Durness: Smoo Cave, Balnakeil and Lennon's Memorial Garden

Smoo Cave, at the end of a 600m tidal gorge on the north coast, is a combined sea cave and freshwater cave: its entrance, enlarged by the sea to about 40m wide and 15m high, is the largest sea cave entrance in Britain, and the Allt Smoo drops into the second chamber as a 20m waterfall. The cave is 83m long to the sump at the back. A mile from the village at Balnakeil, the ruined church, said to have been built by monks from Dornoch, stands above the sands, and the 1950s MoD camp beside it is now a craft village. John Lennon spent childhood summers here, and a memorial garden carries three stone slabs inscribed with lines from 'In My Life'.