[Photos] UK 24 - Wick and John O' Groats

We had no plans to go to either Wick or John O'Groats, but one of the biggest issues with check ins throughout the UK, and especially with Airbnb, is that check outs were often early, and check ins were usually VERY LATE (around 3-4pm). This often meant that even with a solid 4 hours of driving, we'd still have 2 hours to kill until check in.

As a result, driving from Inverness to Thurso was going to leave us with far too much time to kill, so we decided to make a day of it and do a trip to Wick and John O'Groats (this has the honour of being the most northerly point on the isle that is Britain). The roads were generally not very well maintained, narrow, and there were some alarming hairpin turns that dropped off nicely into an ocean that had no horizon line because of the haar. (Which was in abundance in many places we visited in the Highlands). Glen's least favourite driving was along here, and we had to take some of it back again, lol.

Wick was honestly rough, and had very obviously come upon hard times. But the people were very charming and generous (you could take some notes, Aberdeen, honestly). John O'Groats was small and wonderful. Blustery, wild, with many nesting seabirds, including guillemots and kittiwakes.


Duncansby Stacks at Duncansby Head



( Wick and John O'Groats under the cut. )

[Photos] UK 25 - The Wild Adventure at Thurso

So, we booked at a hotel in Thurso before I saw the reviews, and the reviews were TERRIBLE. Not only that, but our room was changed so that instead of three separate rooms, we had one single, tiny room, with three tiny beds in it, with one tiny toilet that had a brick in it. So we - last minute - decided to look for somewhere else to stay. We had (fortunately) the funds to do this, provided it stuck within a strict budget, and thanks to sites like wotif, we managed to secure a single night stay at Forss House Hotel (and hunting lodge).

This is not a place I would ever normally have stayed. I am not a hunter. I am not an angler. I don't fish. Much respect to people who do this for food, but I don't. Also, getting there was amazing. From the images on the site I saw, it looked like a densely wooded region. But then as we were driving there, the land was completely flat, and there were no trees. Until we reached a manmade forest that sprang up out of nowhere, a tiny driveway, and that led us to the hotel itself.

Everything after that was charming and ridiculous. We were shown to our rooms by a charming woman who must have been in her 80s, who it turned out was once the housekeeper and was now kind of the one who knew 'everything' but I think was still kind of the housekeeper and knew all the history. When Glen said 'I heard there was a stream by the Hotel' she indignantly said 'YOUNG MAN IT IS A RIVER.' (We don't have many rivers in Perth, this was a WA mistake, lmao). She bemoaned the 'youth of today using their phones' while point blank staring at Silvia, who was confounded at the lack of wifi (it didn't exist despite them saying it existed, and no one knew the wifi password).

On top of this, Anne said: 'Oh are you planning on staying for dinner? :/ ' and us - in the middle of nowhere, with literally NO restaurants anywhere nearby, at the 'holy fuck where is everything' end of Scotland said 'we were hoping so.' And she was like 'well we're fully booked' (HOW, TEN PEOPLE LIVE IN THIS REGION) 'so you can only come for dinner at 6.30pm. I'm very sorry.' This actually worked perfectly for us, and she seemed a little weirded out by how happy we were at the time like idk, she was expecting us 'youths of today' to want to dine at 9pm or something. Now, I'm 37, Glen's 35 and Silvia is 30. We were to learn that the average age of people who visited the restaurant was generally on an average of about 156 years old.

And everything else I can describe beneath the cut, lol. We had an amazing time, and you know what, I could go back in a heartbeat, pay full price for zero wifi, and enjoy the charm of this place again. Also I met a Sarloos Wolfhound puppy who was really very sweet (it's a dog friendly hotel).


The River (not stream) Forss. There was a whiteboard inside with a constant count of local salmon and fish caught in this river per month in the fishing season.



( Forss House Hotel and the Surrounds - there are some food pictures beneath the cut that contain meat )