North Coast Trail long-distance walking route looks to take big strides in Caithness
The charity behind a planned long-distance walking route along the north coast is aiming to have the Caithness section up and running by next summer.
The Association of Northern Trails – which is behind the John O’Groats Trail that stretches from Caithness to Inverness down the east coast – has begun developing a new route from Groats to Cape Wrath.
Its new development manager Laura Gray is hoping to get the communities along the route involved in the process, as well as hearing from those who live and work on the land.
A series of drop-in sessions are being held, starting this week, as part of community consultations surrounding the development of the route.
Laura, the trail development manager at the Association of Northern Trails Scotland, said: “I will bring along with me a rough outline of the proposed route - obviously it’s subject to change – but I’ll bring along maps showing what we’ve got so far.
“We’ll also be looking for a bit of feedback from people as to what they think of the proposed route, if they’ve got any better suggestions – because nobody knows the coastline better than the people who live on it and who work on it.
“We’re also looking to chat to landowners along the route. I have been going out and about already to try to create a bank of landowners’ details and get the lay of the land, so to speak, from them and any worries and also any ideas they have for it as well.”
Laura’s role is focused on creating the first part of the route at the east end in Caithness, and she hopes that progress can be swift in bringing it into a useable condition.
“Different sections will require different levels of work,” she said. “There’s some of the route already in use, and it’s fairly walkable already, so we would want to have some sections up and running by the end of the year.
“My position is only funded until May, so we’d like to have as much done as we possibly can in that time. We would hope by spring/summer next year we would have most of the route in Caithness marked.
“We might not have all the infrastructure in place by that point but we’d hope to have a plan for urgent things that are needing done.”
She added that volunteers who are invested in the route are key to its success.
“Of course we want to try and get some volunteers on board and get some members of the community involved in the process,” Laura said. “We’ve got such a good bank of volunteers for the John O’Groats Trail who really have made it what it is today, and if we can replicate that sort of group of passionate people on the north coast, that would be absolutely fantastic.
“We’re only a small charity so we really do rely a lot on our volunteers to help us out and keep an eye on the trail – it’s hard to keep an eye on 150 miles of trail at once!
“If anyone is interested in volunteering or getting involved in the project in various ways, we’d love to hear from them at the community consultations too.”
The drop-in sessions take place at John O’Groats, village hall (Thursday, July 25, 2pm-4pm); Dunnet, Britannia Hall (Wednesday, July 31, 4pm-6pm); Mey, village hall, (Monday, August 5, 2pm-4pm); Castletown, Drill Hall (Thursday, August 8, 2pm-4pm); Thurso, North Coast Visitor Centre (Wednesday, August 14, 3pm-5pm); and Reay, village hall (Friday, August 16, 2pm-4pm).
