Monday in Dornoch

Easy day today, leaving the car at the house and going on a long but flat walk to Dornoch Point. We walked a long way on the beach collecting bags full of shells.

The tide was in and a river which we had to cross was fairly deep so we had to take a detour.  When we stopped for a break about a mile from the Point another walker said the Point was inaccessible due to the water so we turned inland to the town of Dornoch.

In the evening the host (a headteacher) came home with his excitable dog. We had a quick chat but he had to unpack etc as he had just returned from spending half term in Spain (where his wife was running an adventure course) and had schoolwork to catch up on.

Dornoch is a lovely looking town with  buildings made of warm Cotswold type stone.

For part of the return journey we followed a disused railway track and there were a few historical sites with information boards.

A gravestone for a chap who had to be buried outside town as the citizens were desperately trying to avoid cholera coming to Dornoch. The inscription written by his son claims that the exclusion was unfair as "eminent medical men" had said his dad didn't actually have cholera.

This marked a boundary between land owned by a Bishop and that of a Duke. If you made it past the stone onto the Bishop's land you could claim sanctuary from persecution by the Duke.