Scotland’s next World Heritage Site – like Patagonia in miniature

Nearby was the town’s other great attraction: Wick Heritage Centre, which tells the story of its prominence as Europe’s biggest herring fishing harbour through an eclectic mix of artefacts: a kippering kiln, militaria old and new (Wick suffered the first daytime bombing raid of mainland Britain in the Second World War), a fishing boat and the fabulous Johnston Collection of photographs.

The close-ups of fishermen were moving, and the panoramic shots of the harbour filled with barrels of salted “silver darlings” magnificent. Thousands of men came here to cash in, spending their downtime in local bars. The town got a reputation for heavy drinking, fights and prostitution. Temperance campaigners joined forces with local wives fed up with being handed empty wage packets. Prohibition was eventually imposed along US lines. It lasted from 1922 till 1947.

I mentioned to Donald Henderson, the chair of the Wick Society, which runs the heritage centre, that the landscape reminded me of Patagonia. He nodded and mentioned, almost as an aside, that many people from Caithness emigrated to Patagonia to work in sheep farms. The following day a book called From Caithness to Patagonia by Ian Leith was left at reception in Mackay. Life imitating daydreams.

A mid-morning walk took me along the coast, passing through the harbour and an old quarry squatted by fulmars. There were lobster creels and a few boats, but the boom today is wind power; turbine and cabling equipment filled the docksides. I walked past The Trinkie, an extraordinary natural sea-water lido on a shelf of bare rock, and came to a castle known as the Old Man. It was an atmospheric spot, with birds soaring on the cold thermals and mist and mizzle isolating me and the lichen-dappled ruin from the rest of the world.