Another gorgeous sunny day. We have been fortunate with the weather so far.

In the morning, we headed for the Big Burn Walk in Golspie. Golspie is closely associated with the Duke and Countess of Sutherland and their central role in the brutal Highland clearances.

The Sutherland estates amounted to some 1.5 million acres and formed the biggest private estate in Europe. But when they realised they could make more money rearing sheep, they brutally and forcibly removed 15,000 people from their land. Some displaced people were resettled in coastal communities to work in the herring boom. Others were shipped abroad to Australia and North America.

Big Burn Walk is a lovely walk. It is an easy stroll through a beautiful woodland, where you can see and hear many different birds and sounds. Unfortunately, I lost my phone on the walk, and despite retracing our steps, I did not find it.

Then it was a short drive to Carn Liath Broch, which occupies a terrace overlooking the shore. The remains of the broch are impressive. The interior is deeper than the exterior, which remains partially banked. In the entrance passage, there was a cavity possibly used to guard the broch, and on the opposite side was a set of steps within the wall leading to another level.

In the afternoon, we visited the Timespan Heritage Museum in Helmsdale, a sleepy, picturesque village, and then went to Camster Cairns. These are two of the best preserved Neolithic chambered cairns in Britain. The two cairns are very different in appearance. One forms a circular structure 18m in diameter, while the other sprawls along a ridge line for 70m. There are very narrow and dark passages leading into the cairns, which you can access, but given our age and creaking bones, we chickened out and decided not to risk it.

We stayed overnight at Mackays Hotel in Wick. The welcome we received, our bedroom, and dinner were all excellent. But breakfast let them down; the staff did not appear to know what they were doing. We sat in the breakfast room for an hour, and while Sue got her porridge, my breakfast never arrived.