Day 17. John O' Groats to Helmesdale

We woke up and took full advantage of the amazing showers at this campsite, feels like being in a warm pressure washer 😂. Afterwards we headed to the famous sign to take the obvious John o Groats pictures, we also headed upto the Duncansby head lighthouse to go and have a look at the Duncansby Stacks which were interesting, but it was very cold so we headed on.
We wanted to visit 4 castles enroute today but only 1 allowed visitors, it was called Sinclair and Girnigoe which in its day was a magnificent castle and still is one of the best to visit in Scotland. We drove through Wick which was dreary but temptingly average house price is £120k... We drove down the east coast and decided to fast track another day as wasn't an awful lot to see and we could see mountains in the distance, so we headed for them. Enroute we stopped at Whaligoe steps, which is 300 steps etched into the cliff side and has been used for 300 years for fisherman bringing in their catch. We didn't walk down due to conditions and James slipped over twice on the boggy path to the lookout, which was hilarious. Still happy we went to have a look though.
Afterwards the roads started to get more icy, so we decided to find a park up. One had a short but steep entry and unfortunately we headed a little to far forward so had to go down it and attempt to get out, this was fun.. But erm stressful haha. Afterwards we headed down the road and found an icy pull in so made camp for the night, we were both slightly anxious about getting off from here but luckily managed to with ease... We watched BBC series "Time" which is super addictive and had a lovely massaman curry then went to bed.Read more