Chasing birds & enjoying the beauty of the Scot. Highlands*

[Mel]

Time to get started... I spent 9 days and nights in Scotland with my best friend
who lives in the town where we both studied while I moved to the beautiful Wolfsburg
after I had finished university. Ever since my friend K and I try to go on a trip at least every
other year. This year we opted for Scotland as K has never been there before and I was
keen to re-visit. Preparations for the holidays went well... Until... I sat on the train that
was meant to take me to the airport when I discovered that I had left my driving licence
at home. So not a good idea with a friend who is not experienced in right-hand driving,
especially on the single-track roads that awaited us in the Highlands. Oh well... we
would have to play it by ear then...

Our trip started off with two full days in Edinburgh. Here are some impressions of this great city.


View on Calton Hill


The Castle - already prepared for the Edinburgh Festival / Military Tattoo that is taking place as we speak.


Beautiful residences just around the corner of the Castle.


The Camera Obscura and Outlook Tower.


Victoria Street, just of the lively Grassmarket with all its pubs and restaurants.


Palace of Holyrood


A hint of Athens with the National Monument on Calton Hill.


Dugald Monument, also on Calton Hill.

Having said great city, I have to add that EDI was a big building site when we were there
and driving was a nightmare. I'm still in awe how calmly K managed to spiral the car down to the
place we would stay for the first three nights. And spirally our route went. We didn't bring a
proper road map, hence there were some difficulties to find the correct streets where to turn.
We had to rely on my sense of orientation (a contradiction in itself) as K was not to be bothered
with anything but handling the right-hand steering wheel. But after what felt like hours and hundreds
of miles we eventually got where we wanted to go and the adventure could begin.


Alas, this was a kids t-shirt, otherwise I would have got one.

[Mel]

This one made me feel like being elsewhere.

[Mel]

From Edinburgh we headed out via the A9 towards Perth and stopped at Blair Castle:



Then we moved on via Pitlochry until the turnoff to the A889 and later the A86 passing Loch Laggan. It was pouring with rain



and therefore we didn’t get many photos from this leg. At Spean Bridge we turned north onto the A82 as part of the Great Glen. We passed Loch Lochy and moved on to hit Loch Ness. I guess that’s a must on everybody’s itinerary when you go to Scotland. Personally, I prefer many other Lochs, e.g. Loch Linnhe which we would see later on our journey. As our travel guide recommended we didn’t drive the busy A82 on the west side of Loch Ness but rather took a single track road on the east side. I was driving by now...
Although it had finally stopped raining – exactly according the weather forecast – the light was still pretty dull with the clouds hanging low. If nothing else, you have to take a shot of Urquhart Castle at least.

[Mel]

We didn’t bother to stop by in Inverness as it had got late and we still needed to find a bed for the night. Cromarty was top of our wish list as the travel guide said we might be lucky to spot whales and dolphins there. Stupidly enough, we hadn’t read any further and therefore had missed the warnings about the ugly oil rigs in Cromarty Firth… We couldn’t be bothered and left Cromarty and the Black Isle again. Although I have to say that we passed two delightful little villages there: Rosemarkie and Fortrose. Certainly places to spend a night, but we couldn’t find a B&B with a vacancy… (0) So we ended up in Beauly. Not quite as ‘beau’ as the name would suggest, but it was 6pm by then and we were hungry and thirsty and had enough of sitting in the car.

[Mel]

The next morning the skies had cleared up considerably – again just like predicted on the weather forecast - and we were keen to get into the Western Highlands. We had to head back to the A9 but escaped the mad traffic soon enough again and turned onto the much quieter A836 towards Bonar Bridge and Lairg.
We stopped often along the route to get out and marvel at the endless spaces with the rolling green hills against the deep blue sky that was riddled with gorgeous sheep clouds in most places:









The scenery was also dotted with lots of different Lochs and streams for most of this part of the trip.

[Richprins]

I must say I love this "open worldwide travel tales" forum to bits!

Good to broaden horizons!

[Mel]

We ended up in the far north at the Kyle of Tongue. This view you’ll only get if you turn towards Thurso rather than Durness.



After having absorbed the beauty of the Kyle of Tongue we turned around again and headed towards Durness. This is still at the Kyle, taken from the bridge towards the inland.

[Mel]

Durness is another wonderful place and I had stayed a night there in the past, but it is a really scattered little village. Still we liked it a lot and found it difficult to make a decision to look for a bed there or not. At the end we decided against it. We were too early to waste the rest of the day and too late to take a trip to Cape Wrath that day. We also wagered that doing it the next morning would set us back big time in our goal to spend at least one full day on the Isle of Skye. So we travelled on, but not before we had taken some shots of the picturesque beach:



And some interesting looking landscaping:

[Mel]

By the time we had arrived in Scourie which we had chosen for the night, the clouds had moved in again and our exploration of the surroundings ended up with rather dull souvenir photos…

[Mel]

The next morning marked the halftime of our trip. K had suggested to visit Handa Island to explore the Scottish bird life. Needless to say I was absolutely happy with that! Drizzle was in the air though and the first hour of our hike on the actual island was a bit wet:



A stack where you could find hundreds of birds nesting:



A grey seal enjoying a bath:



And finally the clouds started to lift a bit again and it became dry at least.



The birds will follow at the end!