Feb '05

Caithness For Foreigners

Not many make their way up the lang Scot’s miles to Caithness. Caithness is Scotland’s most northerly county with its county town, Wick, being perched over 100 miles north of Inverness.

Even today it is a long drive or a long train haul to reach its borders. Yet, the whole is worth the effort and the travel itself, through some of Scotland’s finest and most remote scenery, can be rewarding -- not to mention, if you are travelling by car, all those tempting tea shops and comfortable hotels to refresh oneself at on the way.

Caithness is, in fact, a small county. Beyond its land boundaries lies the wonders of Sutherland’s hills, and some of the least inhabited parts of all Scotland and, standing off Caithness’s northern shore, lies the magical and mysterious Orkneys with their beauty, their history and their legends. Yet the tourist who fails to stop in Caithness will miss much.

Miss much? You can drive through it in two hours and scarcely notice anything apart from observing that the countryside has become surprisingly flat and that the hills and mountains have been left behind with cultivated farm land appearing under a great sweep of ever changing sky. Caithness, indeed, is termed the ‘Lowlands beyond the Highlands’ and the inhabitants do not consider themselves Highlanders. The Highlands of Scotland are down there; south.

And, yet, a strange happening occurs to those who do decide to linger in Caithness. Its peace, its civilisation seeps into your bones and becomes, subtly and strangely, a part of you for ever. You view the streams at Berriedale just before they join the sea at the beach, or you walk the strath at Dunbeath, where one of the greatest writers of the Twentieth Century (Neil Gunn) was born, or you marvel at the harbours of Latheron (don’t miss the Whale Gate) or the larger village of Lybster and wonder at the bravery of men who could venture out in open boats to bring back the sea’s fruit and then Caithness becomes part of your soul.

That is what is at the heart of Caithness, a sense of history, an awareness of a long and rich past. The Vikings came but yesterday and they, in turn, merely picked up on what was before; a strange land of brochs and cairns and standing stones. When Jan de Groot and his sons opened up their ferry for business in the reign of James IV from near the northern most tip of Britain, they were picking up on a long tradition of sea-faring and a long tradition of welcoming the foreigner as they carried their passengers over to the Orkneys -- a route the tourist can still take from John O’Groat.

Already, by Jan‘s time, Wick was old. ‘Vik’ -- meaning a bay or a haven -- was mentioned in the Viking sagas; ‘A mere huddle of turf huts.’ Long a bustling market place, modern Wick’s great days were in the 19th Century when it became the largest port in Europe for landing and processing herring and some 30,000 jostled and thronged in its streets and alleyways. Aye, and fought to -- more than once the Riot Act was read and ‘sodjers’ were called upon. The Wick Heritage Centre is more than worth visiting to learn of this history -- and the troubles concerning the uniting of Wick and Poultneytown are also of interest with the two rival town clerks not speaking to each other and yet sitting at the same desk in the same office; eventually it was sewerage of al things that resolved the matter.

Hard to imagine the past troubles in the tranquil streets of Wick today as you stroll amongst the friendly Wickers listening to their ‘crack’ and relaxing in the peace.

Thurso is the other town in Caithness (although do not miss the villages such as Halkirk, laid out in grid plan in the 19th. Century) and goes back almost as far as Wick. It owes its being to the Vikings. ’Thurso’ itself is a corruption of ’Thor’s Town’ and Thor was the chief Viking God. The beautiful remains of St. Peter’s Church testifies to the early Christian influence in the area and can be found off from the attractive pedestrian area.

Apart from its towns, villages and hamlets, the countryside of Caithness is rich and varied in fauna and flora. The unique flow country, a low lying peaty plain dominating the centre of Caithness is home to distinctive wild life and the lochs and rivers of the county have long been famed for fishing.

Given its healthy, fresh environment, its excellent cuisine, its genuine people, Caithness can not be bypassed but, perhaps, its greatest glory lies in its heavens. At night the stars are so near you that you believe all you need do is stretch up and pull the gauze net of them down to you -- and duck as shooting stars blaze past; but, if you are lucky, you will catch the most spectacular show on Earth. The Aurora Borealis, with its curtains of soft lights plays over the vast land of Caithness bathing it in a gentle glow of pastel colours.

You have got to see it for yourself; you have got to see Caithness.