It was a generational rite of passage: waking up in a railway carriage and
experiencing that frisson of geographical uncertainty: is it Bucharest or
Barcelona? These days, students are more likely to opt for an internship at
an international bank than slum it around Europe, but they are missing out
on the rough joys of skimping on the hotel expenses by sleeping on the move.
You can recapture a little of that sense of freedom in the relative peace and
quiet of the Sutherland countryside. Rogart station, well on the way to
Scotland’s northern end of the line, was never one of Europe’s bustling
junctions. In fact, it is such a sleepy little halt that it wasn’t such a
huge leap of the imagination to convert it into a place to rest your head.
The happily punning Sleeperzzz is a hostel with a seductive difference in that
rail carriages (and a separate “showman’s wagon”) have been converted into
sleeping quarters, with room for 22 “passengers” in separate compartments.
In terms of creature comforts it’s obviously several notches short of the
Orient Express, but it’s the perfect stopover en route to the north coast
and Orkney, with a visitor book that gushes enthusiastically in several
languages about the idea. Children with a railway fetish may prove difficult
to drag away when it’s time to move on, especially when they find they can
cook their own meals in the kitchen area.
A couple of hundred yards away, in Rogart village, the Pittentrail Inn pulls
in everybody who wants to dine out within a five-mile radius, and provides
them with plentiful pub grub of the unadventurous but reassuring sort. A
grocery in the village provides the makings of picnic lunches for when you
want to explore the hills and coastline.
Three trains in either direction from Rogart each day are unlikely to disturb
your rest at Sleeperzzz. You could make use of the bicycles (available on
free loan to guests) or carefully scrutinise the rail timetables to explore
the immediate area. Rogart is a request stop, so you have to wave down the
train as it trundles by at five miles an hour. You could really cause a stir
by emulating Jenny Agutter’s trick in The Railway Children and wave your
underwear. If you do, expect to be infamous in these parts for decades to
come.
The peace and quiet are partly to do with east Sutherland’s relative neglect
by tourists, who pass through quickly in their urge to reach John O’Groats
and be as disappointed as the millions before them. If there are no
outstanding attractions to detain the impatient here, then there is
considerable charm to be had from walking in the open air untroubled by
traffic or hiking crowds.
Take a refreshing walk along the leafy coastal path to the sizeable village of
Golspie, with views through the trees out to the Moray Firth. Golspie has a
rough charm of its own, even if most of its social life seems to focus
around the charity shop. Adequate-to-excellent pub grub is on offer at the
Sutherland Arms or the Ben Bhraggie Hotel, each making a virtue of “home
cooking”. Vegetarians might even find a dish that strays from the rigid
orthodoxy of the “broccoli pasta bake” that is the standard meat-free
offering in 90% of kitchens north of Perth.
The walks around Golspie offer plenty of opportunities for spotting birdlife.
A couple of miles south of the village, the national nature reserve around
Loch Fleet features seals and wildfowl, and ospreys in the summer. One of
the most attractive routes takes you up the gorge of the Big Burn to a
hidden waterfall, less than an hour’s round trip from the main road.
Inland, the striking monument atop Ben Bhraggie commemorates the Highland
Clearances, a historical reason for the eerie silence that quickly descends
in Sutherland. There is a tangible atmosphere of a region that has had part
of its identity permanently removed. Also you cannot help noticing that in
the hotels, bars and restaurants, the proprietors’ accents are invariably
English.
To broaden your sense of the area’s melancholy history, it is rewarding to
make a little circuit of Clearance mementoes in the area, taking in the
Badbea Clearance Village just north of Helmsdale, with a hiking trail around
a cleared settlement; and the Croick kirk near Ardgay, where evicted
Highlanders scratched valedictory messages into the window panes.
It’s another country now, but one that is worth stepping off the train to
discover.
Details: FirstScotrail (www.firstscotrail.com, 08457 550033)
has SuperSaver returns from Edinburgh or Glasgow to Rogart for £53.90.
Sleeperzzz (www.sleeperzzz.com, e-mail kate@sleeperzzz.com, 01408 641343) has
beds in restored railway carriages from £11 per person per night. There is a
10% discount for rail users and cyclists, 25% discount for children.
www.visitscotland.com
