Andrew Pell: Driving north through the Scottish Highlands to Wick

After a few days recovery at Balfour with extra special treatment from Bill & Morag I jumped in my cousin Ian's beast of a car and headed on a 300mile trip to visit another cousin (Fiona) in Wick. The weather was beautiful. A warm 15 degrees with clear blue skies had me taking photos whilst driving. I am sure this is still perfectly legal! I was rather excited seeing snow still on the hill tops and on the side of the road! I made a lunchtime stop to look for the Loch Ness monster but didn't have any success. Anyhow it was an extremely nice drive and it wasn't too busy. I continued heading north driving through the highlands and out onto the coast road. A few stops to admire the sea view and ruggered coastline and then I had arrived in sunny Wick around 6pm.

The next day Fiona took me sightseeing around Wick however the thick fog (haar) decided that today wasn't a good day to be seeing anything! A quick stop at the shortest street in the world and a walk around Wick harbour soon had me warmed up from the Scottish chill. We then went for a drive up to John O' Groats, which is in on the north west coast of Scotland. The thick fog did not allow any lovely views of the Orkney islands in the distance!

The following day another drive out to the Castle of Sinclair at Girnigoe and a visit to the Camster Cairns which were previously thought to be used as ancient tombs. With a headlight on hand I had a quick look inside the dark and smallish Cairns which were of a similar size to the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam. I also made a visit to the Castle of Old Wick where there is basically only a wall still standing on the edge of a cliff. I met an interesting old Scottish man who gave me a full run down of the history associated with the Whaligoe steps and then enjoyed the spectacular coastline dotted with sea stacks and sharp cliff faces. Scotland is rather beautiful!