In June 2012 there was a spell of warm dry weather. Unusually for Caithness there was no heavy rain showers. We went a drive to John O'Groats and was surprised to see smoke drifting high into the sky. The heather peat had caught fire and the fire brigade were out trying to extinguish it. We continued on to Castletown, and had a picnic at Castlehill. At John O'Groats we got some ice-cream. We couldn't take the road straight back to Wick as we were stopped by the Police, - there were peat fires and thick smoke at John O'Groats too. Any thoughts I had of driving through it were quickly dismissed - I could not see ten feet in front of the car. We turned round and took the road over the Causeymire to Latheron where I picked up some paintings I had put in to their exhibition. A long round trip but we had a memorable day out.
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