Just wild about blustery Brora

Who needs to sunbathe when there is fascinating history, stupendous views and abundant birdlife on offer, asks Angela Dewar

The clear blue skies are endless and the sweeping beaches spread out for miles along the coastline. If the temperature was 20C warmer, this could be the Caribbean. But the biting wind and wintry sunshine are constant reminders that this idyllic spot is Brora, in the far northeast of Scotland - a place of breathtaking beauty, but only rarely of balmy weather. Well, you'd hardly expect a heatwave an hour's drive north of Inverness.

Even the small stone houses clustered around the tiny harbour provide little protection against the wind that can come racing in from the North Sea. But if this is a place where the gales will colour your skin more than the sun, there are compensations. Not least those staggering views.

You get a sense of what's to come as the main road heads north from the Dornoch Firth. The drive around the bay is simply one of the most exhilarating in the country. Rolling hills sweep down to meet the untamed North Sea as the A9 advances under a huge sky. It's soon plain the birds buffeted on the wind are not just common or garden seagulls.

Great and Arctic skuas ride the currents, while out at sea, gannets plunge into the water in great streaks of white. The locals love their birdlife - the summer visiting Arctic tern is the emblem of Brora golf club.

Once a thriving industrial village busy with crofting, boat-building and mining, Brora is settling into a new tourism-friendly era with the distillery at Clynelish, fishing boats catching crab and lobster and a woollen mill still in operation.

My base in the village was at the Links Apartments, sitting on the coast with views of the golf course. It is a new development kitted out with everything you might possibly need. If you don't want to spend an evening in the kitchen, the Royal Marine hotel is around the corner for dinner and use of the leisure facilities and swimming pool.

For all its apparent remoteness, Brora and its surroundings were once well connected to Britain's big cities. Stone from the local quarry was used to build London Bridge and Liverpool Cathedral.

Expertise, in the form of Sir Charles Barry, went the other way. Barry, one of the country's most celebrated architects, had completed the Houses of Parliament in London before he was employed to remodel medieval Dunrobin Castle in 1845.

It was an undeniably impressive achievement. There are 189 rooms, making Dunrobin the biggest "house" in the northern Highlands, though much of Barry's work was lost in a disastrous fire in 1915. If Dunrobin gives you a taste for the high life, there are other opportunities to explore. The short trip to Dornoch is worth it for the cathedral.

Here on the steps, the new "aristocracy" surveyed the scene from one of their special days. This is where Madonna and Guy Ritchie had their son Rocco christened. Drive north to Castle of Mey, between Thurso and John o'Groats, for grander connections. The Castle of Mey was the retreat of the late Queen Mother, and it is easy to share her delight in the beautiful views across the Pentland Firth to Orkney.

Private rooms are open to the public as well as the gardens.

From Mey, the drive to Lairg is wild and beautiful, first along the magnificent Caithness and Sutherland coastline, and then plunging through Strathnaver. Here appearances are deceptive.

The loneliness of the glen suggests it has never been heavily populated, but less than 200 years ago it was strung with crofting hamlets. Strathnaver is the site of one of the most notorious clearances, undertaken for the Duke of Sutherland by the estate factor, Patrick Sellar. In 1814, "the year of burning", houses were torn down and burnt and people forced from the land, with 15,000 cleared from the duke's estate. A Strathnaver Trail leaflet will help bring the area's terrible history into focus.

Relief from the past comes at the Falls of Shin, near Lairg, where you will find one of the best places in Europe to see Atlantic salmon leaping. Incongruously, there's also a Harrods outlet.

It's back in Brora where the natural delights of the place come back most strongly into view. A little investigation reveals that the local seal population has made it along the coastline.

Just beyond a railway bridge on the edge of Brora I counted at least 10 of them, nearby in the water, playfully bobbing their heads at me. Nodding agreement, perhaps, that this corner of the country is one of Scotland's undiscovered gems.