JOGLE 5 Day 2 Thu 10 May 12

Left at 0830 Arrived 1530 Miles 17.75 John  O Groats to Watten. After a very nice breakfast we set off  in hot pursuit of the Photographer to have a proper photograph taken by the sign, but he was nowhere to be seen, well no surprises there then! The story about John O Groats and the funny looking house is quite interesting, it is all to do with a Dutchmen apparently so I’ll leave that for you guys to look up on the Internet because as I am about to discover later in the walk history is not my strong point especially when it comes to Beef Burgers.   Today the weather is very cold but sunny which makes for very pleasant walking.  The views across the Orkneys are absolutely superb and I very much doubt whether the view could get even better, indeed the views along the coast as far as the eye could see are wonderful.  The only downside about walking in this part of the country is that the roads are very straight and mostly flat, although the upside is that cars are far and few between and for that matter so are the natives who seemed to be very scare on the ground.  It takes quite a lot of will power to keep going along a straight road for miles when there is no end in sight or for that a simple bend ahead to focus on.  For those that didn’t know I fell of the motorbike ion boxing and suffered  6 broken ribs and a collar bone on the right and a dislocated thumb on the left that had to be re-set by an Ortho surgeon.  Well the thumb doesn’t like the cold, so luckily I had my glove with me for the really windy bits.  The collar bone is not healed but does not cause any discomfort and so far in the day my knees are more sore than anything else.  Although the back is a bit stiff from where the chest drain went in – anyway we will see how it goes and yes some would say – what walking with a broken collar bone? Must be mad?? –well its official you don’t need it apparently? And it doesn’t hurt – turn to the right, salute and carry on! The Brown Trout Hotel were not expecting us and luckily I had my internet booking form with me and eventually the proprietor worked out that we had used a third party to book the room. They had my surname down as Barry and not Sexton which led to the confusion.  Further more Ian and I always ask for a twin and we were given a double, interesting!  Luckily for us there was a spare room available so we had a double each and mine had purple sheets a purple quilt cover and purple curtains! Nice!!  The evening meal was very nice as were the staff and the natives were very friendly but clearly with large lake nearby and the name of the hotel (A big clue that!) it was full of grumpy Scottish  fisherman. No surprises there then Sherlock!