{"id":6198,"date":"2025-03-15T23:55:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T23:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=6198"},"modified":"2025-03-15T23:55:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T23:55:43","slug":"john-ogroats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/?p=6198","title":{"rendered":"John O’Groats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’d previously looked at tours that’d take me out here, but didn’t understand how tourist seasons work, so I just took the Saturday bus from Thurso instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And thanks to Doktor Hobo, I now have the idea that <\/em>Thurso<\/strong><\/em> is an Australian abbreviation of <\/em>Thursday<\/strong><\/em> stuck in my head, so thanks for that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breakfast at the hotel came with the assistance of Sally, who let me know that she’d be only too happy to help with any bacon or toast I couldn’t finish. Dogs are so giving in that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The #80 bus did pass right by the end of the road, but I had plenty of time, so I wandered down to catch it at it’s starting point; Partially so that there’d be no chance of missing it, and partially so that I could ask questions like “is there a return ticket?” without holding everyone up. Yes, there was a return ticket. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bus was surprisingly nice, set up like a tour bus; Even had seatbelts. There were only two passengers the whole trip, including me, and the other person got out at one of the towns along the way. ( as I wrote this a more regular #80 bus went past, so maybe the tour bus edition is just a Saturday thing )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With the gap between buses I had plenty of time, so I followed a path which seemed to go along the coast; It got more & more informal as you went along, and eventually became ‘walking through a field’. Kind of reminded me of chunks of Oxfam Trail walk training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The end of the path, or at least where I stopped, was this rock covered beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As the pictures sort of show, the weather was good, or at least good for Scotland in March. Cold, and a bit windy, but no rain, and there was sunshine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Big Red Foghorn, Helpful Signpost, & stickers on a pole at the end of the harbour breakwater <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The ‘official’ signpost. This started out as a selfie, but I didn’t like it very much, so now it’s not one<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I almost went back on the next bus, but at very much the last minute decided to get a pint at the local pub, making it my most Northerly beer ever. That said, the Golden Ale wasn’t my favourite; Should have gone with the lager instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The sculptures are about how the very large waves (5m or so) can move very large rocks (1\u00bdt or so)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Is nobody asking why<\/em><\/strong>  there are prosthetic sleeves in usable condition washing up on the beaches? That feels like something that deserves more investigation <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Things I didn’t photograph were the campground & motorhome area, or the luxury holiday lodges, or all that much of the hotel, which is all white & traditional looking near the sign, but gets more colourful at the other end of the building. I didn’t think of it at the time, but I now wonder whether it could have been a spot to visit on my working tour of the UK, if only for the ridiculous pose of doing a morning call from right in front of the signpost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got back to Thurso in time to go to the visitor centre, in the hopes of finding a postcard or something. No luck there, but it turns out that the centre is also a museum with a roughly 50\/50 split between;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • Thurso history from the iron age onwards<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The local nuclear reactor <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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    Yes, you could play with the Waldo thing. Yes, I played with it. Yes, it’s quite tricky.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    In conclusion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I enjoyed John O’Groats more than I expected. Good weather & off-season probably helped, because it wasn’t crowded; I’m not sure there were even enough people there to count as ‘populated’.I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It was a good day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’d previously looked at tours that’d take me out here, but didn’t understand how tourist seasons work, so I just took the Saturday bus from Thurso instead. And thanks to Doktor Hobo, I now have the idea that Thurso is an Australian abbreviation of Thursday stuck in my head, so thanks for that. Breakfast at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[156,155],"class_list":["post-6198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sabbatical","tag-john-ogroats","tag-thurso"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3O6N9-1BY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoarde.net\/craigblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}