Northern Exposure by Norman Miller

Dunnet Head is truly Britain’s top spot. Standing near Scotland’s northeast corner, I'm further north than Moscow, and definitely further north than John O'Groats a dozen miles to the east, the geographical impostor that attracts coach parties and charity walkers despite being nothing more than Britain’s fourth most northerly mainland point. Even its oh-so-Scottish sounding name’s a bit fake, originating with the 15th century Dutch trader Jan de Groet who ran a ferry to nearby Orkney.

Dunnet Head, though, is the real McCoy, in spirit as well as geographically. Though only a half dozen miles from the town of Thurso (a metropolis compared to anywhere else up here), and an easy journey up from the bustling Highland hub of Inverness - Dunnet Head retains a satisfying end-of-the-world rawness. A storm-battered lighthouse and crumbling wartime ruins complement the mood, as do a few careworn houses in need of a makeover - though Laurence L-B would freak at what the perennial winds would do to his flowing locks.

You can see why some folk might want to live here, though. It’s hard not to get soulful gazing across the choppy Pentland Firth to where Hoy marks the beginning of the Orkney islands a few miles offshore, ticking off a list of "most Northerly" things as you gaze around. Look, Britain’s most northerly mainland horse, there the most northerly wrecked Ford, and, blimey, over there, the most northerly embracing couple perched perilously on an outcrop on the end-of-Britain cliffs, hundreds of feet above the churning sea.

It’s an area haunted by memories. On Burifa Hill, just south of Dunnet Head, the remains of a once secret radar installation known simply as "Gee" rise from long grass whispering with wartime ghosts. Down at the southern end of the Dunnet peninsula, meanwhile, a tiny cove contains the beautiful ruins of Ham Harbour (one of several old harbours hereabouts), the stones of its old quay glowing in the evening sun, silently reflecting on past bustle.

40 miles or so to the west along Scotland’s "top edge", Caithness merges into Sutherland, and the elemental beauty that marks Dunnet Head unfolds across the whole landscape. Peaks like Ben Hope and Ben Loyal loom over deserted moors, while sealochs like Loch Eriboll (unkindly christened Loch ‘Orrible by WW2 servicemen posted here) thrust deep into the land from a shoreline fringed by deserted sandy beaches and tiny harbours.

I stayed at Talmine, which had both the beach and the harbour, as well as a beautiful converted church facing a scatter of tiny islands, with only the odd sheep peering in my bedroom window to obstruct the view.

To get closer to the Sutherland vibe, I hired "Croc". A genial Aussie guide, Iain Morrison had swapped the wilds of the Northern Territory for the wilds of northern Scotland to run "Highlander Outback Safaris", his nickname acquired after a local paper dubbed him Crocodile Sutherland.

Unseasonal rain and mist did nothing to douse Croc’s enthusiasm as we drove along empty roads in search of Sutherland secrets, from tiny Loch Hakel into which a gold fortune from Bonnie Prince Charlie’s war fund was flung by fleeing Jacobites in 1746 (much but not all recovered) to coastal villages like Skerray, where 16th century locals gathered on the beach to hear Mass from a monastery across a narrow channel on the island of Neave, and where the late 60s saw life on the adjacent island of Roan televised after it became home to one of Britain's most celebrated hippy communes.

We paused for a picnic lunch by a stone pier poking out onto the vast golden low-tide sands of the Kyle of Tongue, silent apart from the high-pitched calls of oystercatchers against a mist-muted pastel landscape, and rounded things off as twilight fell in the village of Tongue, where a few whiskies at the local hotel soon chased any cold from my bones.

Rejuvenated, I was ready to bag another of Britain’s geographical extremities. Waiting patiently by a jetty at Keoldale - near Britain’s most northwesterly village, Durness - I was reminded that time was an elastic concept this far north. "When someone says a thing leaves at 11 that just means it won’t leave before 11", as one local had put it.

But the sun was warm, glinting on shallow blue water while I waited for the tiny passenger ferry to chug briefly across the Kyle of Durness to where a minibus waited to take me to what the ticket said was "the most remote point in Britain". Eleven miles of beautiful but empty moorland later, I was at Cape Wrath..

Though the rocks of Britain's most northwesterly point once claimed three ships in a single night, what Sir Walter Scott called "this dread cape" takes its name from the Viking word for "turning point" ("hvarf") rather than from the turbulent ocean that can send spray up over the highest seacliffs in Britain.

This day, things at Britain's top left-hand corner were calm and clear. A thousand feet above a inky blue sea, the Hebrides were smudges far to the south, Orkney a string of tiny marks on the horizon to the east. But of houses or other signs of life there was nothing, just another "top edge" trademark storm-battered old lighthouse (built by Robert Louis Stevenson’s father) and more crumbling ruins. The only movement was the tiny white dots of seabirds tracking across the dark ocean. Amazing how such emptiness can fill your eyes and spirit so.