ANYONE who wants to read of the adventurous places I’ve visited over the holiday period will be disappointed. I haven’t been out of the county.
My only real excuse is the storms did so much damage in the wood that a lot of my spare time and energy has been taken up with clearing paths, cutting up fallen trees and rescuing young trees crushed by falling spruce or needing new support stakes. Nevertheless, every day I always do something, even if just a five-mile run over the hill or a 10-mile round on the bike.
Christmas Eve is a day which often sees me crossing the Shurrery Hills, this time it was just a morning’s run from the Shurrery Loch. The roads had been icy and the ground was still frozen, but cloud and milder air were rapidly spreading in from the west. Water was pouring over the dam and the hills only bore a few streaks of snow.
I jogged the familiar track which circuits the edge of the wood around the lodge, pheasants and partridges everywhere.
More recent plantings of birch and alder have done well. The open moors were bleak under the grey skies of late December, the track slowly climbs towards Beinn nam Bad Beag, Loch Caluim appearing below to the left.
The track surface was still frozen hard giving good going, though a few spots of rain were now blowing in the wind. Four miles out, after rounding the first hill, Loch Scye appears ahead, always a lovely wee loch in a hidden hollow in the hills.
Onwards, the track has recently been resurfaced and improved, all the way to the boathouse above Loch Thuim Ghlais. I usually don’t go so far, and turn off after mile or so, climbing up through a tiny corry now ringed with surprisingly deep snowdrifts.
The trig point on top of Beinn Nam Bad Mor has been a favourite spot of mine ever since a first visit some 33 years ago, a wonderful viewpoint for the vast expanse of the Caithness Flow Country, even if now partly spoilt by forestry plantations and distant wind farms.
It doesn’t do to become too attached to a favourite place these days, somebody is bound to drain it, plant it, dig it up, put a house on top of it or wreck it with some other development.
Deep banks of frozen snow on the east-facing slopes above Loch Scye were big enough to require care in descent, I jogged on past the boathouse at the south end of the loch, a rowan has seeded right against the building where the deer can’t eat it. Along the little sandy beach, almost under water, then up rough slopes to the top of Beinn nam Bad Beag where several stones commemorate members of the Black family. Down the far slopes to the track and a long, slow jog back to Shurrery with the odd gleam of sun under otherwise grey skies spotting rain.
ON the last day of the year I probably should have stuck to my original plan for a leisurely wander up Scaraben. It was a bright, mild day, much better than might have been expected for December 31. However, a few folk were planning some river kayaking at Halkirk and I was foolishly tempted to join them.
The river level was about a metre, nearly twice what I’d been out in before, and I hadn’t appreciated what a difference this made to the rate of flow. Basically, my level of skill wasn’t up to it, as I soon discovered. We launched the boats at Gerston, to warm up in a straightforward stretch of fast-flowing water.
When paddling into a fast stream from the bank, the trick is to lean the boat downstream, which is very counterintuitive, especially when you are used to leaning the opposite way into breaking waves on the sea. In the gentler flows I’d paddled in before, my poor technique hadn’t mattered too much but now, when I leant the wrong way, the boat capsized. My roll failed, I swallowed some of the river and was helped to the bank by the others.
No harm done I thought, my dry suit had kept me warm and dry. It was only later I discovered the seal on my waterproof camera had been open... Fortunately, a professional photographer, James Gunn, was taking photographs from the bank, his fine pictures can be seen on his website and a couple are included here by kind permission.
In spite of the amount of water, the river was still only grade two – one grade above the easiest – and to actually paddle down the rapids was not difficult. But I was carefully shepherded by the others down past the road bridge where I got out and left them to play in the rapids unencumbered by a novice.
It was still only mid-morning and, having boat and all my gear with me, decided to head for Loch More and a rather easier paddle. Indeed the loch was lovely under a bright sky of broken cloud with snow-streaked Ben Alisky and the Morven hills in the distance and water roaring over the weir.
The wind was quite stiff though, and the little river kayak made slow progress into it, slapping into the waves coming down the loch. After 40 minutes I’d only made the far shore a mile down, so turned to let the wind and waves help me back to my starting point. The light, with sun glinting between the clouds, looked good for a photo – I then found my waterproof camera was dead. After days of hanging it over the stove and hours of blasting it with a hairdryer it’s still drying out…
THE mornings of the first two days of 2012 were both bright and clear for early runs over the hill; on the second there was the added bonus of frozen ground and no wet feet! As dawn came up on Olrig Hill the whole county lay quiet and still, the distant lighthouse on Stroma repeating its double flash.
The top of Olrig is wet, with various communication masts, and it’s much nicer a bit further east. I hesitate to mention another favourite spot, but there’s a corner where the rough ground from at least three farms meets. High on the ridge, a stone wall heads downwards, pointing straight towards the wide sands of Dunnet Bay with its white breakers and haze of spray. Beyond Dunnet Head is Swona and the long line of the Orkneys from South Ronaldsay to Wideford Hill above Kirkwall. On round westward, beyond the orange Flotta flare and the lighthouse of South Walls, the high hills of Hoy roll along the skyline. To the east there is no higher land south of Warth Hill, you see right across the county to the lights of Wick Airport and the serrated skyline of Pulteneytown.
On both mornings, at just two minutes past nine, the first rim of the sun dazzled above the horizon and soon the hill was lit in low sunlight. I’ve very rarely seen the New Year in at midnight but have almost always been out to watch the first light of dawn on the first of January!
