Handa Island

Handa Island. Photo by Pen

We’re sitting in a row at the top of a campsite at the end of the world with our backs to a sheep fence. That’s me, Alan and Spike. Spike has got a brew on the go, we just have to line up our mugs and keep up the chat. Spike’s little stove is snuggled deep into a rabbit burrow, out of the wind. He has fitted me out with two mats, one to sit on and another at my back. Spike is our Clan Medicine Man. He just takes a sideways look to see what you need and starts to sort it out. Alan is the Clan Chief, obviously cos his feet are the biggest and I just keep out of trouble. I’m just so glad to be here, with the clan. The other Clan members for this trip are Brian and Gillian. Brian is our quiet Sage and Gillian is our Quick One, our awesome little Fixer. You should see Gillian pitch a tent or turn a car.

There are other Clans on this campsite. Sweet faced Roxanne at Reception can recognize your Clan and assign you to you tribal camping area just by looking at you. Well it’s not that hard for her. Clan Kimber have five metre long sea kayaks on top of small vans. Hard to miss. We are assigned the top fence, nearest to the Spar and furthest from the view.

Clan Walker are rare sightings in these parts. They’re weathered and solo, and are seldom heard to speak. They put up frugal tents among the parked cars, dry their socks on their guy lines and are gone before dawn.

Clan Bike…well have bikes of course and Roxanne can see them through her office window. But even if she couldn’t they have muscles like pistons, no chubby extras and unique shiny lycra bodysuits. They talk lots, mainly to each other, about sprockets and routes and food and ascents and kms per day and how they’re going to get home. Because they’ve come a long way and this campsite, one stage from Cape Wrath, is almost the last stage for many of them. I’m in awe of them. My gear takes a long-wheel-base van to cart around. They get every tiny minimalist shiny thing on these beautiful bikes in cute bags that fit to the millimetre.

Camper Vans take up a bit of space. Photo by John Macpherson

Then there’s the Vanners. They’re “doing the NC500” and it isn’t funny. Well Roxanne literally can’t miss them because their square white vans take up the whole view from her desk. I don’t know what the Van Clan are like because they don’t often come out of their white box world except to wheel trolleys along to the chemical disposal area, which is not really a good socializing zone. The best thing about them is that they bring some money into the area which keeps the shops open and means that the nearest fuel stop is much closer and cheaper than it would have been without them. But they are controversial.

The other clan,the dominant clan, is Clan Bunny. Behind us are a cast of thousands just lounging about. They do a little hop and then they sit around wibbling their whiskers. They’re just showing off really. My cat Iggins would have something to say about that. He’d get seriously fat round here, tummy rubbing on the ground fat. Igs could easily stand in for the wild cats being reintroduced to the Cairngorms but he wouldn’t like it. He likes living where he has his own armchair in front of the log burner and a choice of fluffy duvets if he can sneak upstairs. Which he often can.

I fetched a packet of oatcakes from my van and was spreading them with peanut butter and tomatoes and handing them along. Alan was explaining a very excellent theory: campsites can be assessed by how many pegs there are in the showers. There is, he explained, no better way of judging how considerate a campsite owner is of your needs. After some discussion Spike and I were won over. I think he is right. Just a few weeks ago we had all stayed in a campsite in Pembrokeshire where there were no pegs at all in the shower cubicles. It followed from this that the owners had no consideration of our needs at all. Consistent with their lack of thought the cubicles were rather small and grubby. The owner had never tried standing bare naked and shivering in one of these cubicles trying to keep his towel and clothes dry whilst dodging in and out of a water supply that dithered unenthusiastically between tepid and cold. The showers here, Alan avowed, were excellent: clean, powerful hot water and five pegs apiece.

This is really very welcome news. I’ve just arrived here, to our fence at the very northern edge of Scotland having driven all day and all the day before. And the days before that I was working on an event in Anglesey. A few hours earlier when the main road had turned into an interminable single track through foggy forestry I had decided that yes, I was tired, and there was no way I was going to paddle the next day. Well, I was kidding myself. I knew I would.

