Go with (and to) The Flow…..

The River Helmsdale is just one of many, rich peat coloured and fast flowing rivers, and a great many more streams, that do there best to drain Scotland’s Flow Country.

The Flow Country is that area of the very north east of Scotland in Caithness and Sutherland that contains one of the worlds largest ‘Blanket Bogs’. This is indeed a vast and remote area. To the  South and West it is bordered with ranges of high mountains. To the North and East it is the coast that demarks the boundary. With the exception of the coastal strip the region is sparsely populated. Yet it is an Internationally important site for flora and insects…those that love the damp that is!

The Flows are best described as a very damp sphagnum peat bog dotted with numerous pools and lochs, an area where the land never dries out. Botanists and entomologist’s are in their haven but that habitat also attracts birds and wildfowl that choose to breed on the Flows, so ornithologists also  have the Flows as one of their must visit locations., The RSPB run a Visitor Centre on their reserve. 

To walk across them is best left to those with local knowledge, navigation and a safe walking route are difficult…yet Deer freely roam in large herds. So here is a flavour of just part of this very rare, very bare and very remote area of Scotland……yet one with a unique beauty and character all of its own.

I should mention that despite the testing environment a single track railway line crosses the Flows with stations (or halts) in strange and remote places, Victorian engineering at its best….

The Flows are also the place for ‘Big Skies’

Trees are few on the flows, though some do make a dramatic stand against the elements,  but it is not till  that you return to the softer edges Silver Birch return to add dimension to your view….

AND just to brag, as well as to illustrate the remoteness, this was our lunchtime Pic-nick spot. We were there for nearly two hours and not a single car passed along the road.  It was though busy with  Skylarks singing,  and drifts of Red Deer  roaming the hills…..not bad company to share our lunch with….

 

17th May

© David Oakes 2014