The thing you notice about Scotland is water. Ok, we’re on a coast road so ya kind’a expect. But Scotland’s water is not just about the sea. You come inland and there are lochs, lakes, meres, ponds, more lochs, simply everywhere. And its generally raining quite a bit too. Safe to say, water is rarely in shortage up here.

So how surprised were we when we got up yesterday morning in the wee town of Scourie (blink and you’ll miss it, though it has a wonderful Loch, obvs) to find the taps were empty. Hot tap, nothing, cold tap, nisht. Water, water everywhere but ne’er a drop to brush you teeth with. Outside the hotel window is the Bay, or is it the Loch? with possibly 79.6 billion bathtubs worth of the stuff, but here, not a drop. There’s more whisky in the hotel than water. Major pipe burstage at Scourie Head. Fortunately they had sufficient bottled stuff to make my tea with. No water in the whole town (population 73). Holy shit!!!

Ok, so you call the water board. That’s the organisation not the enhanced interrogation technique, and they jump into their little water board van. But its so remote here. It takes anyone 3 hours to get here from anywhere. If they could come on horseback it might be quicker over the mountains.

So, undeterred by a little rain, we waterproofed up (not everyone can carry that look; but we nailed it) and set off in search of Handa Island. Ok, we went to the little boat station and in 10 minutes (of pouring rain) you get over the sea to the place. And its fantastic. They have puffins there. They have… errrr… Razorbills, they have… well, shit-loads of birds, thousands of them. All in the most gorgeous, unspoilt, eco-friendly, uninhabited Island. Scotland’s own Galapagos. Galapagorbles. Its quite cliffy. Which is like ‘mountainous’ but without actual mountains. And you walk an Island circuit which is 6 kilometres of ups and downs, avoiding the cliff edges where possible because they’re 1000 feet high and a bit unforgiving. But the sheer rockfaces are filled with the birds so you have to get a bit close.

By which time, praise be, it had stopped raining and was bright and very warm reaching almost 15 degrees at times. Which, trust me, up here, is fucking tropical. Though the upside of being ‘pre-Arctic’ is that at 11.30 at night its not really dark, which is rather lovely. And if you find all that constant daylight a bit depressing, there’s always the Scotch.

John O’Groats today. Och aye.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx