Brora

Brora is the next town up the coast from Golspie, a ten-minute drive away. It's a neat little place with its older houses built in a warm local sandstone, but it has fewer services than Golspie. It's on our list as somewhere we might buy a house but the main down-side is that the hills drop back from the coast so one would have to drive to walk in them.

The town lies at the mouth of the Brora River and has a sheltered harbour, very empty at this time of year.

We visited it to spend some time wandering round the town, trying to get a feel for the place. There are things I like about it: this picture looks upstream from the harbour to the railway bridge, and shows a path that runs from the town centre to the front - all very carefully maintained to typically Scottish standards. There's a warmth about it: as we passed, people greeted us.

We've visited Brora once before, at a rather more clement time of year, and there were people surfing then. Today's temperature - I think it hit 4C towards midday - didn't put off two surfers who were doing their very best to catch one of the rather miserable sets from the shingle promontory to the south of the river mouth.