out of juice, so I ate dinner while I recharged. The. Pushing on I ran into bracken again and dangerous footing near the cliff faces. Finally 8pm came which was my cut off time for the day, but I had only managed 10 miles for the day. The wind was blowing furiously and I lost 2 tent stakes keeping it from blowing away. With all the dryness I was glad I got both water bladders filled as there was no water to be had. It was a windy night but the view of the sea was awesome.
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