TAKE a step down this morning, in fact 365 steps down, to reach Whaligoe Harbour on the east cost of Caithness a few miles south from the country town of Wick. These dramatic steps and the little harbour they serve were constructed in 1788 by Captain David Brodie of Hopeville.

The steps cost #8 to build and Brodie's intention was to develop Whaligoe as a herring station. Attractive Government bounties being paid on each vessel fishing and on every barrel of herring cured, local businessmen were keen to exploit this largesse to their own advantage. The ''silver darlings'' were a staple diet for Highland people then, eaten with tatties, and the early years of the nineteenth-century saw the herring fishing industry expand dramatically. By 1840 more than 1200 boats were busy and Caithness was the most important herring fishery in Europe.

Find Whaligoe and the stepson OS Map 12, Thurso, Wick and surrounding area, Scale 1:50,000, Second Series, at Gd Ref: 321404. Turn east off the A9 Inver-ness/Wick road by a row of cottages. At the end of the row you will find a parking area. Walk round the large house on the edge of the 165-feet high cliffs to reach the top of the steps. Descend with care. As you do so, think of fishwives coming the other way carrying wicker crans of herring on their heads. Savage entertainment. Thomas Telford (1757-1834) road builder and engineer, surveyed the Caithness fishing ports in 1790 on behalf of the British Fisheries Society to identify which ones could be expanded. He thought Whaligoe ''was a dreadful place''. It is, in the true meaning of the word, which is ''producing great fear''.

In spite of their antiquity, the steps are in excellent repair. This is not by accident, but by design, the design of a local lady, the late Mrs Juhle, who cared for them selflessly for several decades. Mrs Juhle reasoned that since Jesus was a fisherman there was every possibility that, at His ''second coming'' He might arrive at Whaligoe. She was determined He would find the steps in a fit state to receive His feet. Since Mrs Juhle's time, the steps deteriorated and were in danger of becoming unusable. Now the work involved in their maintenance has been taken over by the Wick Heritage Society and the steps are again in safe hands. Visit the Society's outstanding museum in Wick. It will mightily enhance your understanding of Whaligoe and the great days of the Caithness herring fishing industry.

Climbing up the steps will make you catch your breath, but, once you have travelled even further back in time by visiting the astonishing array of Neolithic and Pictish monuments scattered around Warehouse Hill (Gd Ref: 309413). Begin at Garrywhin Cairn, (Gd Ref: 313411) where human skeletons and pottery fragments were found. Hike now to Garrywhin Fort (Gd Ref: 314414) overlooking Loch Watenan.

The ruins crest the ridge and cover an area 590 feet in length by up to 200 yards wide. The entrance to the fort at the north end, through an eight-feet thick wall, is considered to be the most impressive example of its kind in Scotland. To the east, at the bottom of the hill, are the famous Garrywhin Stone Rows (Gd Ref: 313413); consisting of a chambered cairn with six rows of slabs radiating south west, the longest row being 200 feet in length.

From Garrywhin, strike north-west for one mile across the moor to reach the summit of the Hill of Yarrows (646 feet at Gd Ref: 296428) for an overview of the country of the Vikings called their ''Land of Cat''.

On your way you pass further Neolithic remains and a chambered cairn at Gd Ref: 304422. This is the place to catch your own cat's supper, if you are so inclined and so blessed. There are some superb brown trout in the loch, but be warned, they are ''dour''.

The foreground view from the top of Hill of Yarrows is disfigured by commercial forestry, but lift up your eyes to the horizon and a splendid vista of moorland and water entraps the soul; to the north, a distant prospect of the Orkney islands; east across a sparkling blue sea pegged with the black of oil drilling platforms. Return to Whaligoe by tramping two miles south-east; in time for a quick dash down the A9 for rest and recuperation in the welcoming embrace of the Portland Arms Hotel at Lybster.