A friend and I have decided to walk (some of) the Cape Wrath Trail; I would like to do the whole path, but with trips to Japan and Georgia taking up significant amounts of holiday time we’ve elected to pare down the route and have decided to walk from Strathcarron to Cape Wrath.
The genesis of the walk was our trip back down from Orkney and Shetland in 2013. Rather than head south from John O’Groats we went West over Cape Wrath and south through Wester Ross (saying it out loud makes any Game of Thrones fans think you’ve lost your mind) and down to Leeds in one of the most epic drives of my life. We set off from Stromness around 07.30 and I arrived back in Calderdale around 02.00. It was breathtaking and particularly Wester Ross so we’ve been looking of a way to go back and this is it! On the way down we stopped at a few sites along the way including Ardvreck Castle.
We spent a few hours looking at transport links to make sure this was possible and it all seems like it will work out. I’ve put a few crude route maps together for indicative purposes.
We are allowing about 7-8 days of walking circa 20 miles a day – I expect that will creep to 22 to build some comfort into proceedings. I’ve learnt my lesson trying to long distance trek walking 30 miles a day which is possible for three days, but then you start coming unhinged physically or mentally or a little bit of both. This was at its most pronounced in Israel when my friend was feeling was coming untethered near some sort of Roman ruin ( I can’t remember what it was – possibly a mausoleum) as we hiked from `Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in three punishing days. That day ended very well as a kindly sole introduced us to his friend who had a hut for trekkers in his kibbutz. After that I am firmly in the “could probably walk a little further, but now I am going to relax” camp.
Midges are going to be unreal.
The horror, the horror.
Mark's Hikes & Travels 