Well maybe the title is a little dramatic, but we’ll get to that later.
Last nights hotel was an old country house that was a little on the cold side, at least in the corridors and public rooms, there was an open fire in the bar which helped, and the heater in our room made it toasty warm. The food and drinks were good!!
After breakfast we continued north on the NC500. Our first stop was at Ousdale Broch, where there were meant to be signs of 3rd century circular dwellings. Our eye-sight must be worse than we thought as we couldn’t see any!
Having missed out on the old houses we took an unscheduled turn to a harbour at Lathertown Wheel. This appeared to be an old and little used place, and although the water in the harbour was calm, the entrance to it was very narrow with fast running water.
A few miles up the road at Lybster we found a more modern harbour. Again the harbour was calm but the entrance to it looked pretty frightening. I have to say though that the weather today was cold and VERY windy, so the sea was getting whipped up quite a bit.
Up on dry land we saw what appeared to be a new boat. My first thought was that it was a life size model from Thomas the Tank or Captain Pugwash!!
From here we went on to Duncansby Head, the furthest Nort East point of the British Mainland.
Everywhere we have traveled there have been sheep and lambs by the thousands. I finally managed to get some pictures.
Another thing that there has been plenty of are stone walls. There are miles upon miles of them. These walls are constructed of stone only, no mortar.
The daily view from the front, we spotted this lonely wind mill!
Heading even further north we reached Dunnet Head, the furthest north point on the mainland.
Of course being this far north we had to go to John O’Groats which is the furthest north mainland village, and more famous than Dunnet Head.
Further on we came across one of many “Castles” that exist up here. I think in many cases the use of the word Castle is a little ostentatious, large mansion may have been better. Anyway the one below is the Castle of Mey, bought and restored by the late Queen Mother.
From there we headed off to our stop for the night, Thurso. Again this is a hotel rather than a B&B so no driving needed to hunt down food and drink.
A couple of things I like about this trip for the North American readers, the price of an article that you see for sale is the price you pay. All the sales taxes are built into the displayed price. For the UK readers that don’t know, in N. America the displayed prices are before tax. When you get to the checkout a further 0-15% is added to the bill, depending where you are. The other big difference, certainly up here in Northern Scotland, there is no tipping, nor any expectation of tips. Gone, for a couple of weeks at least, are the credit card machines asking whether you want to add 15, 18, 20 or 25% tip. BLISS!
