Durness, Sutherland Travel Guide

Durness is as far north-west as you can get by car and there is a bit of accommodation there including a camp site. There are good views of the Orkneys, though it can well follow the old adage: if you can't see them, it's raining; if you can, it's going to rain.

There's so little to say about the village as such that the two nearest trips which make it a place to stay may as well come on this page. The first is a walk to Faraidh Head where families of eider ducks appear at the rght season, mothers leading their ducklings through the heavy swell. On the rocks near the headland itself you can look down well below the water at seals playing, though in really bad weather conditions you may well prefer not to see them being battered.

For the second trip to Cape Wrath, the most northwesterly point in Scotland, you have to take a passenger ferry across an nlet of the sea to connect with a minibus. There is no alternative route to Cape Wrath, unless you are into long walks, as the road taken to the lighthouse does not connect with any other. On the way to the lighthouse the driver will advise on the best point to get off to see the nesting auks, including puffins. If there are children in the party, considerable caution is required as the cliffs are precipitous.