Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

The earlier reports on my trip to Scotland are here and here . I left you with just one more day to hike on the JOG, but it was the longest day. JOG Day 5: Keiss to John O'Groats I started this day back at Keiss Harbour, this time leaving from the other end of the (very small) harbour area and heading north. Happily, the wind cooperated once more, staying mostly out of my face for a hike through sun, wind, and drizzle. My hiking partner was still feeling a bit gimpy, so again met me at some of the more accessible highlights, as well as the end of the trail. One of the first things I encountered was Keiss Castle, old and new. The old castle was built in the 1600s, and apparently didn't last long. The new one (Keiss House) was built in 1755, and is privately owned. I'm not sure who actually owns all the ruins on the headlands! Keiss House on the left, Keiss Castle on the right. The next cool thing was the Nybster Broch. Seeing this on the itinerary for the day had sent me to...

Okay, so I'm a little late. It's still Friday! Days 3 and 4 of my John O'Groats trail hike. For the start of the trip, see last Friday's post .  Day 3: Ulbster to Wick Strictly speaking, this should have been Whaligo to Wick, a nearly 12 mile hike by the time we would add on the distance to our hotel. We opted to cut it a little short in the interests of time and preserving my hiking partner's increasingly painful knee. Our taxi driver in fact took us to a start point that was only about a mile up the coast from Whaligo, so we still had a nearly 10 1/2 mile hike! We began at an old farmstead labeled on the map as the Mains of Ulbster. Though the house appeared abandoned, the farm is being worked, and we followed the farmer in his little golf-cart farm vehicle down the road to our start. The farm buildings appear largely abandoned, and the small graveyard (with mausoleum, front left) was not particularly well maintained. The graves I could see dated to around 120 yea...

Oh, yeah. I was going to do the whole 5 days in one post. Now that I've stopped laughing at my silly delusions, I'll share photos from the first 2 days, which is as much as I can even get through at a skim, just picking and editing the photos I want to use. Editing photos from nearly 2 months of hiking is a huge task! In fact, I couldn't even get this small post done in time. What is the JOGT? It's more of a route than a trail in some places, and runs along the coast of Scotland from Inverness to John O'Groats at the far NE tip of the mainland. It normally takes about 14 days , in stages running from about 8 to 15 miles. Don't let the lack of elevation gain fool you, either: with a rough and often overgrown track, those are long, hard days. We didn't have two weeks, and the southern parts of the trail didn't seem as interesting, so we started 2/3 of the way up, with what is officially the 10th stage.    Day 1: Dunbeath Harbour to Lybster One thing to kno...