Day 1 - John o Groats to Loch Taftingall

Once on our way the journey to our first sleep was unfortunately all roads but thankfully at least they were all small lanes with very little traffic. We had roughly 3 hours to cover 20 miles so we had to get a shift on. The thing that struck me about this part of Scotland was the relatively flat terrain, which worked out well as a nice run into the pain that is sure to come. The downside was that unfortunately there was some sun broken up by a fair bit of rain.

We were heading for Loch Taftingall, a fishing loch where you can hire a small boat to have a nice day on the water. We got there with just enough light left. A couple of locals thought we were mad going in there to camp, with the boggy ground and midgies and offered us a plot near their house, that's not what we are about though so we soldiered on. A short ride through a forest and the Loch opened out in front of us, even in this low light it was a magical sight. We had a little trouble finding anywhere near suitable sites for our tents but eventually settled on a spot each and got things sorted.

Luckily the rain stopped just as we were settled and I got a chance to use the MSR Reactor stove that I have been waiting ages to try out. This stove is amazing, fired up first time and had my vacum sealed dinner cooked in no time. We were both pretty tired so to get set up for our first big day we got our heads down.

We both woke up pretty early, raring to go. It had rained through the night so our stuff was a bit wet but as we had both invested in waterproof covers for our ruck sacks this wasn't a massive issue. The sight of the Loch was amazing in the early morning light and made for some great photos that I will post later. A big problem was the midgies though, there were so many we had to cut our visit short and get breakfast later. So with that we headed off for our first full day, Hopefully down to somewhere inbetween Brora and Golspie