麻豆社

Clare Balding explores walks that are good for the mind, body and soul.

Clare walks in Cromarty, a name that conjures the dulcet tones of the Shipping Forecast and prompts images of storm-battered ships wrestling with the sea on a cold, dark night. Perched at the top of the Black Isle, a peninsular stretching north from Inverness, Cromarty is a small, picturesque town of tiny streets and Georgian cottages, with a harbour flanked by the Sutors: two hills that are believed to be the slumbering forms of two giant shoe makers who protected Cromarty from ancient invaders. In their heyday, at night, oil platforms would light up the shoreline.

Clare walks with Douglas Willis, a retired geography teacher and author who brings to life the spirit of Cromarty's most famous son, Hugh Miller - stone mason, chronicler of life on the Black Isle, church reformer and pioneering, self-taught geologist. Born in 1802 and standing at over 6ft tall with a shock of red hair, his fossil collection of over 6,000 specimens became the founding core of what is today's Scottish national collection in the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh.