Hello Friends of the John o’ Groats Trail,
Two important pieces of news: a planned walk on 30 October, and a search for a symbol for our trail.
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Stage Opening Walk: The JOGT consists of 14 stages, each about 10 miles long and meant to be walkable in a day by most walkers. Our volunteers have been working hard on several of these stages over the summer and have mostly finished work on Stage 10: Dunbeath-Lybster. We will celebrate this opening on Saturday 30 October with an organised walk at 10am from Dunbeath Harbour. This was covered in Friday’s John o’ Groat Journal.
Park at Dunbeath Harbour and we will drive people back to their cars afterwards.
This stage is 8 miles long. Please beware there are still 3 barbed wire fences without stiles that need to be crossed on this walk. We will try to bring along a couple boxes to use as steps, but I can’t guarantee it will be easy to cross these fences. There are also 10-15 fences that do have stiles.
If you have any questions, feel free to email or ring me on 07526 281088.
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Search for a symbol: The JOGT is currently marked by white paint marks on fence posts and other objects, but most established trails have a unique symbol. This symbol would adorn way markers so that the trail would be instantly recognisable to walkers. Two suggestions have been made so far:
– A coin or coins that would represent the “Groat”, the ancient coin used in the UK.
– An octagon that would represent the original house at John o’ Groats, which by legend was eight-sided. The current hotel there has an octagonal tower that reflects this legend.
If you have other suggestions for simple symbols that could be used as icons for the trail, please send me your ideas.
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Call for Volunteers: We need volunteers to help with: the web site, newsletters, grant applications, press releases, and of course building the trail and lots of other things! If you’d like to get involved, please email me or ring me on 07526 281088.
See you soon!
Jay