Monday, 24 April 2017
Coastwalk
Portmahomack → Tain
Distance: 10.76 miles
Ascent: 124 metres
Duration: 3 hours 14 minutes
Wintery showers
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Today's weather forecast was for "wintery showers" so we selected another short route of mainly road walking. We're filling the gap that we opened on Saturday, but not in the "right" order.
Only a little under half of today's walk was pleasant: the section from Portmahomack to Inver. The remainder was a march along a road trying to ignore the unseasonably cold weather, strong winds, hail, sleet and rain that pounded our faces.
But that first part — the beach walk — is to be recommended, affording wide views across the Dornoch Firth to the hills beyond. We watched as the sky darkened, obscuring the far shore, an ominous sign of what was to come.
Inver seems to have had a troubled past. Half the village succumbed to cholera in 1832 and was buried in a mass grave to the east. A cairn marks the spot, its mournful brass plate stoically calling "Let Inver Live". A little over a hundred years later in December 1943 the entire village was evacuated so that surrounding land could be used to train troops for the D-Day landings.
There is no shop on Shop Road. The Inver Inn was closed. With the weather closing in we couldn't avoid the march to town any longer.
Before we reached Tain we'd had enough so took the most direct route possible to the nearest tearoom.
Notes for future walkers:
- A signposted path leads from the road end in Bainabruach to Inver.
- In Inver/Skinnerton, turn right at Main Street to join the Shore Path. On reaching the shore, the cholera monument is a little east of this point.
- From Inver we walked on the obvious minor road towards Tain. Local traffic is fast here, although one driver stopped to offer us a lift.
- After crossing the railway on the final approach to Tain, we turned up Kirksheaf Road (NH 789 816).
- There's undoubtedly a better route to be found, but not in today's weather.
- The "o" in "Porthahomack" is short.