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Close to the edge


By Alan Hendry

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John O’Groats with its Nomadic Boulders art installation.
John O’Groats with its Nomadic Boulders art installation.

EVERYONE knows that the most northerly part of mainland Caithness – and Britain – is Dunnet Head. But what comes second in the county’s north-to-south rankings? John O’Groats? No, it’s St John’s Point, a grassy promontory jutting out into the Pentland Firth roughly halfway between Dunnet and Duncansby.

I stood on this windswept headland watching a succession of big waves sweeping in and breaking on jagged rocks – a sight that would have gladdened the heart of any passing marine energy developer. Not that many people pass this way, it has to be said.

I had decided to stick to the coastline as much as possible on this bike ride and walk across north Caithness, and there was a real sense of being close to the edge. I’d been pedalling along some of the minor roads that run between the A836 and the sea – in other words, even farther north than the most northerly stretch of the North Coast 500.

The temperature had been hovering around zero when I’d set off from Dunnet Bay, but I didn’t mind the early chill. There was practically no wind, the sky was mostly clear, and it seemed I had timed this trip well in between two autumn storms.

In Dunnet village I took a left turn before veering right, following the road that leads on to Dunnet Head. The wide expanse of St John’s Loch was a vision of serenity: light ripples in the centre and flat calm around the edges, while the newly risen sun still had the last of its golden glow.

The loch is renowned for its remarkable diversity of birdlife and today there were scores of migrating geese on the water.

My route (heading east) should have meant carrying straight on at Brough and ignoring the Dunnet Head viewpoint sign, but I couldn’t resist taking a quick detour – no more than half a mile – to have a look at Brough Bay and its distinctive Clett Rock. The rock’s south-facing side was catching the low sun and the tide was well in, making it look well and truly isolated.

Back on the bike, I followed the road around Ham, with its historic grain store and its small loch where a swan and some cygnets were making their leisurely way across the mirror-like surface.

The road bends and dips here before straightening out and I took a left turn at Crossroads Primary School for a gentle climb to Hill of Rattar and on towards Scarfskerry. I took another little detour down to the Scarfskerry pier and watched more of those large waves rolling in against a backdrop of Dunnet Head’s sunlit eastern flank.

The road then cuts inland, away from Tang Head. At a three-way junction (with a fallen sign for Harrow harbour) I veered left to join the road that forms part of a one-way system taking car drivers away from the nearby Castle of Mey during the tourist season.

The former holiday home of the Queen Mother soon loomed into view, but it wasn’t looking particularly majestic today as it was covered with scaffolding – a major repointing job in progress on those 16th-century walls, by the look of it.

My plan was to stay between the castle and the sea, still hugging the coast, and find the road that runs past Longoe Farm. But it wasn’t one of my better ideas. The initial part of the track was stony and muddy and I resorted to pushing the bike, then I failed to find the Longoe exit and ended up in the farmhouse driveway of nearby Barrogill Mains before hastily removing myself and emerging onto the A836. Probably best not to try that again.

Soon I was turning off the main road again at Mey Hill and heading down to a sharp bend in the road where a metal gate marks the start of the route (not signposted) to Scotland’s Haven, another of my favourite out-of-the-way spots.

I left the bike here and, rather than walk directly across to the haven, hiked down to St John’s Point, trying – and failing – to avoid getting my feet wet in the boggy ground.

It’s thought that a monastic site once existed here, and there are the remains of an old fort. Keeping to the cliff edge as much as possible, while skirting some thick clumps of gorse, I made my way round to Scotland’s Haven – a beautiful sheltered inlet which has high slopes on each side and opens out into the firth, with Stroma beyond.

Sometimes there are more seals here than you can count, either bobbing around in the water or lounging on the rocks, but today I needed the binoculars to pick out just one.

Clambering back up, I stumbled and fell into a gorse bush before picking up the narrow, peaty track leading back through the heather to the road.

The weather was getting worse, but at least I would have the benefit of the strengthening south-easterly on my return journey to Dunnet. I pushed on through Gills and Huna and down into John O’Groats, stopping there just long enough to take a photo of the Nomadic Boulders – a new art installation which symbolises the power of the sea.

I would see a bit more of the sea’s power as I headed back along the A836, in particular some dramatic waves crashing onto Mell Head at the south-western corner of Stroma. The sky was now a grim shade of grey and the cold drizzle was intensifying; Dunnet Head to the west and the more distant Hoy away to the north were ghostly silhouettes in the gathering gloom.

It’s always great to cycle on the hidden, empty byways of Caithness. One hour into this trip, I had passed as many Shetland ponies as moving vehicles: one of each. Just how I like it.

All the same, on a day like this – with the early tranquillity blasted into oblivion and the weather getting wetter and wilder by the minute – I was glad to be loading the bike away and heading back for some home comforts.


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