Tag: Caithness

Exploring Caithness

Caithness in the far north east corner of mainland Britain is full of ancient brochs, cairns and castles and gorgeous beaches. But hardly any people or traffic.

Caithness is the county that covers the far north east of Scotland. You might think it’s so far away that there won’t be much to do and see there apart from getting your picture taken at the John O’Groats sign, but you’d be wrong. You could really dedicate an entire holiday just to exploring Caithness and still not see everything. Even though I’ve travelled round it several times I still have plenty of reasons to go back and I know I won’t run out of things to do any time soon.

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Exploring Thurso – Scotland’s most northerly town

Quirky gravestones, an old well and a nuclear power station control room are all good reasons for stopping off and exploring Thurso, Scotland’s most northerly town.

Thurso, in case you don’t know, is mainland Britain’s most northerly town. It sits right at the top of Scotland looking out across the sea to the Orkney Isles.

The north coast of Scotland is absolutely stunning and has so much to see and do, you might be tempted to just pass right by Thurso. I wouldn’t blame you for taking one look at that gorgeous coastline and thinking ‘town? – meh! – I can see towns any time, why would I waste my time visiting one now?’

I take your point, but before you make the decision have a read of this post as I think you might find it worth your while stopping off for a few hours.

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Starring the Whaligoe Steps

A visit to the Whaligoe Steps should be on everyone’s NC500 wishlist. They’re notoriously difficult to find though, so if you are planning to visit have a look at the step-by-step directions I’ve given here. I got lucky with the weather and so used the opportunity of a nice day to explore and decided to launch my film-making career whilst I was at it!

If you’ve looked up ideas for travelling around Scotland in recent years, two types of ‘tour’ will have jumped out at you:

Outlander and NC500.

The Outlander tour routes are all about visiting filming locations used for the Outlander TV series and some (all) of the places you’ll get to visit on these tours are amazing. I know because I’ve been to some of them. But that’s for another post.

The other type of tour that jumps out at you from Google is the NC500 or North Coast 500. This is something a brilliantly-minded marketing official at Visit Scotland came up with a few years ago. Many tourists visit Scotland each year. Many tourists go to the Highlands each year. Many tourists do not venture further north than Loch Ness. The Great Glen and its lochs, including Loch Ness, form a watery geographical border stretching from Fort William in the west to Inverness in the east. Until recently this also seemed to be a tourist border. For some reason, people didn’t venture further north than this. Continue reading “Starring the Whaligoe Steps”