Durness Weekend

31st August - 2nd September 2018

The Great Durness Weekend arrived. It doesn't seem that long since I sent out that first email in the new year!

Now that most of us DHCers are retired we can do a hill on the way .... (and some of us do even more!) and our weekend began on Friday when the weather was glorious.

On Thursday Graham climbed a corbett near Bonar Bridge called Carn Chuinneag.

Chris and Robert travelled together and bagged Meallan Liath Coire Mhic Dhughaill on Friday (that is just one hill!). Ruth and Steve were already up north and bagged Carn Chuinneag. Graham and Sandy managed to walk Ben Leoid plus a couple of Grahams and Gillie and Alan did Ben Hee!

In the evening some ate at the cafe near the campsite whilst others tried out the new cafe/restaurant called The Whale Tale. FYI both eateries got good (maybe slightly mixed) reviews.

The wonderful sunny weather didn't continue on to Saturday so Steve and Ruth had a picnic at the lovely Sandwood Bay.

(Editor: don't have picture of Sandwood but here is Durness beach....it's a beautiful beach!)

Alan went off to Cape Wrath and accidentally met his brother and sister-in-law coming off the ferry! Graham, Chris and Robert managed to find their way up Cranstackie and Beinn Spionnaidh whilst Sandy and Gillie got wet and blown about on Meallan Liath Coire Mhic Dhughaill!

Alan had picked up two walkers on his return from Cape Wrath - a couple who'd just finished the Cape Wrath trail. Chapeaux to them! They managed to find room in the hostel and another young couple arrived who were about to start the trail - North to South! - their packs looked tiny compared to those of the first couple. We were all very impressed. However even more impressive was the delicious meal we sat down to that night - a wonderful DHC soiree of home cooked food - nibbles with drinks, a starter, venison casserole with rice and vegetables followed by blackcurrant frangipane and apple crumble. All followed by cheese and port! Gillie managed to stay awake long enough to eat it but had to retire immediately afterwards zzzzzzzz.

Sunday morning arrived with the weather back to gorgeous so we all packed up and set off on more hills. Chris, Graham and Robert did Ben Hee.

Ruth decided that Ben Hope could be re-done as it had been cloudy when first conquered so she and Steve set off to bag that (if you look carefully you might see ruth & Steve on Ben Hope in the background of above picture). Sandy, Alan and Gillie set off to walk up Ben Loyal. We all agreed that our hills had magnificent views and the weather was sublime!

On Monday Sandy climbed Arkle.

Durness and the NW is beautiful and I think we all felt we'd love to return sometime soon.

Gillie

Editor's note:

As there were so many different activities this trip I thought it might be interesting to present a "league table" of achievements. See below and apologies for any factual inaccuracies!