Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Category: Sutherland

  • Càrn Liath

    Càrn Liath

    An Iron Age broch, a hollow dry-stone walled roundhouse between Golspie and Brora. Once thought to be purely defensive, the modern thinking now is that brochs were a status symbol, the stately home of their day. They are found throughout northern Scotland and were of considerable height. The tallest one standing today is 13 metres…

  • Seannabhat

    Seannabhat

    I was last here 20 years ago but I can’t for the life of me remember the 6½ km walk in. But I have the photo to prove it so must have. Sandwood Bay is far more popular today but I wonder if the wild campers that were there know of the ghostly stories associated…

  • Cranstackie from Beinn Spionnaidh

    Cranstackie from Beinn Spionnaidh

    The two most northerly Corbetts. 45 minutes earlier I was on top of Cranstackie in the distance in 70 mph winds, rain with no visibility. I had decided to call it a day and abort an attempt on Beinn Spionnaidh, but by the time I made the col the mist had cleared and the rain…

  • Stacks of Duncansby

    Stacks of Duncansby

    A pair of dramatic sea stacks just off the north-easterly tip of the British mainland. But we almost lost them. Apparently in 1953, in what seems like a bizarre Monty Python sketch scientists from the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment had proposed to test a nuclear bomb on top of one of the stacks. The Stacks…

  • Badbea

    Badbea

    I’ve seen before the deserted black houses of communities in fertile straths that were cleared by absentee landlords to make way for vast sheep farms. I had thought the villagers were often provided with a small croft on the east coast in towns such as Wick and left to make a living from the sea.…