Highlands 3, The Far North.

[quagga64]

Got up in our campsite in Wick and decided to do a wee tour of the far North, the weather was sunny but with occasional showers. Drove the 18 miles from Wick up to John O' Groats where we went into the wee gift shop and got rock for Tommy and I got a fridge magnet, walked out the pier where there was a wee German boy fishing, spoke to his Dad who I got to take our photo, had a wee walk around before heading off the two miles further Northeast to Duncansby Head where we walked along the clifftops to see Duncansby Stacks which are rock pinnacles sticking out of the sea, the weather was fine and sunny and their was good views of the Orkney Islands across the Pentland Firth. From here we drove West along the A 836 which is the main road across the top of Scotland and up to Dunnet Head, the most Northerly point on the British Mainland where like Duncansby Head there is a lighthouse designed by the Stevensons. walked up to the viewpoint and again had great views of the Orkneys and Hoy in particular and could also just make out Cape Wrath to the far West. From here we drove to Castletown and down a B road to Wick then South on the A99 to the Whaligoe Steps where we saw the legendary Jimmy who appeared in Billy Connollys World Tour of Scotland when he done a bit on The Whaligoe Steps. Descended the steps to the bay at the bottom and had a wee explore around before heading back up. At the top we met a guy called Davie (Jimmys next door neighbour) who lived in the wee row of cottages at the top of the steps and was the foremost authority on them, he knew all there was to know about the history of them and he brought a large framed photo out of his house of his Grandfather in the bay with his boat and told us he was one of the last two fishermen to fish out of Whaligoe Bay, Davie maintained the steps and over the years had met lots of famous people including Billy Connolly and Nicholas Crane when he came to film for the series Coast, he spoke to us for quite a while and told us a few really funny stories about Jimmy and fat american tourists. A heavy rain shower signalled time for us to go and we said goodbye to Davie and drove to our final destination of the day which was The Grey Cairns of Camster, two really well preserved prehistoric burial cairns 5,000 years old which have passages you can just manage to crawl into to the inner rooms, for the first and only time on the trip we were attacked by midges and had to cover ourselves in skin so soft. From here we drove back to Wick and had a drive round the town before getting a chinkie and going back to the tent to eat it. Rained quite a lot through the night.