Day 83 – Tain to Dornoch – 10 miles

Dornoch Firth Bridge in distance

Dornoch is only a stone’s throw from Tain, but on the other side of the Dornoch Firth. Getting across the firth requires a long walk west to the bridge, then a short walk north across the bridge, and finally another long walk east to Dornoch. Thus, I covered 10 miles to gain perhaps a mile north.

The walk out of Tain started along the busy A9 road, but there was a wide grass verge to walk on – at times 30 feet wide. Because the road parallels the Dornoch Firth, I had nice views. The verge disappeared at the Dornoch Firth Bridge, and I was relegated to walking on a sidewalk adjacent to high-speed traffic.

Peter

Just after crossing the bridge, I met Peter, who is cycling from John O’Groats to Land’s End. He left JOG yesterday. It will still take me a week to get there. I really need to think about exchanging my boots for pedals.



Fantasy garden on
road to Dornoch

 A short way beyond the bridge, I found a gate and a footpath which allowed me to leave the busy A9 roadway and cut over to a minor road leading to Dornoch. I decided to stop in Dornoch today so I wouldn’t arrive in JOG a day too early. I’m not sure what I would do with the extra time were I to arrive at JOG a day early. Dornoch is a lovely village in a nice setting, so it seemed to make sense to stay here with my extra day. Besides, I had a little experiment I wanted to do.

The Dornoch Castle Hotel is an elite property – or at least that’s what the hotel rates would suggest. A single room in the hotel is £121 (approximately $200). But they have several “very basic” chalets outside of the main hotel building that are £51 (approximately $85). When I was in Tyndrum I reserved a chalet, and today I intended to try negotiating a complementary upgrade to a room in the hotel. After all, I had walked all the way to Dornoch from Land’s End, and if anybody deserved an upgrade, I did. I wanted to see if the people in the village where Madonna recently got married treat us commoners as well as they treat celebrities. I stayed awake most of last night practicing my upgrade request.

Upon checking into the hotel, I had no sooner begun my upgrade pitch when the desk clerk volunteered that she could give me a free upgrade to a hotel room. Somewhat taken aback by how the clerk shortcut my prepared remarks, I almost refused the upgrade. Fortunately, my background as a highly-trained lawyer kicked in, and I kept my mouth shut. Maybe I’ve regained that lost puppy look – but more likely, King Arthur put in a good word for me.

© 2011 Ken Klug