
from Thurso the journey starts; but on a modern train
I took the train from Thurso to Golspie to see for myself.
A few minutes before we pulled into Georgemas Junction on the way to Inverness, I spotted the first unusual sight. What looked like the concrete entrances to two WWII shelters rose from an otherwise flattish ground. Are they two minute iron-age hill forts? Can’t be; they’re made of concrete. Sheep were the only things showing any interest as the few passengers that morning just read or dozed. Why have shelters here. Scapa Flow – the bay at the Orkneys which saw the scuttling of the German fleet at the end of WW1 and which guarded the north Atlantic seaways to the then Soviet Union in the second – was nearby. But why have them miles from anywhere? And in a field?
Just before we reached a level crossing on our way to Scotscalder which today is just a request stop we passed what might have been a small station in years gone by. Now small chicken runs were littered on the overgrown, grassy platform. One hen even bothered to watch as we sped by suggesting that trains were sufficiently unusual around here that even chickens watch!

like stakes to fend off marauders
Forsinard has a hotel, some geese and a few houses. A low, wooden platformed station has plastic steps for passengers who may forget the step down is further than usual. There seems nothing else here until you spot, at the end of the platform, a small open door which proclaims that this is the stop for RSPB Forsinard Flows nature reserve. This is one of the RSPB’s large reserves with free entry into the miles and miles of walks. Bogs and small lochs nestle between the small mountains. In the distance, snow-capped mountains loom but it will be a while before we get closer to the true highlands. Meanwhile, burns (streams to southerners and creeks to Australians) criss-cross the scrub, some iced completely over from the heavy recent frosts. Strange lumps perk up from the ground. Man-made or just scrub-covered rocky outcrops? I don’t know but odd looking they certainly are.

towards Kildonan
Helmsdale (what a strange name in comparison to the others; sounds more like Yorkshire) and the coast beckon but before that mountain passes with lichen covered trees loom at the trackside. These trees are just covered they are festooned. I was always told that lichen only grows where the air quality is good. But the, what is there to pollute the land and skies around here?

River Helmsdale

looking back at the sea at Helmsdale
Brora is a positive city compared even to Helmsdale. For the first time since leaving Thurso I can see many different roads rather than just the one or two. There are shops, cars and people. So something other than sheep lives here! But one side of the old Victorian station is boarded up and probably no longer used. Down below the sandy beach widens but even in summer how warm must that water be? Swimmers must be hardy around here.
There is a station for Dunrobin Castle, the home of the dukes of Sutherland, but it is only a request stop. Still alight here and the entrance to the castle is almost from the platform. The castle can be seen at the end of a short walk. And I do mean short. It couldn’t make it much easier for you to use public transport to get there. I bet in the time of the first duke, said to be the richest man in the UK, the trains stopped whenever he wanted them to. Today I have the same power if not the cash. I could request a stop as well. For the rest of the year the train hurtles south and the 600 year old castle hides itself away from rail travellers.

Dunrobin Castle
Pulling into Golspie whilst the train is scratched by bushes on the left, to the right looms one of those statues so beloved of our ancestors. A man on a plinth looms on Ben Bhraggie, his back turned to the train. As we leave it beomes apparent that this statue is huge. It’s a statue of the Duke of Sutherland – he of the highland clearances – and controversy still is rife about whether the 280 year old monument shouldn’t be torn down. Today, cyclists make it a popular run from the mountain to the town. Ever since we cut across to Helmsdale the landscape has changed from that in Caithness. It us hillier, starker, sharper and more what I was used to in the drive up to Inverness from Perth.
If nothing else, I have proven to myself that there is a different landscape north of what most people think of the highlands. Is it pretty? Is it worth visiting? Or is it just different. I’m not sure but I have decided to do the journey again in late spring to see how the landscape changes. But it does have one great appeal to me; few people. If you like to get away from it all the countryside of Caithness is ideal for you.