Brian arrives, maps and plans are in the air and I go try out the shower. There are already enough cooks in the kitchen. And I am so tired. On the way back from the showers (five peg rating) I see Spike and we go take a look at the sunset, which is magnificent, and the view, which is overwhelming. It’s like the cliffs didn’t know when to stop growing. And there’s a beach straight out of Pixar animation. Well, not a beach, beaches. With surf coming in flecked gold and pink in the sunset. Spike, quick as ever to spot my mood of over-the-top excitement, says “It’s going to rain tomorrow.”

Sango Sands. Photo thanks to campsite website

Well I know that. We had come with a plan to “do" Cape Wrath, the big one. We had allowed ourselves to think of starting at Kinlochbervie, paddling due North, past the indelible beauty of Oldshoremore and Sandwood Bay, on north to the heart stopping mass of Cape Wrath. The Norse men called it hvarf, the turning point. It is the furthest North you can go on this big island of Britain. And there you must turn. So we were hoping to do just that, to turn right, or east if you will, to Kervaig and a surf landing for the bothy. That’s day one and so it goes on. Friends had been posting that they had done it. Well the weather window for that has just closed. Whatever we’d hoped for we all know that. It’s not just going to rain tomorrow, a big wind is coming. Only a fool thinks that their plans depend only on themselves, on getting there, on being fit enough and ready. If any of us are lucky there will be another time but it’s not something you can decide on.

Cape Wrath, the turning point. Photo thanks to Wikipedia

That’s ok. We’re going to explore every bit of this majestic coast that we can. Clan Kimber are a good team for it. Something happens when I’m with these guys: my brain closes down. I try to stop it. I shouldn’t let that happen. As Spike says everyone needs to take responsibility by engaging in plans and decisions. I’ll be doing that soon enough but for now I’m not. You see they’re brilliant every last one of them and I don't feel I can add anything. Planning would just take longer.

Alan on St Kilda, a few years back. Photo with thanks to Jason Beverley

Alan is, well Alan is Alan. He’s worked all his life, literally all his life “on the hill”. He’s a mountaineer. It’s engraved into him. And Spike, Spike in a kayak is a wonder to behold and he has a genius for mending and caring. He travels light but he has every kind of fix to hand. Brian is a professional sailor. He’s logged more than 175,000 nautical miles at sea. People just say to him “Here’s my huge expensive boat, you show me how's it done.” And Gillian is decisive and super good. She works on the hill and the sea. She is completely switched on. She is so damn smart and efficient and fast and neat that I think that if we were to change brains for half an hour she’d probably die of shock. Oh come on. I think my brain just knows to stay turned off, for now. It’s resting. I learn so much from all of them but I don’t want to be part of the planning. I know I ought to and that they’d like me to but my little brain just won’t.

Brian getting in from the dive boat at St Kilda, he's focussed because it was hard. The iron diving platform moved up and down with the boat. Photo thanks to Jason

All of us, St Kilda. With thanks to Jason. This photo does justice to an amazing place

And so, for five days we dip and we dive, we use the wind and the flow to explore more than 125 kilometers, usually, or so it seemed to me, against the wind! We can't do a journey because the wind doesn't allow it but we bit great chunks out of this majestic coast and I'm sure we all got a taste for it. We took just one day off for a wipeout of rain and wind. Hot chocolate and the excellent geology museum at Balnakell. These little local Museums are really worth visiting. The one at Strathnaver too, dedicated to Clan Mackay who ran this big, wild country until the Nineteenth Century.

First bite was from Balnakeel round Faraid Beach to land on Sango Beach and then on to Smoo Cave. This must be one of the wonders of Scotland. The entrance is a narrow slot, a geo that widens out to a generous landing beach and a huge, wide mouthed cave, Smoo Cave.  With the level of secrecy and easy landing it offers it has been lived in by Clans Neolithic, Iron Age and Norse. You bet they did. Remains of all these have been found, layer upon layer in the midden. Beyond the first open chamber is a series of caves and a subterranean cascade where one of several freshwater burns join. At one time Smoo was owned by a famous mean guy, Lord Reay. He had stuff like iron rings where he could enchain his enemies, just below high water mark. According to Alexander Polson in his book Scottish Witchcraft Lore Lord Reay was exploring the cave and “had got as far as the second (cavern), and his dog, which had gone on in advance, returned howling and hairless. By this, Lord Reay knew that Satan was there before him, and bravely waited the attack, which was soon made, and his lordship fought lustily. Happily at the opportune moment a cock crew. This frightened the devil and his attendant witches, but Lord Reay stood between them and the exit. In their fright they blew holes through the roof of the cave, and this is the origin of the two openings through which the Smoo burns fall.” Lord Reay was the last of Clan Mackay to own this land. He sold it to the Sutherland family in 1829 and soon after the troubles began. 

