Saturday 3 October 2009

There are warnings of gales in Hebrides, Faeroes, Fair Isle...

It's howling out there again, with 45mph winds recorded in the last hour in Wick (half an hour away, on the sheltered East Coast). It's something of a contrast to yesterday afternoon in Sango Bay.I only caught one wave. But it was this one, clean as a whistle and around head high. Fortunately I managed to avoid that large rock...Earlier, I was standing at the corner of the country. This is where the North Coast and the East Coast of Britain meet, at Cape Wrath. Nothing to do with anger, it's the Viking word for Turning Point, apparently. Though isn't that what Cape means? Cape Wrath, so good they named it twice.
The view north:
The view East:It's a fabulous place, and very emotive being on the top left hand corner of the map of Britain. You get there by ferry, driven by a suitably laconic ferryman, followed by a minibus driven by local historian David M Hird.I've been hanging out with Julian and Anneka from Munich, who generously let me use their shower (this might have been a precondition for their excellent hospitality)
Their holiday cottage came complete with working wind-up gramophone and stuffed curlew, currently my favourite bird. (All jokes in the comments section, please). They even offered me a bed, though I felt compelled to sleep in the van, despite dropping temperatures. There must be something amiss when a bottle of water on the passenger seat is colder in the morning than a bottle of milk in the fridge.

I also surfed with Michael and Roddy, who have travelled up from Edinburgh in possibly the coolest surf vehicle I've ever seen.

2 comments:

NiegĂ  said...

That is -definitely- the coolest surf car i've ever seen!

Keep well!

F

Anonymous said...

Any right-thinking Englishman would have declined that offer. Beware the fleshpots of Scotland.