Distance: 17.75 miles (Tot: 97)
Weather: sunny morning, then a few passing showers
Waking to a sunny, but cool, morning, we strode out of the campsite looking forward to some quality coastal walking - and we got it.
As soon as we reached the coast (about a mile and a bit due north of where we had stayed last night) we had a beach below us and gorgeous flowering gorse all around us as we walked on the perfectly cropped grass.
Many a 'Good Morning' was exchanged as we passed the early-bird golfers on the course at Nairn, before stopping for a second breakfast of butteries just after the club house.
The coast path there becomes a concrete promenade, so we joined the dog walkers on the beach and, except for an slight inland detour around the harbour at Nairn, we stayed on the beach until it was time to head inland into Culbin Forest.
What a contrast that was to yesterday's forest 'adventures'. Every track and every junction on our route was exactly where it should have been. Making the experience even better, most of the distance through the woodland was on old grassy tracks, rather than the more common road-esque forest tracks. That's probably because the forest isn't the commercial, managed plantation I had envisioned. It's an old forest, with space between the trees, giving a far more open feel and allowing plenty of sunshine through.
Enjoying the sunshine as we were, it was a surprise when a shower snuck up behind us. Neither that shower or any which followed was heavy enough to force us into overtrousers, but the jackets were called into action a couple of times.
A shower caused us to curtail lunch, which was had a the wonderfully named Cloddymoss, just before we were due to leave the forest. We didn't leave the forest via our planned route; a signpost was spotted, and it told us that the path to the left would take us in the direction we were headed, whereas I had us treading tarmac. Not being one to tread tarmac unnecessarily, we went on a mystery tour and followed the well waymarked set of paths. As I suspected it would, it brought us out back on our planned route, from where it was just a few short miles to our night-stop.
We're being royally looked after tonight, as we're pitched in Louise and David's back garden (not that Louise is here - she's Challenging herself at the moment). I cannot tell you how comfy this sofa is, having not sat in a soft chair since our train ride north a week ago.
Click here for Day 6
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Quite amusing really, as I neither visited nor saw any of my family during this year's Challenge. Wonder if I can arrange another Challenger to drop in on them next year?!!
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