Old postcard of Smoo Cave showing fishing boats drawn up at the base of a path. Local women were paid "one oaten biscuit" for each basket they carried up. They must have been tough cookies those women.

Visitors today travel through a permanently lit cave system in inflatable dinghies. I can’t help but feel that the mystery is a little tarnished. At any rate none of them emerged howling and hairless. Maybe I’m just jealous because we haven’t got the fare on us. Clan Kimber, or at least me and Alan, stand on the wooden bridge, watching brown trout slithering below us, and wonder how the tour operators would react if we carried our boats up the burn and launched into the cave. They wouldn’t be happy. We retreat, in an orderly respectful sort of way, no howling.

Next we dip back south west to hide from the wind. We paddle from Tarbert to Handa Island, from Handa to Tarbert to Kylesku. On the map the land looks like tendrils cautiously feeling their way out to sea. We have mountains in Wales, we do, but here they are a mysterious mighty host marching one behind the other, landwards, guarding the hinterland.

Quinag. Photo with thanks to Stunning Outdoors

“What’s that hill called?” I ask any one of my companions. They know them. They’ve been up there. Quinag, Cnoc na Creige, Bhein a Ghranain, Bheinn Aird da Loch. The wind takes their words away as it funnels and pummels back down the Glen Dubh and Glen Coul. It’s a big hand pushing me back. This is hard. Spike moves in behind me. Tells me I’m strong. Which I'm not but I need to be told I am because I am awestruck, but not strong. But I do make it with enough energy left over to take in the beauty.  I’d like to think I’ll come back here, but there’s no telling.

Old postcard of Kylescu Hotel, back in the day 

Kylescu has a good slip and a Hotel. There’s an elegant span of bridge over the narrows but until the 1960’s there was a ferry here, you could get a drink and a bite at the Hotel while you waited your turn for the boat, and maybe a bed for the night if you’d got there too late for the ferry. It calls itself a “boutique” hotel now but still, they might still let us in. I’ve been thinking about coffee all the way up the Loch, but we’re loading boats and moving on.

Scourie campsite has everything sorted. Looking at the gentle bay below you wouldn’t think there was a breath of wind anywhere. We’re all here in our Clan Zones, packaged for the night. There’s a stand up paddle board Clan here, having a lovely time in the quiet sunset bay. A Spar has fresh pizzas cooking, enough to feed all the Clans. Beer and ice cream for the kids and NC500 official tee shirts on display.

Scourie sunset. Thanks to Brian for the photo

With the wind and swell diminishing we can nip back North a bit to launch at Laxford Bridge and get out at Kinlochbervie, at the old slip into Loch Clash. I’ve been to Kinlichbervie, in the 1980’s “when I was young and green and in my salad days” as dear old Cleopatra said. I was working as a graphic designer in a private press at Imperial Metal Industries in Aston, Birmingham, a subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries, which was a big big company then, a footsie one hundred polymath. The press I worked at was on the edge of a factory site that was the size of a small town, with its own medical centre and dentist and row after row of redbrick, metal windowed workshops. We made Titanium rods (very progressive) in a building that had chain walks worn deep in the floor from Dickens time. The Dunlop tyre factory was in the township next door.

Those factories were definitely Clans. Clan members streamed through the gates to clock in and clock out at the start and end of the day. And it’s all gone now. Every bit of it. But back then it was my world and I was proud to work there even if it was a world where the air was so toxic that I only ever once saw a bird from the studio window.

