Forsinard

and The Flow Country

Taking the southern route through Strath Halladale with its namesake river flowing to your right, you will find a unique mix of breeding birds in the RSPB Forsinard Reserves in the Flow Country, also known as the Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands, comprising the largest area of blanket bog in the United Kingdom, possibly in the world.

From horizon to horizon, this prehistoric landscape is mainly all bog, vast acres of quaking moss where curlews, golden plovers and black-throated divers breed, over which hen harriers drift. In thousands of little bog pools, know as lochans, otters hunt and greenshanks wade.

The RSPB wishes to restore 68 square miles of this damaged Flow Country, dried out by the serried ranks of man-made conifer plantations, and if reparation does not take place, the 30 foot deep 8,000 year old peat will dry out and be blown by the wind, to vanish for ever.

The tiny hamlet of Forsinard boasts a railway station, on the Inverness to Wick and Thurso line, an opportunity for travellers to journey through this unique country. A few miles south is Kinbrace near the head of the Strath of Kildonan where one may enjoy the wonderful beauty of it all, then continue either south to Helmsdale or west to Strathnaver, with remote Lodges and lochs and hills and mountains all around.