After our lovely speed-boat ride around the Duncansby Stacks, we drove westward a little ways to visit Dunnet Bay and the Dunnet Head Lighthouse. The bay (above) was stunning and if we had had time I would have liked to have sat out there and relaxed with a book. It was peaceful and the beaches were wide, clean, and lovely.
Dunnet Head includes the most northerly point of the mainland of Great Britain. The very tip of it is named Easter Head and the Dunnet Head
lighthouse stands on the 300-ft cliff top. The lighthouse itself is 345 ft. tall and was built in 1831 by
Robert Stevenson (you should be recognizing that man's name because he has built a lot of lighthouses). Though I didn't take any pictures of them (not very picturesque), there are minor military fortifications just up the hill from here that were built in WWII to protect the British Naval Base at Scapa Flow (just over the way)
These next three pictures are of the Castle of Old Wick. As you can see, the ruins are perched up on these dramatic cliffs. Imagine what a fully constructed castle would look like up there! I thought the place absolutely stunning, but then I like dramatic dark cliffs, green grass, and water down below!
The ruins are just a simple four-story tower; thought to have been built in the late 12th or early 13th century when Caithness (this area of Scotland) was ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney. Apparently, it is one of the oldest stone keeps in Scotland.
Here we are inside the remains of the keep. Just on the other side of this tower's little peninsula, we noticed an army shooting range and speculated how often those who were practicing felt tempted to take shots at this ruin. This is a good place for a shooting range because there is nothing around here for miles and miles except the sea.
Another stop on our way back down to Inverness was the Camster Cairns. These cairns have been reported to be the
'the best known of all the Neolithic sites in Caithness.' They weren't the easiest things to find, but find them we did. The site was made up of
a round cairn, a long cairn and a ruined third cairn.
I learned that these cairns were built around 3500 BC, and are thought to have been in use as burial chambers and as ritual sites for several hundred years afterwards. Here you see me in the doorway to one of them. This one was too muddy to enter very far into, but there was another one (not pictured) in which we were able to enter and see the inside chamber; it apparently still had its original roof. We were able to stand up in that one and found the interior to be a simple circular chamber.
And then, one final stop was to see . . . cows? No, not cows, bulls. But these bulls were not the object of our stop. They were in a fenced paddock along the road to the Clythness Lighthouse. The reason I took a picture of them was because they were all young and were highly aggressive. As you can see, they all came running over to us as we passed and some of them were huffing and puffing and making their little growling noises (Do bulls growl? It sure sounded like a growl). They were rather alarming, really, and I was very happy that they were penned up because otherwise I think they would have stampeded. Later I witnessed them hurtling off to the far end of their paddock (near the cliff's edge) and was again grateful that I was not in the way.
So, after braving that herd of bulls, we arrived at the Clythness Light. This light looks over the North Sea and stands about 45 feet above the water. This one was built in 1916 by David Stevenson, not Robert. But since I learned that Robert Stevenson
was the sole engineer of lighthouses for the Commission on Northern Lights, beginning in 1808, and that he founded 'the Stevenson dynasty', who all acted as Civil Engineers for the Board for 130 years, I'm sure David is related to Robert somehow or other.
After our lovely speed-boat ride around the Duncansby Stacks, we drove westward a little ways to visit Dunnet Bay and the Dunnet Head Lighthouse. The bay (above) was stunning and if we had had time I would have liked to have sat out there and relaxed with a book. It was peaceful and the beaches were wide, clean, and lovely. 
Dunnet Head includes the most northerly point of the mainland of Great Britain. The very tip of it is named Easter Head and the Dunnet Head lighthouse stands on the 300-ft cliff top. The lighthouse itself is 345 ft. tall and was built in 1831 by Robert Stevenson (you should be recognizing that man's name because he has built a lot of lighthouses). Though I didn't take any pictures of them (not very picturesque), there are minor military fortifications just up the hill from here that were built in WWII to protect the British Naval Base at Scapa Flow (just over the way)
These next three pictures are of the Castle of Old Wick. As you can see, the ruins are perched up on these dramatic cliffs. Imagine what a fully constructed castle would look like up there! I thought the place absolutely stunning, but then I like dramatic dark cliffs, green grass, and water down below! 
The ruins are just a simple four-story tower; thought to have been built in the late 12th or early 13th century when Caithness (this area of Scotland) was ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney. Apparently, it is one of the oldest stone keeps in Scotland.
Here we are inside the remains of the keep. Just on the other side of this tower's little peninsula, we noticed an army shooting range and speculated how often those who were practicing felt tempted to take shots at this ruin. This is a good place for a shooting range because there is nothing around here for miles and miles except the sea.
Another stop on our way back down to Inverness was the Camster Cairns. These cairns have been reported to be the 'the best known of all the Neolithic sites in Caithness.' They weren't the easiest things to find, but find them we did. The site was made up of a round cairn, a long cairn and a ruined third cairn.
I learned that these cairns were built around 3500 BC, and are thought to have been in use as burial chambers and as ritual sites for several hundred years afterwards. Here you see me in the doorway to one of them. This one was too muddy to enter very far into, but there was another one (not pictured) in which we were able to enter and see the inside chamber; it apparently still had its original roof. We were able to stand up in that one and found the interior to be a simple circular chamber.
And then, one final stop was to see . . . cows? No, not cows, bulls. But these bulls were not the object of our stop. They were in a fenced paddock along the road to the Clythness Lighthouse. The reason I took a picture of them was because they were all young and were highly aggressive. As you can see, they all came running over to us as we passed and some of them were huffing and puffing and making their little growling noises (Do bulls growl? It sure sounded like a growl). They were rather alarming, really, and I was very happy that they were penned up because otherwise I think they would have stampeded. Later I witnessed them hurtling off to the far end of their paddock (near the cliff's edge) and was again grateful that I was not in the way.
So, after braving that herd of bulls, we arrived at the Clythness Light. This light looks over the North Sea and stands about 45 feet above the water. This one was built in 1916 by David Stevenson, not Robert. But since I learned that Robert Stevenson was the sole engineer of lighthouses for the Commission on Northern Lights, beginning in 1808, and that he founded 'the Stevenson dynasty', who all acted as Civil Engineers for the Board for 130 years, I'm sure David is related to Robert somehow or other.
No comments:
Post a Comment