Same place, different times. Photo thanks to Jamie Hill

From that world I went up to stay for my summer holidays with my cousin Jamie. Jamie had roots in Scotland. He was born and went to school on the East coast and we have a bunch of Aunties and Uncles and cousins and who were Scottish, and still are. Our clan was Munro, still is I suppose. Jamie was studying medicine at Birmingham and spent his long holidays working at the hotel at Kinlochbervie. A bunch of us visited. I got on the train in the sooty blackness  of Birmingham New Street and was shunted off to a different world. The journey ended on one track roads with grass in the middle and passing places by the Loch. I had never anything like it. These roads are, in fact, historic. In the mid 1840’s when the loss of the potato crop brought extreme poverty, the Duke of Sutherland paid both men and women to build roads to replace the old drovers’ tracks. The new roads, known as Destitution Roads connected the little crofting settlements on both sides of Kinlochbervie, only to be improved, slightly, in the 60’s to the state that I first came down here with Jamie’s friend Keith Allen, bombing along in his red mini.

At Kinlochbervie we stayed with Miss King in a little white washed house on the beach for a tiny rent that could barely have covered the cost of the breakfast she made us. I had a room in the loft with a little dormer window. There was a Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, a Russian boat in the harbour and not much else. I think that Loch Clash, at that time, was busier and more commercial. It’s the other way round now.

Old postcard of Garbert Hotel, Kinlochbervie

I remembered the Garbet Hotel as being a bit intimidating, Hunting Shooting and Fishing. It had its own estate, 17,000 acres with 17 lochs, salmon and sea trout and brown trout. They had access to more on a neighbouring estate with more of the same. It was a “fisherman’s paradise”. The hotel had burned down just five years before I was there and rebuilt as the modern box that still stands today. In one of the Hotel lounges Jamie taught me how to play poker with the others. We cheated so blatantly that I’m not sure how they felt when “I” won. I felt more at home at the bar round the back of the hotel. I fell totally romantically in love, quite unspoken and unrequited love, with a gillie. I can’t even remember his name except that we shared the Clan of Munro. He took me out for a day to show me how to scout out the salmon in very romantic pools. I fell in love not so much with him as with this whole different world of fish and burns and mountains.

Going back to Kinlochbervie in 2024 was a shock. The harbour is doing business, massively developed. Miss King’s cottage wiped away. The hotel is still there, a “modern” 60’s box, sadly charmless, dried up, flaky and down at heel. It no longer boasts of salmon fishing on offer. I bet they offer good service and clean rooms but the Hunting, Shooting and Fishing Clan have long departed. Through the scummy dining room windows each mean table has its own set of brown sauce and salad cream bottles, much used. But the bar at the back is the same and some old guys come out to see who it is pulled up in the car park. So I pull out and away. Even if I can’t remember his first name I’d rather keep my memories all romantic and glowy, thanks very much.

Cape Wrath. The Scotsman. They were advertising for a new lighthouse keeper.

Back in the day I walked with one of Jamie’s friends from Kinlochbervie to Cape Wrath and then back down the estuary to Durness. That was one long, memorable walk. We’d started out inland, passing a little bothie where there was a still, a fine whisp of smoke coming up from it, still producing. There was definitely no minibus to and from the lighthouse back then. We’d hoped to get the ferry across the Kyle of Durness but the ferry man’s house was firmly closed to us for the evening. Anyway the tide was out and there wasn’t much to ferry across. I wanted to walk across the sand flats and swim the river but my companion was having none of it. That was one hell of a walk following fences in the dark till we got to a point where the estuary sand flats drew in on themselves and there was a crossable stream. Jamie was waiting on the other side in the hotel car, the headlights lighting the crossing.

Kyle of Durness. Photo Nature Library

I never forgot that day. Who could? I had travelled and touristed all over the place but I had never seen anything like this huge wilderness landscape with cliffs as high as towers, rising straight from the sea nearly a thousand feet, the highest cliffs in the British mainland; the stupendous heft of Stac an Dunain beyond the lighthouse. These cliffs,  unforgiving, where nature and geology outdo anything we can do. A world where eagles as big as barn doors floated and stags posed on ridges with antlers six foot across. I fell in love and awe.

Clan Kimber took another big tasty bite out of the north coast. This time we start twenty miles west of Thurso. We can see Orkney and share, for a moment a respectful homage for Pentland Firth. I’m excited because my rough plan is to get the ferry from Scrabster to Stromness in a week or so. A new friend has offered kayak company and she’s going to russle up some more Orkney paddlers. It'll be Clan Orkney!

