Wednesday 5th September 2018, Wick
Well that wraps up yesterday and Inverness. This morning we moved on, very satisfied with our time in Inverness. We are now further north than many visitors come and the roads are peaceful as they wind through lovely countryside, far more open that south of Inverness. There is time to drive at a slower pace and opportunity to admire the scenery with vistas of rivers, firths and lochs as well as bales in the harvested fields waiting to be brought in. There are vistas of the sea to the north of anywhere on the mainland of Great Britain! There are tractors and agricultural machinery in the fields. There is human interest. The landscape is alive and is being used. For me it is not just the awesome, unattainable beauty of Nature that we observed around the Great Glen and the swirling clouds over Ben Nevis. (Though this is not to deny their grandeur and beauty.)
A few years ago I read an account of one man's endeavour to visit each of the places named in the Shipping forecast. I forget the details but recall one place he sought out was the Cromarty Firth. (I’ve since checked it: Charlie Connelly, Attention all Shipping, 2005).
If I couldn't do Shetland I was determined to see the offshore oil rigs of Cromarty. This we did today and we had a really good time in Cromarty which we found lively and full of interest! It's a delightful little place - not big enough to be a little town but certainly more than just a village. It has a baker's shop and a general store, a couple of coffee shops and a pub. It did have several churches but the Church of Scotland building at the east end of the town fell into disuse when people took to frequenting the newer, smarter one at the western end. Eventually the East Church was taken over by a society specialising in rescuing churches that have become unloved and abandoned. It is a charming little church with the history of Cromarty recorded on the gravestones in the churchyard.
East Church. Exterior with churchyard. Cromarty. Scotland.
East Church. Pulpit and lofts. Cromarty. Scotland.
Harbour, Boats and oil rigs. Cromarty, Scotland.
Harbour at Cromarty, Scotland
After the Reformation in 1560 burials were no longer carried out beneath the floor inside churches, but outside in the graveyard. At that time too, the Church of Scotland changed from officially being Catholic to becoming Protestant.
Sir Thomas Urquhart,1611-1660, monument. East Church, Cromarty. Scotland.
The most famous son of Cromarty was Hugh Miller (1802-1856) a self-taught and inspired geologist whose local researches and publications are seminal works for the study of modern geology. His home is open to visitors. He used his geological expertise of the Black Isle (as the area is called) to support the theory of evolution and the formation of the earth. He was also a practical individual and was responsible for the carving and inscriptions to be found on several of the gravestones in the churchyard, a heart wrenching place, where the sad evidence recorded on the tombstones tells of the many children who died in Cromarty, with child after child from within a family dying year on year.
Churchyard, East Church. Cromarty. Scotland
Hugh Miller's Birthplace, Cromarty. Scotland.
Hugh Miller monument, Cromarty, Scotland.
Cromarty also has an impressive building for its public library. It was closed this morning so we could not visit but it was a gift to the little town by Andrew Carnegie, the great Scottish benefactor that made so many libraries freely available in Britain. This little library carries his name with pride.
Hugh Miller Institute. Public library. Cromarty. Scotland.
Court House. Heritage centre. Cromarty. Scotland.
Out in the bay there are several large oil rigs, their sturdy platforms supported by four elegant legs fixed somehow to the seabed, allowing the rigs to rise and fall with the tides. The bay does not look particularly deep and the rigs do not stand far offshore. (We have since discovered that they are actively working further out into the North Sea and are simply brought in to lie off-shore when they need repairs.)
Oil rigs. Cromarty.Scotland.
Around the town there are posters calling for support against plans to transfer oil directly to container ships out at sea rather than piping it ashore from the rigs first. Piping it ashore first, protesters claim, will cause less disturbance to the dolphins to be found in the bay and will help safeguard wildlife. I imagine too though, that unless the oil is first shipped ashore, the residents of Cromarty will lose out on local employment and revenue.
Forsyth House with poster appealing for protection for the dolphins. Built by William Forsyth (1722-1800) Cromarty.Scotland.
Cromarty was a naval base during the first World War. It did not see a great deal of active service during the early part of the war but an explosion on board a royal navy destroyer on 30th December 1916 killed the captain and 421 crew members and guests attending a function on board. At first it was assumed to be enemy action but it was later discovered this was not the case. No explanation was ever found. War graves in the village cemetery on the hillside above the town and a monument there evidence the incident.
There is a ferry across the bay of Cromarty. This, we realised would save us a good 20 miles drive around the bay. However, when we wanted to leave we discovered the ferry could only take three cars or one car and a camper each time and it would cost us at least £20 for the short crossing. I watched two arriving cars struggling to drive backwards off the ferry and up the landing ramp before they were able to turn and I promptly decided I'd prefer to drive round across the bridge further down the firth!
At the village bakery we bought chicken and mushroom pies and Ian had a large cream-filled doughnut to follow. With these we took Modestine down to the beach and picnicked as we looked out at the surprisingly graceful oil rigs just off shore.
