Gallagher's Sutherland

Mike McNamee goes in search of landscape at the very top of the British Isles on a route planned, illustrated and captioned by Paul Gallagher.

This is a personal story, a journey in search of the landscape of Scotland. The north west Highlands are a long way from Cheshire and an even longer way from middle or southern England. The number of people who have never crossed the Esk into Scotland is sometimes quite surprising. In these days of well-travelled holiday makers it is easier (and cheaper) to hop on a plane to the Costa del Sol than it is to grind your way the 650 miles from London to the top of the country we live in.

So, for our overseas’ readers contemplating a visit and for all the English who have never ventured north, here is what you can expect. This is not a glossy tourist board view of Scotland (see call-out box about the Highland Midge) but an honest assessment of why it is worth the journey for those yet to make it, and what you are likely to endure!

Scottish scenery is the result of more than 4,000 millions years of geological development which involves some of the oldest rocks on the planet. Almost all geological forms are represented in Scotland, which is why it is, and always has been, a paradise for researchers and students. These very old rocks have travelled the globe, carried on the tectonic plates, moving at about the same speed as your fingernails grow. They have travelled from close to the South Pole to reach their present position and were initially built from four separate chunks that were gradually forced together to create the foundations of modern Scotland. Only after four continents had collided to form the Old Sandstone super-continent did England and Wales even come close to Scotland, only to have America and Africa come muscling into the scene much later, as Pangaea, the biggest super-continent of all, formed, close to the equator, and extended almost pole to pole. It is this closeness that resulted in our sharing of Old Red Sandstone with the Appalachian mountains – we were formed at the same time, only for the Americas to depart the scene and wander off across the globe, 300 million years ago. It is this sandstone that is responsible for some (but not all) of the wild mountain scenery of the Highlands.

Once Scotland had settled, in roughly its current position, the ice arrived, billions of tons of it, enough to grind away the weaker rock to reveal whole mountains (eg Slioch) or carry others away to the seas, as sediment. The weight of ice was enough to push It was the ladder of hills of the north west Highlands that were our objective, but first we travelled to Inverness to join Gallagher’s way-marked route, starting with Bonar Bridge as soon as we had crossed over the Black Isle. From there we headed for Lairg and across the wilderness of felled pine trees between Altnahara and Loch Loyal. We originally planned to stop at Tongue but our campsite owner has succumbed to the southern pound and sold the land for development (we think). It became obvious that there was to be no campsite when the van eventually became wedged between the hedges and so we started the slow reverse out! We called at the hotel in Tongue for advice and were directed out onto a peninsula on the other side of the Kyle of Tongue, to a campsite 50 yards off the beach, overlooking the Rabbit Islands. These kinds of areas are the least populated in the whole of Western Europe, we shared the site with one other person, the local Shag and Oyster Catcher. Next day we set off on foot, in unpromising light, to find Port Vasgo, a geological gem with four or five dwellings and sadly little sign of a once-thriving community, living off the sea. A cutting, through the tortured, folded Lewisian gneiss (the oldest rock in the world), was used to winch the boats to safety and the old winch stood there like a washer-woman’s mangle, glaring defiantly at the sea.

Day four, we set off on a 29-mile leg to Durness, pausing at a roadside table stacked with home-grown produce (plums, tomatoes, cucumber, potatoes, etc) – 50 pence a plastic carton, leave your money in the box. On the way up Loch Eribol we dropped into a café at Laid, run by the entertaining Charles Smith, for tea and his wonderful home-made dried fruit pie. Conversation topics ranged from the midges (which always get a mention), the TV licence (which the locals have to pay even though no terrestrial signal reaches them!), his status as a provisional Caravan and Camping Club site and finally to the dynamics of selling photographic postcards. The latter we were interested in – it seems the same the country over, you sell local stuff, but little else. We drank our tea looking out at Ben Hope, the most northerly of the Munro hills (those in Scotland over 3000 feet – 284 of them, only nutters need apply). That night we stayed over at Durness, above Sango Bay (recently declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because of its geology). The following day we set off on foot to Gallagher’s Waypoint-2, Balnakeil Bay. This stretches out northwards to Faraid Head with its military watch-tower guarding the sea approaches to Cape Wrath, reserved for the Navy to fire their big guns from way over the horizon into the Cape Wrath wilderness.

Loch Glencoul Travelling south from Scourie the road drops past Locha Chairn Bhain past the village of Kylesku toward the stunning Loch Glencoul boasting wildlife such as seals and otters, the tallest waterfall in Britain, Eas a’Chual Aluinn (200 metres, 650 feet) and the spectacular Stack of Glencoul. On my arrival the light and conditions were perfect for landscape photography with the sun low in the sky, casting shadows over the western flanks and a smattering of clouds to break up the expanse of sky.

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Photo Quote: My fashion pictures are documents just as much as my boat people or my pictures for Band-Aid of Sudan. - David Bailey