Log No 40. Fri 17th May 2013 - Kinloss to Nairn, 22 miles (674 miles walked)

I set off walking from Peters at 7.25, it was overcast but dry.

The first objective today was the detour around Findhorn Bay and I wasn't expecting to see much of the coast either as there didn't appear to be any access to it through the forest.

Using the minor road, which was also the cycleway, it took me an hour to get to the distillery on the edge of Forres.

I crossed over the River Findhorn at Broom of Moy. This area must be prone to flooding as there was a £45m flood alleviation scheme underway here.

At Broom of Moy I met only my second hiker of the trip so far, I did see another back-packer but our paths never crossed.

This chap was doing a Coast to Coast, an annual event run by The Great Outdoors were you start from any of 6 locations on the west coast, follow your own route to the east coast and everyone meets up for a banquet in Montrose.

Keeping to the roads I entered Culpin Forest at 9.30 just after Wellside Farm and stopped to eat a pork pie.

I wasn't expecting to come out of the forest until I rached Nairn but when I came across a footpath sign for Findhorn Bay I followed it and came to the bay just at the mouth of the river.

I don't know how quickly erosion is taking place here but it looks quite dramatic where the trees have been undermined.

There were quite a lot of seals on the beach on the other side of the mouth with a solitary seal on my beach.

The weather had improved and the sun was coming out and for a change there wasn't a cold wind.

I started walking along the beach, it wasn't going to be possible to walk all the way to Nairn because there looked to be a lot of marshland.

After half an hour I found my way back onto a track in the forest.

The track went inland quite a bit before slowly making its way back to the coast.

This was a good forest to walk through and would be even better to cycle through.

I stopped at a pile of logs to have my lunch but I was soon up again when I realised there were big ants crawling all over them.

With the forest being planted on the dunes there were no handy rocks to sit on so It took me a while to find somewhere to sit that was more or less ant free.

The map was showing a lot of sand with a small strip of marsh along the edge of the trees so it came as a surprise when I came out of the trees to what I thought was grassland.

I started walking along it but soon realised it was marshland and getting wetter with each footstep.

After half an hour I decided to cut back through the trees and get onto the track. What I had thought was an airy forest now seemed impenetrable but I found a rough ride which soon led back to the track.

There was a picnic table when I came out of the trees for the last time and I finished off my lunch, it was 13.50.

Coming into Nairn I stayed on the seafront and then took the footpath along and then through the golf course to get onto the main road to catch a bus back to Kinloss, it was 15.00.

It had been a good 22 miles (plus 2 more getting from & to Peters).