JOGLE 5 Day 8 Wed 16 May 12

Started  0830 Finished  1330 . Distance 10 miles.  Alness to Dingwall. This has to be the shortest days walking yet and very nice too. We had to walk on a bit of a main road to get us out of Alness. Once on the way we picked up a minor B Road that took us along a very nice cycle path through the woods to a small town where we stopped for a nice coffee and hot chocolate at the Balconie Inn.  After our break a minor road took us up the side of the hill that gave us stunning views over a sea  Loch and of course the oil rig production sites.  Along the route we took we came across a couple who were from the United States of America and walking the End to End but the LEJOG way.  It was a pleasant way to pass the time while I waited for Ian to catch up.  The arrival into Dingwall was pretty uneventful.  As we were early our room wasn’t ready the Landlady bent over backwards to make us feel welcome and within minutes we were settled in and contemplating the rest of the day. It was then that we realised how badly worn down the soles of our boots were becoming. Ian’s had only recently been re-soled.  We took a walk around Dingwall to work out were we going to eat that night and found a really modern café come restaurant that was very modern and turned out to serve some very good food with very friendly social staff, well it was the owner a builder who was standing in because of staff shortages. I used the opportunity  to utilise the service’ of the post office to send back a couple of redundant water bottles and some maps, just to lighten the load a bit more.  I use a Camel Bak for my water supply which is great as I can drink on demand without having to stop and dig out a water bottle.  The Camel Bak holds 1.5 litres which is plenty for a day’s walking in the current weather conditions. Because the weather has been fairly cool I’ve not needed so much water and as a full water bottle weighs in at 1kg and I was carrying two (which incidentally was not enough when walking the Pennine Way in temperatures of 25 degrees). So I managed to loose 4lbs of weight.  During our travels Ian and I always come up with some interesting ideas one of these is to have weather forecasting bus stops to compliment electric signs that tell when the next bus is coming but we though how about telling us when the next rain squall or other inclement weather as well and how long it is going to last for.  We also came up with the idea of solar powered flashing orange lights mounted on top of the rucksack, that way whilst walking along a main road we could be easily identified as a slow moving vehicle and warn other traffic to be careful around us.  Finally we feel rucksacks should come with built in Wi-Fi frames and a mini dish as alternative to the frequent times that we couldn’t get a mobile signal.  So to any would be designers out there I am sure you could come up with a solution but please no silly ideas like “Does it have to be a rucksack”? Really?? (Sorry in house arty designer joke).