It was an adventure without much planning, a sudden desire to get away from the extravagance of coronation weekend. Out came the map of Northern Scotland and there it was: visit the two places on my wish-list. I could do it over the weekend.
Years ago, while living in Northumberland, I had come upon this video of a Scotrail train, winding its way across an empty peatland. My first glimpse of the Flow Country. I’d go there. The second place came later, after moving to Nairn, when I read about the Highland Clearances. One place in particular, Strathnaver. So, it became the second place on a very short list.
All I needed was accommodation; bed, breakfast and dinner for one night. Why not think big, a double room with seaview at the Bettyhill Hotel?
The roads were quiet as I crossed the Kessock Bridge, heading for Lairg. I hadn’t been that way since the fifties when we used to go up to the Highlands every summer holiday. So, I stopped for lunch there, eating my sandwiches at a convenient wooden bench, watching the paddle-boarders and canoeists on the loch. The sun was warm, the tea and food tasted good. I had a stroll up the main street but it was empty apart from some leather-clad bikers, friendly-enough as they pulled on their helmets. I couldn’t equate what I was seeing and feeling with the place we used to stop in all these years ago. Perhaps everyone, apart from the water enthusiasts, were glued to their televisions.
The horizons were mountainous as I headed north-west, pulling into a convenient space to gaze out across the great expanse of moorland and bog, towards hills still streaked with snow. But Strathnaver beckoned so it was onwards, although at one point, I cooried into a passing place to allow a stream of high-powered, expensive sports cars past.
A sharp turn right at Altnaharra brought me onto the Strathnaver road, the brooding bulk of Ben Klibreck looming to the south. My first stop was Grummore, one of the cleared settlements. The grassy mounds and piles of stones stretched up the hill and I climbed steadily, two deer breaking cover above me. Gazing down, I saw a historical time-line; the remains of an ancient broch on the lochside cheek by jowl with motorhomes in the campsite and, round me, the crumbling stones of nineteenth century houses, cleared to make way for sheep.
There was so much to see and explore in Strathnaver but time was passing, I had to get on to Rosal. There’s a monument and plaque to Donald MacLeod there, a stonemason who published his first-hand experiences of the Rosal clearances despite persecution. Across the River Naver, there is a gap in the forest which gives you a brief glimpse of a clearing. That is the site of Rosal, the largest settlement to be cleared.
By this time, I was getting tired. My initial zest and enthusiasm waning the more I saw as I meandered up that long, winding strath. Time to get out of there. Past a corrugated iron church, a war memorial, bright primrose banks and suddenly, onto the A838, the main road that winds it way across the top of Scotland.
That road was a revelation. Somewhere in my unsuspecting mind I had always thought the A838 was a highway, accommodating all those people who do the North Coast 500; smooth, wide, straight-forward as befitting such an important carriage-way.
No time to think about that as I came into Bettyhill. Up on the hill, my hotel was friendly, welcoming and comfortable, an attendant group of NC 500 bikers out the front. A quick tidy up and a well-deserved Caorunn gin and tonic worked wonders and later, suitably fed, I retired to my room and watched the sun go down over the sea, golden, orange, red.
Sunday dawned fine and sunny. The group of bikers and I took to the A838 at the same time, they westwards, myself east for a short distance then south towards Forsinard. The landscape gradually changed, the fields and few trees giving way to peatlands, lochans and hills. I was now in the Flow Country; unique, ancient peatlands, so important for the environment, so threatened by climate change.
My goal was the station at Forsinard and there it was, a small, single-storey building at a level-crossing, housing an information centre and toilets, not quite what I had envisaged. However, I got my walking boots on and took myself off towards a strange, distant tower sitting out on the moorland.
Striding along the well-laid board-walk, I began to relax and look around me. There seemed little water in the ditches and everything looked very dry. Up ahead, I became aware of something moving around the foot of the observation tower, two deer, one standing the other lying down, both in the shade. There was little wind and as I approached, they were both on their feet, alert and wary, watching my approach. And then they were off, into the peatland, picking their way between the bog pools and burns.
Going up the tower, I looked westward across a landscape devoid of trees and shade. Such an expanse of bog pools, heather and hills. And as I made my way back to the road through the pools, I felt saddened by what I had seen, the very dryness of the surrounding moors reminding me of how vulnerable they were to wildfires.
My adventure was over, the boxes ticked, the conclusions reached. I would be revisiting Strathnaver, spending a longer time there, particularly Rosal; enjoying the hospitality of the hotel again.
But what of Forsinard? Thinking of the dryness of the landscape, the trickle of the burns, I wonder if it’s too late to reverse the damage and I think of the people who called these lands home and how they must reflect on what has been, what could be and what is.
An adventure indeed.