The sea rolls, boils and bubbles over the rocks off Cape Wrath, a happy linguistic coincidence, the name Wrath being derived from the from Old Norse hvarf , turning point; much like the fastest man on earth being called Bolt and the fallen Bulgarian hurdler, Stambolova.

I have passed through nearby Durness on a number of occasions and walked the beach at Balnakeil but until last week had never completed the journey to Cape Wrath and Robert Stevenson’s lighthouse at the extreme northwest corner of mainland Britain.  The trip starts with a half mile ferry across the Kyle of Durness, a rowing boat powered by an outboard, ferryman at the stern, ferrydog at the bow and a handful of passengers squeezed between.  From the slipway across the Kyle a well-worn minibus provides a teeth chattering 11 mile drive across a rough road which was built to service construction of the lighthouse in 1828 and has suffered little change since.  The first walled section hugs the edge of Beinn An Amair before entering the MOD bombardment range where the road descends to Daill and the bridge built by the army in 1981 to replace the sometime impassable ford.

As the road climbs to Inshore, three target vehicles become visible across the western ridge; two are in standard camouflage and the other is bright pink, courtesy of local schoolchildren who enjoy access to the ranges for natural history and modern art field trips.

The milestones carved by the keepers count down the miles, descending numerically towards the lighthouse, the centre of their world.  All are original except number eight which suffered stray artillery damage, the frequent roadside craters providing further evidence of why you would not want to travel this track when the red flags are flying.  The range finishes above the Kearvaig river bridge, this original arched construction being only just wide enough to accommodate the rattling minibus.

Beyond the bridge there are views towards the Kearvaig Stack whilst looking back from the old coastguard station above the lighthouse a white bothy can be seen nestling in the bay.

Sadly the lighthouse is now fully automated although not entirely deserted.  The Ozone café remains open throughout the year, possibly the loneliest outpost anywhere on the British mainland; not somewhere I would feel entirely at ease through the long dark nights.  Wild and empty the landscape may be but it is far from quiet; there is the constant noise of the sea and gulls, on firing days the sound of heavy munitions and on some days the scream of low flying jets as NATO allies practice bombing runs on the islands off the coast, occasionally the right ones.  Walk out beyond the lighthouse and there is evidence of yet more noise, the now abandoned foghorn.  Imagine this blasting into the dark night; enough to summon the dead souls of sailors washed up on the haunted beach of Sandwood Bay just down the coast.  Bustling civilisation has its compensations.

Down to the left of the foghorn lay the rusted remains of capstans, cogs and pulleys, evidence that there was once an intention to move the lighthouse onto lower rocks where it would less likely be obscured by fog.  A rusted name plate attributes manufacture to Taylor Pallister & Co Ltd, Dunston on Tyne, not that far from where this journey started in August 2011, a golfing pilgrimage that began in earnest on the first tee at Melrose and ended one year later on the eighteenth green at Durness.  That journey was about Golf in the Wild and will be a little longer in the telling.