The garden room last night was extremely cosy in the blustery north and once again we woke to sunshine, but with winds and single digit temperatures. The most amazing breakfast was delivered to us at 8.15, thanks to Sheila our host.

With what seemed like gale force winds we abandoned the idea of an early beach walk and instead booked a distillery tour for 10.00 at Wolfburn Distilleries.

An hour and half later, I had tasted 6 whiskies and had a free glass to take away, Dave as designated driver had the glass and a free miniature sample to taste later. We headed back into Thurso for a little walk around the most northern town in the UK grabbing a tea to go and 2 sausage rolls. 

We began travelling across the North coast, a quick stop at the Dounreay viewing car park (sausage roll break) where you can see the de-commissioned nuclear reactor before continuing our journey.

Next stop Melvich beach – wow, what a lovely beach but again so cold so no chance of that dip in the Atlantic Ocean. 

Then onto Strathy beach, this looked quite awkward to get to, so we just admired the views down to it from the Cemetery.

Onto Farr Bay, where we did a little walk down to it and along the beach and back in sun, wind and rain, another cracker of a beach.

We were then lucky enough to see our first ‘heilan coo’ 4 of them just walking down the A836. 

We then drove through Bettyhill found the famous crumbs cake cupboard but at 3.30 in the afternoon, the cupboard was bare! 

A final detour to Torrisdale Bay where there is meant to be a shipwreck in the sand but with the tide in and it still quite cold and windy we once again just viewed the bay from up high. 

The scenery had now changed considerably and we were on mainly single track with passing places but as there was hardly any traffic it was all plain sailing still. Stopping for another viewpoint, we saw more heilan coos in a field. 

We then crossed the Tongue Causeway, where we had to stop for yet more pictures, a fantastic outlook and headed to Talmine where we had booked a pod for 2 nights. Having found out the local pub and restaurant closed a few years ago we stocked up with eggs, beans and bread for a cosy dinner for two in the pod.

Our final mileage today shows 311 miles since leaving Inverness, a total of 1026 since leaving home.