More caves and arches on a grand scale. Photo by Brian

There is a long and exciting day ahead of us, below big cliffs and caves, zig zag tunnels and deep clefts, from Portskerra, round Strathy Point below the lighthouse and on westward to round Creag Ruadh. It’s all strong, fabulous kayaking. At the end of the day we can see great slabby rocks leaning up on the end of Eilean Nan Ron, the next island that I have an eye on.  We get out at the old pier in Torrisdale Bay. This wooden pier was built in the nineteenth century to serve Bettyhill but could, I imagine, only have accommodated small boats: navigating through the surf and narrow channels to get here was quite nippy.

Going through this slot I chucked all my sense out and just went for a ride on a big wave. It was fun, but not something I'd go anywhere on my own. Alan did the same thing: "well I always think that if you're going to do something you might as well go for it." Photo by Brian

As we landed the heavens opened and it rained enthusiastically for some hours on poor Spike, who stood under an umbrella with our boats and kit while we drivers fetched the cars from Portskerra. It had been a long day but a brilliant one that had filled our heads with a taste of what this wild and wonderful coast has to offer. Will we be back? Well yes, some of us will and some of us won’t. It took me 54 years to get back here, which I never would have guessed. And I haven’t got another 54 years in hand!

My loose plan when the others left was to make a little solo trip to Nan Ron, visit a couple of islands, hang out with Neil, replace and mend some kit, maybe touch family base with Clan Rosie. I'd wait for a weather window and when it came it would be Orkney and Shetland. I was feeling strong and well prepared. That was my plan all along and it didn’t work out.

Looking down a geo on the north coast of Handa. Photo by Pen

Did I mention Handa Island? Right at the beginning? Clan Kimber are so generous. We did fit in an island camp even though they hadn’t really come prepared. Thank you. And thanks to Alan for negotiating our visit with the island’s warden.

Handa is a nature reserve and a SSSI managed by the Scottish Wildlife Trust. Alan had not been completely impressed by the restrictions round Skomer in Pembrokeshire when we’d been there a few weeks earlier. In Wales (and England) there is no right to roam and the RSPB are able to totally forbid landing, let alone camping. In Scotland there is a right to roam balanced by a duty to behave responsibly.

This has existed for twenty years, since the Land Reform Act of 2003. It is taken very seriously. Under the law you have to respect the interests of other people, care for the environment and take responsibility for your own actions. It seems to me that it has changed attitudes to the outdoors, that people generally feel ownership of their wild places, and have a developed sense of responsibility. It’s open to dispute and of course there are places where that right has been abused and, as a result, curtailed.

The clear water round Handa allow healthy biodivesity, essential to the success of the nesting birds. Photo with thanks to Brian

Handa Island is a massive chunk of glorious cliffs, red Torrridian sandstone. The North West corner is where the action is. The cliffs are, as ever, way bigger than us, sheer sandstone rising 100 metres. That cuts you down to size. The stacks and the arches and the caves begin would give you memorable kayak fun on a quiet day. There’s the massive Stack of Handa, Stac an t Seabhaig that you could paddle round, if t’were quiet. It’d be awesome to slip down that narrow alley, cliffs rising to 115 metres sheer on each side. The sky would be a gauzy blue ribbon suspended above you. But of course, it isn’t quiet. There’s not much between us and the Atlantic, maybe a tiny bit of protection from the Butt of Lewis but that's some way to the west. The swell carries the power of yesterday’s storms, from way out there. And there are reefs below us. Which makes kayaking fun of a different sort, the sort that brings me and my boat Ethel alive. We do love it. Solo I wouldn’t go near this. But in a group, that’s different.

Rounding Bogha Mor the cliffs soften and smooth. Going down the South coast the water becomes placid and there’s time to speculate. There are some long rocky islets. Would that be the place for otters? It was, and Spike, Alan and Gillian have a good view of them but I’ve already crossed back to the mainland where there are more caves, quiet caves that we can explore. Spike and I come face to face with a big bull seal with a fish in its mouth. The old fella drops the fish and I almost catch it as it prettily rotates it’s pearly white body down. Almost, but not quite, plaice for supper.

