1. Dunnet…
Is the most Northerly point of mainland Britain. Not John O’Groats. Dunnet is a more classy affair than its slutty, cheap whore of a neighbour. Featuring a small car park, a lighthouse, spectacular views and some high class cliffs it’s a world apart from the tacky gift shops and general shiteness of the ‘Groats’. Dunnet also has a fun little beachbreak and a sweet right pointbreak whilst the ‘Groats’ has bog all except too many shops where you can buy ‘My parents went to John O’Groats and all they bought me was this crappy T-Shirt’ rubbish. They do have a lovely range of tea-towels though.
Most of Dounreay’s dirty secrets have been spilled in the press already, but did you know rabbits burrowed into a dump of low-level radioactive waste? The bunnies were given a clean bill of health, shortly before they gave birth to a litter of cute two headed babies.
3. Russian Spy ships…
In case you’re wondering it is not normal for “fishing trawlers” to have state of the art military radar, satellite equipment and long range listening devices. The boats that used to sniff around the Brimms to Sandside area -fishing for herring supposedly- were actually ear-wigging what was going on at Dounreay and the Naval nuke research facility on the same site.
4. Flagstones…
Thurso Flagstones are famous in the world of paving. Indeed most of Paris and the Strand in London are paved with Thurso stone. The quarrying and splitting of the flagstone was a major employer in the area for years and is the reason there are so many small harbours on a stretch of coast that has bugger all population. Testament to the ferocity of the waves up here one of the harbours was destroyed by the waves in the late 1800’s.
5. Cape Wrath…
On the NW tip of the North Shore is one of the few live fire ranges in Europe where the Navy, RAF and Army all get together and bomb stuff. There’s an offshore island that gets leathered by all three at the same time; yep, shelled from land, sea and air. What the terns, shags and gulls that live on the rock think about this is not known. The range, on land at least, is a haven for wild animals as it’s closed to the public.
6. Harbour blow out…
The reef at Thurso East had the end section blown off with dynamite (invented by Alfred Nobel, him what later started the peace prize, ironic eh?) to allow easier access to the river for boats. Probably a good thing as you wouldn’t really want that wave to end in a big closeout onto a shallow rock shelf.
7. The Braer storm…
Is the deepest low pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic a 915mb. The behemoth depression set up shop just north of Thurso back in January 1993. The storm became known as the Braer storm as that was the name of the unfortunate oil tanker that got caught up in the midst of the maelstrom. It got seven shades of shit kicked out of it and sank. The TV footage of the event showed unfeasibly large swells. The system was the equivalent of a category five hurricane and the Orkneys endured eighteen straight days of gales.
8. Sandwood Bay…
Is officially the most remote beach in on mainland Britain. No ice cream vans, lifeguards, lobster red tourists or any of the normal tat. It’s a solid four-mile hike in through peaty moor land and once there it’s midgey as all hell, haunted and likely to be 15ft+ as it’s also the most exposed beachbreak in the land. It is not normally crowded. The eight-mile round trip is enough to put most people off.
9. Norse to meet you…
Brims Ness does actually mean ‘Surf Point’ in old Scandinavian. I didn’t want to believe it but it does. Technically ‘brim’ means ‘surf’ and ‘ness’ means ‘headland or promontory’. So what that means for Loch Ness I’m not sure, Lake Headland is not exactly a catchy name, for a Loch or a monster.
10. Coldwater Ni-arse
It’s not. Anyone found spouting Joe Curren’s much quoted bit of idle banter shall be horse-whipped with big wave leashes until they cry. Thurso is Thurso, Nias is Nias, that’s all there is to it. They are both rights with a tube section. There the similarity ends. Since the earthquake it’s all change at Nias now, the reef is way shallower and even gnarlier. You will never go over the falls at Thurso and come up with fire coral stuck in your bum. You won’t be offered massage, jiggy-jig or trrrraaaansport! on the beach either.
ps: The shot is Davo at the right off Brims Point ©Sharpy.
