A Journey Through Caithness

On to the Isles
After the harrowing experience of the previous day, I knew that the second day of my return to Scotland would be much the better. And I was not disappointed in the least. We broke our fast about half passed eight.Though we had not had a long night's sleep, we were anxious to return to the road for we had an appointment with the Pentland Ferry at 7:30pm sharp. So with a bowl of porridge, with real butter and cream, under my belt, we took leave of the Ben Wyvis Hotel and headed north, once again on the A9. (We had to duck back to Inverness to get my name properly registered with the coach rental firm, but that was of little consequence or interest.)

After the ongoing rain of the night before, we found the overcast day with only an off and on sprinkle to be most agreeable. And so we once again crossed the Moray Firth as we headed north from Inverness, across the BlackIsle (not really an island) and then across the Cromarty Firth and finally into the county of Caithness. We made our way passed Tain and the NornochFirth on to the town of Golspie and our first destination – Dunrobin Castle.

Dunrobin Castle
Dunrobin Castle is the ancestral home of the Earl of Sutherland. TheEarldom of Sutherland is one of the seven ancient earldoms of Scotland.More importantly, it is one of the locations named in the Scottish ballad“Tramps and Hawkers”. And one of my goals is to visit as many of the sitesin the song as possible. (For a full reckoning of the sites of the song, go tothe Lyrics page and click on “A Dream of Arran”.) Unfortunately, I do not have the time to include a reckoning of my sites to date. I will save that for a future endeavor.

As is typical of many of the castles in Scotland, Dunrobin included not only an excellent collection of ancient memorabilia, but also a sumptuous garden complete with statues of naked ancient deities. (I do not know why these statues are always naked nor why the males are, shall we say, only minimally male. Perhaps it is the attempt of the local aristocracy to“enhance” their own manhood by comparison. This seems agood explanation since I always come away with an increased opinion of myself!)


The Bannockburn Inn and Bar
From Dunrobin, we proceeded north on the A9 with the North Sea off our right shoulder until we came to the town of Helmsdale. Here we stopped for a brief repast at the Bannockburn Inn and Bar. I dined on plaice, a very delicate flat fish similar to sole, with a bowl of a most excellent lentil and leek soup. Sharon, ever the beef eater, selected a steak and ale pie which included,much to my delight, the local sweet potato. And I introduced her to the local lager brew, Tennents, which she found to be most agreeable. I do not understand how it took her four trips to this land to discover such an excellent version of liquid gold. However, better late as not at all, I say.

While dining, our host noticed Sharon's nails. She always has them done in the Scottish Saltire, which is the national flag of Scotland. Also known as the Cross of St. Andrews, it is a white cross, in the form of an X, on a blue field. He would not hear of anything but that Sharon display them to the boys in the bar. Needless to say, they were taken much aback by her show of Scottish sympathy. You will note from the picture that the two elderly gents (“the boys”) are dressed. It seems they had just come from a funeral. Methinks that they probably left the good pub Bannockburn to attend the funeral!

Once again refreshed, we resumed our journey. We wound our way up the coast through intermittent rains with the sea to our port. I found it difficult to concentrate on the road before me as the surrounding scenes unfolded. I must note at this point that I had been traveling all of this time without one pence of the local coin. Fortunately my credit was good and I had not wanted for bed nor fare. Finally, however, in the lovely town of Wick, I was able to convert some of my American dollars for Scottish pounds. Thus weighted own (for the Scots pound is in fact a weighty coin and I had asked for several), we took to the road.

Perhaps it was the weight of the local coin or the breathtaking scenery, but as we motored north from Wick, we neglected to make a necessary turn and thus strayed from the ever true A9. At length we found ourselves in the burgh of Castletown being quite west of our destination of John O' Groats on the northeast bound of Caithness. We determined our error and, after stopping at the Bay of Dunnet to admire it, we proceeded east along theA836 to John O' Groats.

John O'Groats & the Pentland Ferry
We finally arrived at John O' Groats which is the last town on the Scottish mainland and also one more of the sites from “Tramps and Hawkers”. We stood on this stretch of land and new that to go further would require that we take passage on board ship. We had just enough time to get a taste of the local inhabitants, which consisted mainly of tourists and sheep. After a brief tour we turned back west along the A836 to Gills Bay to make the 7:30pm booking with the Pentland Ferry to St. Margaret's Hope.

With but a brief wait at the port, we boarded the ferry along with other autos, lorries and large tour coaches. The local stevedores did a bang up job jamming five cups into a one quart container. After wrestling with the large lorries, our vessel set sail across the Pentland Firth to St. Margaret's Hope.As we cast off, the islands of Stroma and Swona appeared in the distance.We passed many eddies and whirlpools as we set forth. One such whirlpool that lies just north of Stroma is named the Swelkie and, according to Norse legends, is the result of a sea witch's turning of great mill wheels to grind the salt for the sea. While the firth is the home of seals, dolphins, orcas andMinke whales, we spotted none on the crossing. It is also the haunts of the largest of fish, the whale shark.But, alas, neither were whale sharks seen.

Because of our northerly latitude, the sun does not set until about 8:30pm and we had the opportunity to see the most magnificent sunset over the Isle of Hoy. While we thought that this was the highlight of our day, we were greeted as we made port with the rising of the full moon over St. Margaret'sHope.

This indeed foretold the morrow which would be one of the most magnificent in my life. Upon landing on the island of S. Ronaldsay, we had to make our way to our next nights lodging, the Merkister Hotel on the banks of Loch Harray. Due to our late arrival, we decided to have dinner in the capital of theOrkneys, Kirkwall. Our ferry having not docked until after 9pm, we did not have much choice in our dining selection for the evening. The only accommodation that we were able to find at the hour was a Chinese restaurant whereSharon selected a chicken dish while I chose the Curry Special. This took much longer than necessary but we finally headed towards the Merkister Hotel. Rather than once again lapsing into a long discourse of the problems with locating a totally unknown establishment late at night, it will suffice to say that, after some tribulation, we arrived at the Merkister. We finally lay to rest at about 11pm and so ended what had been a most delightful day.

But the best was yet to come...