This part of Scotland has interested me since the day I clapped eyes on a road atlas back when I was a child. ‘The top of the Mainland’ I used to call it and in some ways I still do. What was it like up here? The weather? Must it always be stormy? The people? Do they have a thick Scottish accent than the city folk a few hours drive away? What were the roads like? How many cows roam around the fields? I had so many questions which I needed answering (well, not the cows or the weather, I know it's bloody cold up here during the winter months) so when I had the chance to go, I took it. Departing Stevenage near London, England, Olga and I drove up the A1 then straight to this part of Scotland.
We took the main road from Inverness (the A9 road - well, it’s the only main road to get up to this area) and there is a single carriageway all the way. The road follows the railway line and goes along a beautiful rugged coastline with fantastic views of the North Sea.
Stunning villages passed by our first stop was a historical site called Badbea which was a clearance village located on the steep slopes above the cliff tops of Berriedale. The village had folk living here back in the 18th and 19th centuries who lost their homes in nearby villages which were knocked down for sheep farming (can you believe it?). The last resident to say ‘bugger this I ain’t living in Badbea anymore’ and buggered off elsewhere was back in 1911. After that a former inhabitant came back (why?) to erect a monument which is a memorial to those who lost their homes to sheep farming. For anyone wanting to visit the site, then park in the layby on the main road near Ousdale and then follow the footpath which is about a fifteen minute walk (it’s not paved and not accessible for wheelchair people).
We drove to a site nearby known as The Hill O’ Many Stanes which lies about 14 km south of Wick. There are about two hundred upright stones on a south-facing hillside and each stone is not more than a metre high. They are set out in rows, however the rows are not parallel and they create a fan-shaped pattern. Locals think this is a relic of Bronze Age times. In Great Britain, stone rows like this are unknown outside this area of the island but similar rows of much taller stones have been found in the region of Brittany, France. One may never find out why these stones are laid out like this.
Now driving north to Thurso which was our next stop, the landscape gets more sparse. There are no trees, I could feel the wind blowing from all directions across the land and it is just fields. I even nearly missed the turn off for Thurso which is the only main junction for over 100 miles. Turning left and heading more and more north, the landscape didn’t change. We didn’t even see a car for miles and this was in the middle of the day. Eventually we arrived in Thurso, the northernmost town on the UK mainland and used this as a base. This is a little shopping town with a nice church but also famous for being the main ferry port to sail over to Orkney Islands to which we explored over the next couple of days (see my blog here).
Just east of Thurso is Dunnet Head (about a twenty minute drive from the centre with tractors on the road) and is the northernmost point of the UK’s mainland. To get here there is a road (which is also the northernmost on the UK mainland) from Brough to the village of Dunnet nearby. At Dunnet Head there is only a lighthouse to check out and there is a bird nature reserve here (but don’t try and see them over the cliffs, it is a sheer drop).
Driving eastwards we came across the northernmost settlement/village on the UK mainland known as John o’Groats. This place is famous for tourists and crazy cyclists who love to cycle between here and the westernmost point of the mainland called Land’s End in Cornwall, England which is 876 miles (1,410km) away. I felt really far away from home here. Arriving here at sunrise there was not a soul to be seen. We were nearer to Norway than London (the British capital is 690m/1110 km south of here and Bergen is 473 miles /761 km north-east of here as the crow flies). The Scottish capital of Edinburgh lies 280 miles (450km) south and for crazy people who want to know, 2,200 miles (3,500km) from the North Pole. However the nearest towns are Wick and Thurso (about twenty minute drive away) and on a clear day the Orkney Islands can be seen (only 5 miles away). Here tourists can visit the gift shop, check out a few buildings, take tourist photos at the famous signpost and in the summer months take a passenger ferry to Burwick port which is on South Ronaldsay in the Orkney Islands (but I hope there is public transport there, I drove to that port and this bugger all there!)
Not far south-east of the settlement is Duncansby Head and we didn’t just come here for the lighthouse which looks out to the North Sea. Here there is a beautiful nature reserve to check out (where we saw a sheep nearly fall to its death because eating grass on the side of the cliffs is an awesome thing to do around here!) but there is a rock formation which looks like two huge woman’s breasts coming out of the sea known as the Duncansby Stacks.
Wick was our next stop which is located on the River Wick. Over 7,000 people live here and they look so bored. I didn’t see one person smile. Not even the member of railway staff who worked at the nearby station which only has two trains a day heading towards Inverness (what a job he must have). I had to check out Wick Station (and I also checked out Thurso) because as I work in the railway industry which is my ‘real’ job which pays for the travels, I just wanted to see what it was like to ‘catch’ a train up here and briefly look at the timetables on the walls (to which it could take 18 hours to get to London with a stopover in Perth or Edinburgh...whoooaaa).
