To Dunnet Head & John o’Groats, Scotland

We rose early on Wednesday to join the long queue of vehicles waiting at the Stornoway dock to board the 7am ferry back to the Scottish mainland.  We docked in Ullapool shortly before 10 and headed north along the coast, turning in now and again to check out some of the seaside villages along the way. We also stopped briefly to inspect the roadside ruin of the 15th century Ardvreck Castle, the scene of much violence throughout its life with murders, executions and sieges by both traditional enemies and quarrelsome branches of the MacLeod clan.  Not surprisingly the place is now comprehensively haunted, most notably by the weeping daughter of a MacLeod chief who drowned in Loch Assynt after marrying the Devil in a pact to save her father’s castle.  Or so the story goes.  

Eventually we came to the north-west tip of the mainland and turned right to traverse the width of Scotland, reaching the east coast at around 6 pm after a long day in the car.  The distances weren’t so large but the road was often single-lane and winding, and in a couple of places we had to cut back on ourselves for many miles to get past some long and skinny lochs.

Our destination for the day was Dunnet Head, the most northerly point on the UK mainland, and only a few miles from John o’Groats on the east coast.  Looking out to sea, all that was between us and Iceland now was Scotland’s Orkney Islands, clearly visible just a few miles offshore.  We checked into Windhaven Cottage on the Head, glad to be off the roads now awash with water from the bucketing rain of the last hour, and made dinner of the oak-smoked Scottish salmon we’d bought at a roadside stall earlier.

Thursday was for walking and we began with a four hour hike along the beach from John o’Groats to the Duncansby Head lighthouse, then along the cliff tops past the impressive Duncansby sea stacks, home to hundreds of nesting sea birds.  It was an atmospheric walk, what with the wind, the strong smell of the seaweed, the soaring squawking birds and the menacing-looking waters of Pentland Firth that rush around the coast at this corner of the UK mainland.  We crossed some heather-covered countryside and ambled past a sheep farm, home to some very friendly lambs that insisted on trotting with us along the fence line, bleating endearingly as we went.  They seemed to be having great fun.

We took a second cliff top walk later, this time shortly before sunset at Dunnet Head.  We hoped to see Atlantic Puffins, comical looking birds with brightly coloured orange legs and bill, but proficient flyers and operators on the plunging cliffs along the coast here.  Our patience was rewarded just as we were about to give up when we finally spotted a small group of them fly in from the sea and land on a grassy knoll hugging a cliff face.  It was a pity they weren’t closer but even at that distance they were unmistakably puffins.