John O'Groats!

Dornoch gave us an amazingly wet and windy night (but no leaks in the Kite Wagon - we slept very well despite the weather) and having collected our dry washing and refilled the water tank, it was off for Forsinard and the Flow Country. By half past eight we were thundering up the A9 with a topped-up fuel tank and all set, despite the continuing northerly winds and showers, for another great day's adventuring.
At Helmsdale we turned off the A9 and took the lovely, scenic and single-track-with-passing-places A897 to Forsinard, where we had to turn round and come back to find the tiny RSPB centre, housed inside the old station buildings. We browsed the souvenir badges and picked up a red kite (naturally), a magpie, a wildcat, a barn owl and a golden eagle! Having done merchandising and wandered around the small but very informative displays, we girded our loins and sallied forth on a short walk through the bogs - on a safely paved path. We heard curlew and saw larks, the dwarf birch just budding and the bog cotton nearly flowering but otherwise the country was still very wintry.
Our expedition completed, it was back to the Kite Wagon to heat up tomato soup, brew a pot of tea and devour bread and cheese with the soup for lunch. By half past one we were on the move again, continuing north for the coast. We spotted the vanishing rear end of a very stocky, thick-tailed tabby cat vanishing up a bank at a place called Trantlemore, so we think it may have been a wildcat, who do live in the area! If so, that's quite a notable sighting for us as neither of us have seen one in the wild before!
We reached the coast road and hung a right, reaching Thurso before half past two, so decided to push on for John O'Groats - it seemed a shame not to get there while we were so close! On the way we checked out Gills Bay, where we catch the ferry tomorrow, and on parking at John O'Groats, the trip meter read 1009! I set it when I first filled the tank just tten days ago almost at the other end of the country so this feels like a significant milestone.
Once we'd frozen our fingers taking proof-we-were-here pics, we made hurriedly off in search of a less windy overnight spot. We're now parked in an old quarry above the village, kindly pointed out to us by a lovely lady in the post office, and drinking hot chocolate. An early night awaits, then early tomorrow we go to meet the ferry!