We didn’t spend long in the town as we were just passing through (but if anyone wants the local tourist information centre here it can be found in a local grocery store!). Wick does however host a Guinness World Record. Back in 2006 it was confirmed the town had the world’s shortest street, Ebenezer Place which is 2.06 meters in length and contains one building. It could have held the record for much longer but it didn’t qualify as it didn’t have a full postal code, dam us British for making life awkward. Now it has a postcode, a record is now held.
It was time to head back into the heart of the Highlands leaving Wick and the North of the Highlands, so it was back onto the A9 heading south and the last stop was a small coastal village called Helmsdale. All I can say is there is a pretty dam good Fish and Chips restaurant here and one of the best in the country. ‘La Mirage’ has a really weird bizarre interior but don’t let that put you off, it didn’t us, but the food portions here are huge and the fish is fresh from the sea. Definitely the best Fish and Chips we have had in a very long time.
We continued our journey south on the A9 and headed towards Inverness. We enjoyed our curious time visiting this part of the country, a barren landscape with so much history as well as fields. I love driving around this part of the world, no cars on the road, not many tractors and enjoying speaking to the locals who wanted to hear news from down south as the internet doesn’t work up here. News travels very slowly up here…..
Road trip completed in July 2014
Essential information on North East Scotland
How to get to the North East Scotland:
First off, to get to Scotland. Scotland has five main airports and has good rail/road connections to them. Glasgow International lies west of the city and has a speedy bus service to Glasgow Central train station and takes about twenty minutes (non-stop). Prestwick is the no-frills airport for Glasgow and lies just north of Ayr but has a great rail connection between Ayr and Glasgow. Edinburgh is the main airport which lies west of the city and has good connections to the centre. Aberdeen in the North-East of the country and Inverness which lies south of the Highlands.
The first place I would go to find airline tickets to the city is using (I would recommend) Skyscanner to find flights as that is my first point of call. Then if necessary use the airlines directly to find a good deal. I sometimes use Momondo as well to compare prices before booking.
Train: forget it. As I mentioned earlier, there will be at least one or two trains a day from Inverness to Thurso and Wick. You can not do a return trip in a day so an overnight stay is required. Train is good if you want to stay up here for a few nights and use local buses or taxis to get around (or maybe even hike and cycle?).
It's best to arrive by car. Inverness to the south is the gateway to the Highlands. There two main roads into the Highlands, the A835 towards Ullapool and the North-West of the Highlands (with connections to the famous northern coastline route) and then there is the A9 which we took which is the more direct route to the Northern parts of the Highlands passing through quaint seaside towns and barren landscapes to Thurso and Wick.
Car Rentals - as I do a lot of road trips around the world, I use Rentalcars.com which is very reliable for booking car hire in advance. I also use Turo (the airbnb of car rentals) and never had a problem with them. The cars are insured, owners vetted and never had an issue.
Accommodation: There are a lot of accommodation options and a lot of websites which can do some great deals. My first point of call is always Booking.com and can offer a range of hostels, hotels, campsites, apartments, guesthouses and bed and breakfasts.. After that I always have a look through AirBnb and Vrbo for great deals on apartments and other lodgings especially when traveling as a family.
Currency: Scotland uses the British Pound Sterling currency and also has their own bank notes from the Bank of Scotland which is also legal tender anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Currency can be exchanged at the airports and train stations (for a huge fee) so I would recommend either going to a currency exchange place downtown, to a bank (if they have good rates) or if you got a good bank account with fantastic exchange rates, then use an ATM machine (may incur a small fee but I always do this option as I got good bank accounts). A great website I use to compare currency exchange rates is XE, which gives people up to date information.
Language: Scotland uses English but they also have their own language in the highlands and western isles (mainly) called Gaelic. Although speakers of the Scottish language were persecuted over the centuries, Gaelic is still spoken today by around 60,000 Scots. Endowed with a rich heritage of music, folklore and cultural ecology, Gaelic in Scotland is thriving and enjoying a revival!
Travel insurance: This is essential to anywhere you go in the world. I always carry travel insurance. Having travel insurance will cover you from theft, illness and those annoying cancellations which can happen on the road. Safety Wing offers coverage for a lot of adventure activities as well as emergency medical, lost luggage, trip cancellation and so forth.
Need a visa for the United Kingdom/Scotland? Always check if you need a visa when coming to the United Kingdom, especially for those who come from outside Europe.
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