At every campsite and café there are Puffin shaped leaflets for Handa. Everyone loves a Puffin. Small boat loads of tourists are ferried over to the island from Tarbert. We had used the same slip as them to launch and the ferry man had been extraordinarily kind: “You people carry radios don’t you” he said, looking at the stubby arial emerging from my buoyancy aid pocket. “Well it’s pretty lively out there so if you have a spot of trouble you call us. We’re on Channel 72. We’ll be along in minutes wherever you are.” He lands his passengers on Traigh Shourie, the prettiest of beaches. We land there too. 

Some of Handa's bird galleries. Photo by Pen

Really it’s no bad thing that the swell had kept us away from the cliffs. Handa has one of Britain’s largest colonies of Guillemot. Clan Guillemot. These smart little members of the Auk family live all their lives at sea apart from thenesting period. At sea they are little feathered submarines diving to great depths for sand eels and fish. They migrate, and when they come back to nest they always come back to the same perch. Not place, perch. They don’t need Roxanne in campsite reception to tell them where their pitch is. They come back to a "pitch" that is a matter of centimetres wide on a sheer rock face, 70 Guillemots to a square metre. A single pair could be coming back for twenty years. They are supercrowded, garrulous and raucous. A sea kayaker has the ability to arrive silently below a nest cliff and that can cause a destructive disturbance among the nesting birds. If they fly up in alarm eggs and chicks can be tipped off. So it’s not so bad for us kayakers to stay out during the nesting season.

This Bonxie was so bold and arrogant that it ignored us when as we walked past. Bonxies are pirate predators, so aggressive that they'll dive bomb people as well. Photo by Brian

Tim Birkhead, a naturalist who has spent forty years studying Guillemot on Skomer, suggests they are rather like us: sociable, doing their best to be monogamous, males and females sharing parenting and capable of co-operating and forming friendships. Even to the extent of giving the neighbours’ offspring a bite to eat or putting all their 70 beaks together to ward off gull attacks. Clan Guillemot.

A chunky little woman approaches me. “Why I see no Puffins?” She demands. She’s not quite belligerent but she’s not pleased either. Why does she think I’d know? I’m well salted and laden down with camping kit. The oldest woman on the island used to be Queen. Maybe she thinks I am she? Spike and I have walked all round the island and it was great, but we hadn’t seen puffins either though we had seen a few rafting on the sea on the North side of the island. We’d seen Skuas and a good few rat traps on the island. Hard to wipe out rats when you’re only 300 metres from the mainland. That would account for a dearth of Puffins. Even so there were tier upon tier of nesting Guillemots and Razorbills, they were fantastic. Good enough surely? “Do you speak German?” I ask, hazarding a guess at her nationality. “No! French” she says, apparently insulted. I spend the next five minutes in very bad schoolgirl French trying to explain that the Puffins are thriving, there are loads of them, they’re out at sea, gone fishing. Why not spread a little happy fantasy? To my surprise she is very happy with this and trundles off happily. She may not have seen Puffins but today people have seen 45 different birds.

Visitors and volunteers chalk up the birds they have seen that day. Photo by Pen 

We have a long carry up of our kit to our designated camp spot amongst the ruins of a croft. In 1845 there were 65 people on the island, maybe 12 crofts, but they mostly left around 1847, probably due to the Potato Famine. Behind our tents Corncrakes are whirring unseen in the coppery rushes. Cuckoos are calling and last skylarks are singing their hearts out. A sunset is lighting up the mountains. It’s a pretty fine spot.

So on this trip I have slept on one more island, Handa, and circumnavigated two, Glas Leac and Eilean Glas, close in to Tarbert harbour. That means I will donate £12 to Aban, a brilliant young charity that helps young people discover their own strength by exploring outdoors. There’s more about Aban if you click the tab at the top of the page. If you would like to add your support to Aban there are Donate buttons at the top of each blog post, or you could just share the word by sharing this post on social media. Thank you! And thanks to Clan Kimber for your support and company on another great trip.

A book that has been an inspiration for me is "Wondrous British Marine Life" by Lou Luddington. She writes with simple lucidity about the wonders of the sea creatures that surround our shores. Dr Luddington is a Marine Biologist and photographer. She has lived on a sailing boat but is now living in Pembrokeshire. She takes her beautiful photographs when freediving, that is to say diving without oxygen tanks. This is her website.

https://www.louluddington.com/