MANY who are fortunate enough to live in the Highlands seem sadly unaware that their landscape ranks with the top places in the world.
The Scottish habit of denigrating ourselves has not died out and you are more likely to hear complaints about rain, midges, cold and high petrol prices. (You may have cheaper petrol further south. But you will also have much higher garage bills, lots of petrol wasted in slow-moving traffic and huge parking charges!)
I wish that more who live here would appreciate how privileged they are to live in such a wonderful place and stop trying to wreck it with huge wind turbines or other subsidised, uneconomical schemes which benefit the very few.
Once again an accolade has come our way. Of the top 10 coastal sites in the whole world, St John’s Head on Orkney has been rated sixth by the National Geographic magazine. Those immense1200-foot cliffs which tower above the Hamnavoe as she heads past Hoy to Stromness are considered more spectacular than St Kilda or Norway, or New Zealand. I do wonder, though, if the journalists looked only at places that are easy to visit!
Every year the vast expanse of peatland in Caithness and Sutherland is ranked more and more highly in the stakes of world importance. Only 30 years ago the area was being destroyed with huge useless forestry plantations, again for the sake of oodles of cash extracted as subsidies from you and me. Nobody should ever dream of putting wind turbines there – and yet the first of the Strathy schemes is going ahead.
SUSTAINABILITY lies in dedicated marketing of our Highland landscape as a world-class tourist destination, not in trying to industrialise it. And there are so many wonderful places in the county.
What would I rank the most spectacular parts of the coast of Caithness and north Sutherland?
Second on my list would be Wifie Geo, between Skirza and Duncansby Head.
Towering cliffs, a huge central sea-stack narrowly linked to the mainland, and three navigable tunnels through the headland into the main geo. I’d always thought it an amazing spot when seen from the cliff tops and found it even more spectacular when explored from the sea.
Perhaps third would be the promontory of An Dun between Berriedale and Dunbeath. A narrow bridge across the tallest sea arch in the North leads to a grassy top with remains of an old hill fort.
Below, 200-foot cliffs drop vertically to the water below, with a boulder bay which can only be reached from the sea. The cliffs hold huge colonies of nesting seabirds, kittiwakes and guillemots.
Also on my list would be the superb sea arch of the Needle, north of Sarclet, with its Needle’s Eye running through the promontory just above the waterline.
Then there is the amazing Brough, south of Wick, a big sea stack with a cave right through its long axis and open to the sky in the middle.
Duncansby Head would also feature, not just the stacks but the boulder bays where the grey seals have their pups, the huge geos with cliffs of nesting seabirds and the enormous high-roofed caves under the headland itself.
I’d also have to include spectacular Neave Island with its overhanging cliffs and geos and inlets.
But undoubtedly top of my list would be the mile or two of coast on either side of Whiten Head, Loch Eribol.
South of the headland lies a tangle of rock stacks, huge caves, arches, waterfalls and inaccessible rocky bays where the grey seals haul out to pup in the autumn.
The western top of Whiten Head soars in over 500 feet of vertical white cliffs above a huge cave and a bouldery bay. The more easterly top is still higher, reddish cliffs above an array of sea stacks.
A little further east are the biggest sea cliffs on the mainland with the huge pinnacle of An Stac towering above rocky bays far, far, below.
Apart from at Duncansby, I don’t think I have ever met anyone else at any of these places, which are mostly well off the beaten track. The beauties of Caithness and north Sutherland are sometimes well hidden.
THERE are plenty of places on the Caithness coast which are only marginally less wonderful. One morning I walked round the Dunnet Head cliffs, starting at Dwarwick Bay and crossed the headland to carry on above the Peedie Sands and along the low cliff tops to the remains of the old chapel at Chapel Geo.
A big swell was rolling into the cliffs from the west and a mile or two on, at Ashy Geo, I scrambled down the steep slopes to watch the breakers crash into the huge piled boulders.
Great care is needed if you do this, especially near the sea where there has been a lot of erosion, and if you grabbed or stood on the wrong loose rock, half the hillside could collapse on top of you. A little otter path leads up from the sea, carrying on from the top of the cliffs across the moor towards the Dunnet Head lochs.
Another favourite spot, especially on a snowy day with a fine swell on the sea, is the low rocky coast around Murkle Bay – an easy morning’s walk from home. I crossed Olrig and Clindrag Hills with the sun coming up on a snow-covered landscape, to find only a powdering of snow on the coast but very cold air drifting down on a light southerly wind.
Folk were out rabbiting just west of the bay – traditional pursuits are coming back in these hard times – and a couple of other people were out walking on the snow-dusted sands.
I could hear the swell from home, three miles from the sea, now it resounded almost explosively just across the headland. Lines of huge breakers were pounding into the low slabby rocks and cliffs, one after another.
I made my way on round West Murkle Bay to Claredon Head to sit and just watch the immense curling waves against the backdrop of Dunnet Head and Hoy as a small flock of wild geese passed nearly overhead.
To be home by lunchtime meant cutting back inland, following the road to West Murkle, dusted with snow and gleaming in the sun, before carrying on by tracks and wet fields to climb back up into the snow at the Sibmister Road viewpoint, then cross through the old Weydale Quarries – another remarkable but completely unvisited spot. Even the easy-to reach, near-at-hand places are wonderful. Those which require a bit more effort are up with the best, not just in Scotland but in the whole world.
Every year, though, more is spoilt or destroyed by some development our other. Let us never take our Highland heritage for granted.
