Thurso and Climbing at Scrabster

  

We drove the 4 hours or so to Thurso, through amazing landscapes, over to the east side of the highlands, by the water, finally arriving in Thurso.  I drove with Dan and Fiona, while Dan knitted.  It stopped raining, and then the madness began.  I told everyone they were on their own, gave Amy a cup of tea, and heading out to Scrabster to check out a climb on Holborn Head, past the lighthouse in Scrabster harbor, a beautiful walk over green hills, with lots of sheep ending up in steep rock cliffs over the roaring ocean.  I could not find the descent, and walked around and around, finally decided to set up an anchor just over the edge in a crack and down climb down toward the platforms below, which were covered in ocean. I think I was in the area of the climb, so I down climbed past a baby gull in its nest, down the flaky rock, closer and closer to the ocean, setting pro as directional as I descended so that I would not swing into an area that might be unclimbable.  It was an adventure on black shale like sandstone.  It was impossible for Amy to hear me because of the roar of the water, so she just kept letting rope out until I reached the wet rock.  Then I had to climb back out!  She couldn’t hear me to pull up rope, so every ten feet or so I tied in short, looping the rope below me.