Dunnet Head and The North Coast

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Dunnet Head Lighthouse

This is the most northerly point of mainland Britain. Looking across The Pentland Firth you can see the island of Hoy.

The lighthouse stands above a 300 foot cliff. The storms are so fierce that the glass in the lighthouse gets broken by rocks thrown up by the sea.

We had stayed near Dunnet Head overnight and talked about going over to the Orkney Islands. Peter had been there before and had taken pictures of The Italian Chapel as well as other places on Orkney. I highly recommend that you visit the Italian Chapel page. If you have never seen the Italian Chapel before, you will be amazed.

A view from Dunnet Head looking west along the north coast of Scotland

To the left out of the picture there is a small waterfall. The water was coming over the cliff and being blown upward and back inland. Not a drop was reaching the sea.

The Red Rock Beach

In sharp contrast to the high cliffs of this coast are little sandy beaches like this one. It really wasn't a day for walking on the beach and Peter soon headed back to the car to be with his new friends.

This Scottish Red Granite was formed from Magma deep within the Earth's crust many many millions of years ago. Scotland in geological terms is a very ancient land and although the mountains may look grand today, in the past they may have been as high as the Himalayas, so what you see in the pictures of these pages are the worn down old men of mountains.

Chris and Nina, this is where your Red Rocks are from. It was hard work getting those two little pieces from this huge chunk with my bare hands.

Pete's New Friends

After walking on the beach I went back to the car to find Peter had made lots of new friends. They had been looking after the car while we were gone, for payment they said.... just stick it on the bill.

When we wanted to move, the ducks would not get out of the way, I had to shoo them away from underneath the car.

Smoo Cave

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