by I was very excited about the trip to Wicklow and Thurso. I had only been to the north east corner of Scotland once before – a flying visit to John O’Groats after a road trip from Land’s End. I remember very little of it apart from signing a book to register my visit and feeling that it was a bit pathetic to be driving there when so many people were riding bikes or even, like Ian Botham, walking .
This time I was catching the train. As I live in Lancashire, the Caledonian Sleeper is not as convenient as it is for London. It stops at Preston at 12.30am on the way up and around 4.30am on the return leg. I managed to doze for a few hours and woke up to coffee and porridge somewhere north of Perth.
The snow was right up to the side of the road. I saw an ox on a hill. I saw the great slab of the central plateau of Mon Ruan. I saw the word “Dalwhinnie” and couldn’t help but taste the little drams. But let me speed on to Inverness – a lovely, pretty town, firmly on the tourist track – and on to the Far North Line.
This 161 mile railway passes through the Flowland: the largest peat bog area in the world. Look at a map and you will be struck by the sweeping curves of the line.
Although crossing wetlands is not easy, it is simpler than going around inlets and up and down the coast. The train runs along an embankment and you can see sparkling pools, sedges and spongy bogs made up of sphagnum moss, heather, heather and hollyhock.
Established over 10,000 years, the peat is up to ten meters deep. In the 1970s and 80s, Government tax incentives encouraged forestry and areas of previously treeless bogs were drained, plowed with deep ditches, and planted with fast-growing conifers.
Tír an Sreafa became a battleground between plantation developers and conservationists who were concerned about the destruction of the scarce and undisturbed habitat.
The area has now been allowed to recover, which is good for the planet – peat is an excellent carbon store – and native fauna. Buzzards, short-eared owls and golden eagles hunt over the moss and pools.
Divers, sandpipers and greenlegs feed and nest in the wetlands. Microhabitats feed on insects, spiders, amphibians, reptiles and small mammals such as bats. In February 2023, a proposal was submitted to Unesco to recognize this magical region as a World Heritage Site.
Under the lowering sunlight, the tough grasses looked golden. It reminded me of the Patagonian steppe. When I first traveled around southern South America in the 1990s I looked for analogues to the landscapes of my home in Lancashire. Now I see a little Patagonia in my homeland. Our northern end of the world is as beautiful as Argentina and Chile end of the world.
Wick is a solid stone-built town with a special atmosphere. The name comes from Vik – indicating a distant Nordic history – but it rose to prominence in the 19th century as a fishing port. It is divided into two.
On the left bank of the river is the town center which has seen better days. For every store that is still open, three are empty. I checked into Mackays Hotel, on the other side of the river, for two nights. It’s a cozy place with great steaks and whiskey, located on Ebenezer Place, the shortest street in the world. When the night fell or the rain fell it was my shelter.
Rising behind the hotel was Pulteneytown, the oldest planned industrial settlement. Thomas Telford built the harbor in 1803-11, adding a neat grid of houses for workers and managers. Bang in the middle of the upper part of the houses is the Old Pulteney distillery; I toured the mash tanks, pot stills and dark warehouses, followed by a tasting. Drinking a single malt in the evening is strange, but not unpleasant at all.
Nearby was the town’s main attraction: the Wicklow Heritage Centre, which tells the story of its prominence as Europe’s largest herring harbor through an eclectic mix of artefacts: a whipping kiln, militaria, old and new (Kill The first daytime bombing raid on the mainland.Britain in the Second World War), a fishing boat and the wonderful Johnston Collection of photographs.
The fishermen were moving closely, and the panoramic shots of the bay full of barrels of salty “silver darlings” were amazing. Thousands of men came here to bring in money, spending their time endlessly in local bars. The town gained a reputation for heavy drinking, fights and prostitution. Abstain campaigners joined forces with local wives who were tired of being handed empty pay packets. Prohibition was eventually implemented along US lines. He lived from 1922 to 1947.
I mentioned to Donald Henderson, chairman of the Wick Society, which runs the heritage centre, that the landscape reminded me of Patagonia. He nodded and mentioned, almost as an aside, that many people from Galloway migrated to Patagonia to work on sheep farms. The next day a book called From Galloway to Patagonia with Ian Leith was left at a reception in Mackay. A life imitating a day dream.
A mid-morning walk took me along the coast, passing through the harbor and an old quarry being scouted by fulmars. There was a lobster cage and a few boats, but the boom today is the power of the wind; turbine equipment and cables filled the docks. I walked past The Trinkie, an unusual natural seawater lido on a bare rock shelf, and came to a castle called the Old Man. It was an atmospheric place, with birds soaring over the cold thermals and fog and mist isolating me and the lichen-dappled ruin from the rest of the world.
I took the bus to Thurso. There was a dawn train option but I didn’t want to rush my Full Scottish. I only knew two things about my destination. One, that it was the most northerly town in mainland Wales. Two, that it grew larger and became richer thanks to the Dunra nuclear test and experimental site, which came into being – or “went critical”, as the jargon goes – in the late 1950s. .
It was an airier, livelier town than Wick and had a nice beach. It seems to be a very popular “cool surf” hangout. Again, I found a welcoming hotel, the Pentland, and a wonderful little museum. I learned a third beautiful thing: that in Thurso’s epic there is a reference to Thor, the god of storms, sacred groves and trees.
You can’t come up here without ticking off Dunnet’s Head – Britain’s most northerly point. I spent some time there with Martin Murray who runs a nearby gin distillery. He is rebuilding an old gristmill in Castletown to make whiskey, using the famous Caithness slab – as used at Ground Zero in New York – and preserving many original features.
Wolfburn and North Point Distilleries, opened in 2013 and 2020 near Thurso, and the even newer 8 Doors Distillery at John O’Groats, are transforming the highest corner of the Highlands into a whiskey hotspot.
I tried a drop of the 8 Doors peat whiskey in situ. After that I met the American expat Jay Wilson, who created the John O’Groats Trail about ten years ago. We made the short journey along the coast to Duncansby Head, the most north-easterly point.
It was a more fitting end to my mini-recipes. Jay showed me some geos – deep gullies where the sea’s worth goes in – and led me across a patch of bog. It rolls and moves just like a soft rug. Flow Country is a perfect name. At the headland, below the lighthouse, I looked back and saw, beyond an impressive wall of cliffs, the lighthouse of Cenn Nos near Killire.
But which way was I to look – down or up? Thurso was far to the north – as far from King’s Cross as Budapest is from Paris. But my attention was drawn towards Stroma and Orkney. Why do travelers want to go to the ends of lines?
I don’t have an answer, but I think the urge is strongest in wide-open landscapes. Perhaps Thor came ashore and joined Galloway and Sutherland by stamping his magnificent feet to keep us wanting more.
Chris Moss’ trip to Galloway was supported Visit Scotland and Caledonian Sleeper. Mackays Hotel has B&B doubles from £115. The Pentland Hotel has B&B doubles from £88. The usual tour of Old Pulteney is £15pp. See the websites of Country Flow, Galway and Sutherland tourism and the officer map of the distilleries for more information.
