Braes

There’s this word ‘improvement’, that has a particular resonance here in Sutherland, that is lost elsewhere. It’s partly that man’s impact on the surroundings can only be marginal. The powers that thrust up layers of rock and grind them back down are spectacularly shown in the hills and escarpments; wild places; just in reach of Helmsdale.

So then, it has been the task I’ve set myself, to pursue these climbs for pleasure. On the better days I’ve set out to ascend a hill. It was Morven, a conical jut from the ground, that I described to myself as a petrol-funnel with its end sheared off – an apt description considering how you access most nature by car these days – that I went to first. In fact, I took off ‘Up Navidale’ first, and its new brae, a mile of brand new sculpted tarmac of unnatural smoothness to get myself round to it. This road, the latest on the route out of Helmsdale toward Wick, gains height and makes for steady progress through to Berriedale. I took it on a hot, hot day and tapped out a rhythm for half an hour, until I reached the turn-off, which would take me to Langwell Water. It’s just a track to the Wag, and I head from there over boggy ground to the foot of Morven; 706 meters of height, lying south of the wide expanse known as the flow country. The last few feet become a rock scramble and then there’s a carpet of moss. Once crested, it’s a mini cairn of some 30 rocks and you sit for a while, orientating yourself, mostly with a map because its never the way you expected it. For a moment you imagine the routes you could take to extend your desire for meandering. But I return to the plan, down the south face over what seems like a fly tip of rocks in a covered a blanket and back through the parched summer heather, to my bike at the Wag.

The sun casts a long shadow that evening, as I head back east, winding a way past the grazing dear and black-faced sheep. They’re always spooked as soon as the grind of the tyre treads breaks the stillness. This continues until I get back to the asphalt and just hear the rush of wind and myself again.

If you spoke to anyone on the route from John O’Groats to Lands End / Lands End to John O’Groats, I think they would nod to you about this particular place, facing upwards toward the north-facing brae at Berriedale. It comes that close to the start or finish of that endeavour and throws at you a climb of the steepness that no one is ever quite ready for. So, on a bike, a rise of 150m in less than a kilometre means holding to your lowest gears and letting out all your breath and dragging in all your strength again for the sharpness of the gradient.

Berriedale Braes are one of the final barriers to the Far North and presents an on-going problem to the ‘wheels of progress’, Nisa, Rail Less O2, Tesco. All force super trucks further up and more cheaply into these places, day on night, fog on sleet, rain on rain. If it becomes too much, then this route has sidings to wait out in, parking places, that represent a more present history of improvement of the Caithness Road, becoming the A9.

I’m not sure if you can call it a marking out of history, but it certainly feels like you’re running along an older contour, rounding the bends of the burns that less articulated transport plied for a time. It’s the place where the camper vans pull up, and hold onto the views. Its hard to resist when you’re not looking forward, trying to progress, make things ever easier, graspable in the short hand of A to B to C. Who’s going to argue with a bridge, or blocks replacing bricks this way? These are the things that Sutherland wills to addresses to itself and hold onto, no matter what. But it’s from further back, not now, in our time of freewheeling. We ignore the next set of braes ahead and struggle to think about how our improvements were and are in this actual time frame.