18 June Father’s Day!
Harriette’s Entry:
“We woke up and gave Tata his presents (some Dad jokes, shortbread biscuits and a T-shirt with a pun on it) and tea in bed. Then we tidied away and made breakfast. A while later, we ate our full English Breakfast.
Next we went on a lovely bike ride, up and down lots of big hills, our destination was the lighthouse at the end of the Isle, Duncansby Head. Together we explored and ate our picnic snacks.
We discovered a lovely cliff stack area where all the strata in the rock showed, as the tide gently laped against the rocks, we headed back towards the campsite, via a geocache and a petting farm. We bought some carrots to feed the animals, including donkeys, pigs, goats, Shetland ponies, geese and even rabbits. My favourite is a Rex rabbit called Lettice, her fur feels like velvet!
When we got back to camp, we made some tea and ate lunch.
Morning Review: Fun! Exciting! Tiring!”
Afternoon of Father’s Day was chilled, we did a little school and took a walk down the beach front before having ‘Fish n Chips’ as a treat for dinner.
19 June
Woke up around 5am to a rather hectic rain storm, which continued all morning. It was a new game of Tetris to pack up the camper van with no availability of ground outside to put things to rearrange, and having all the kids (both real and fur children) in the van whilst packing. Not a game we want to play daily… but fear with a change in the weather we may be doing a bit more of this.
Finally set off around 9:30 and had a long day of driving ahead. Stopped periodically when the rain let up to catch a few more geocaches, but spent in total about 6.5 hours in the car getting to Durness.
Stopped at Dunnet’s head - a rounded, cliffed sandstone headland in the Highlands of Scotland, that is the northernmost point on the mainland of Great Britain. Whilst it’s supposed to be a spectacular viewpoint, we couldn’t see much of anything due to rain and fog! It was also incredible windy!
We traveled on past by Castle of Mey, Queen Mother’s castle, but it was closed so couldn’t go in.
The Road along the coast is winding with lots of up and down, so obviously our rather prone to motion sickness child had a couple of episodes, and we ended up plying her with anti-emetic and sticking her in the front seat with the window partially open!
Finally, after what fells like an eternity we reached Durness and the campsite we are staying at. Robyn was shattered and opted for a short nap while Mish and the girls took a walk down to the beach early evening.
Rain continued intermittently, so made camper van comfort food of pasta with bacon and carbonara sauce with salad and veggies.
This camp site is a little different - sites are packed in along the cliff top, a little like sardines, with little to no outside space to even put up a camp chair, but what I will say is that we have the most fantastic view right from our van over the cliff and down to the ocean.
Also, who needs outdoor space with its piddling with rain 90% of the time?!?
20 June
It stopped raining this morning, and the sun was out in full force!
Hence we packed a picnic breakfast and headed to Smoo Cave. Here is Maxine’s account of the day:
“Today we went to the Smoo cave, its a mile from our campsite. It was amazing, with a stream in the middle leading into the cave. We were only allowed in the one chamber. It was called the lake.
On the way back we found a bridge over the cave. It was cool because we could see the lake from above and where the waterfall is when it is raining.
At the campsite Mama had a nap while the rest of us went to the beach. Harri and I played a game called shelter where you had to shelter from the rain. During the game I cut myself so we went back to clean it up. Harri cleaned up my foot and even gave me a sweetie. She is a very good doctor, thanks Dr Harri.”
The day overall has been low key, and very relaxing. We managed to catch up on some boring chores, such as laundry. But also enjoyed the little things like cooking up a curry feast for dinner and watching some TV with the kids.
Only eventful thing of the evening was that the tempered glass cover of the kitchen sink randomly exploded after dinner! This necessitated a huge clean up as glass bits were literally everywhere across the camper van.
It was nice to have a slower paced day, especially since tomorrow we start to head back down south along the West Coast.
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