Then we packed up and left Cromarty behind. I think our experience has been way better than that of the author of Attention all Shipping! He arrived on a cold winter night and wandered the streets of the village in the dark. He did not seem to have discovered any of the charms of the place the way we did today in the bright, warm sunshine!
The rest of the day we have been driving northwards. It was still another 100 miles up to Wick! The landscape had a different feel to it though. I felt empathy with this part of the Highlands; something that for me was quite lacking further south where the Great Glen is spectacular but too massive and ancient to relate to and crowded with fast moving cars.
Thursday 6th September 2018, Wick
We spent the night on a very pleasant site overlooking the river just outside of Wick. This morning we drove down into the town and parked. The streets were cold, empty and grey with a brisk wind.
This is the administrative area of Caithness and it was in Wick that the Caithness glass works was situated. It is famed in particular for the wonderfully decorative paper weights it used to produce. Speaking to a lady in one of the empty charity shops - even they cannot thrive - we learned that the glassworks had closed down, robbing the town of even that little industry and tourist attraction.
We found this charming plaque somewhere in the town to a couple who had obviously done much in the town to encourage music amongst the young women of Wick.
The town, despite looking worn and rather run down, has several points of interest. We discovered the port, busy with small fishing boats unloading their catch, with lorries waiting to transport boxes of ice-packed fish from the dock. It is however just a pale reflection from the days when it teemed with fishing vessels and there was full employment for all.
Harbour. Present day. Wick. Scotland.
Harbour. Historic photograph. Wick. Scotland.
Nearby stood the Wick museum. It was not yet open for the day. Beyond the port were streets of terraced houses. This area we discovered had been designed by Thomas Telford and is known as Pulteney Town. Here the streets had been carefully planned and laid-out to provide homes for those involved with the fishing industry. At its centre we found Argyll Square, a leafy grass area with pleasant workers' homes around the edge and broad streets leading off. The area has definitely seen better days but it was clear that it was built for a purpose and has served that purpose well. Historic photos on display showed children playing happily in the streets back in the early 1900s.
Pulteneytown. Wick, Scotland.
Argyll Square. Wick. Scotland.
At the foot of a flight of steps, down which the women would come rushing to the dockside as the fishing vessels returned, ready to gut and pack the catch into barrels, we found a copy of a painting done by the Salford painter L.S. Lowry, known as the "Black Steps" with his typical little figures rushing up and down.
Black Steps. Lowry plaque. Wick. Scotland.
Black Steps. Present day. Wick. Scotland.
Despite the streets seeming so grey and worn we went in search of a coffee. This we found in a Wetherspoon pub! It was one bright spot in an otherwise drab, neglected town that had once known far better days.
The good thing about Wetherspoon, despite us being very much opposed to the company’s official stance on Brexit, is that the enterprising company has purchased and brought back to life, buildings that are generally too large and unadaptable to be used for other purposes. The company has saved these older buildings in towns right across Britain, breathing new life into them, providing a cheap place for local people to meet and also bringing some employment to the local economy. We could rather fancy being researchers for the company, ferreting out the stories of the original owners and the early history of the buildings. Most have interesting explanatory panels with old photos illustrating the past residents or companies that formerly occupied these older buildings.
The pub in Wick, The Alexander Bain, is an attractive building in which a local celebrity is remembered. Always fascinated by clocks, the inventor Alexander Bain (1810-1877) was born in Wick and served his apprenticeship there. He went on to develop an obsessive interest in electricity, which at the time was known about but had few applications. He developed the first electric clock and was instrumental in the development of both the telegraph and the fax machine!
Alexander Bain. Plaque. Wick.Scotland.
Rejoining Modestine we continues northwards to John O' Groats, an isolated hamlet on the cliffs in Scotland's far north-east corner. Across the water lay the Orkneys, spread out as a wide archipelago on the silver sea. The wind was brisk and chill as we scrambled excitedly and triumphantly across the cliffs to the lighthouse. Just a few short weeks ago we were doing the same thing at Land's End down in Cornwall with the Isles of Scilly lying beyond. It is exactly, according to the postcards on sale up here, 874 miles away! It is the longest distance that it is possible to travel directly anywhere on the island of Great Britain.
Signpost. John O'Groats. Scotland.
View from Duncansby Head towards Hoy. Scotland.
A99. View towards the Orkneys. Scotland.
A99. View towards the Orkneys. Scotland.
Cliffs at Duncansby Head. Scotland.
Modestine had carried us, without complaint, the full length of Britain. And here at Duncansby Head lighthouse we discovered she has a personal link with the lighthouse at John O' Groats. It, along with many others in Scotland, was designed by Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Travels with a donkey in the Cevennes" from where our Modestine derives her name!
Lighthouse. Duncansby Head. Scotland.
Passenger ferry. John O'Groats. Scotland.
