Highlands to Isle of Skye

Today was a long day of driving for us. There was low level cloud when we left Durness which hung over the Kyle of Durness as we drove past. We took a detour to Lochniver (sp?) (the coastal route) which was once again narrow and single lane.

From Lochniver we headed to Ullapool where we had lunch. We sat outside for lunch and got "attacked" by wasps like when we tried having lunch at Stirling Castle except that time we move inside. This time we stayed and fought and killed a few in the process.

We went for a brief walk along the waterfront, had an ice cream and were then on our way again.

Once again we took a coastal route to ??? (which took longer) and eventually made our way to Kyle of Lochalsh and on the bridge to Skye where we were staying for the next 2 nights.

We thought our accommodation was in Broadford but using the GPS discovered it was a little further along in Ard Dorch. Hosts were photographers and had framed photos everywhere. 2 other couples and 1 lady staying too. Cloud moving in again.

Dinner at farmhouse restaurant with cheerful 'cool' waitress.

John O'Groats

Drove up the east coast to John O'Groats. Beautiful coastline along the way. John O'Groats was a bit of an anticlimax. You had to pay to have a photo taken next to the post with distances on it and have your place of origin put on it. Lots of souvenir and craft shops, though it was fairly quiet.


We kept on driving to Dunnett Point the northernmost point on mainland Britain. Unfortunately there was a lot of cloud and as such we could not see anything. From there we drove on to Thurso where we had lunch.


Then made our way to Durness, our stop for the night, again more beautiful coastline and lochs along the way. This is also where the single lane roads started with passing places every so often.


Once we got to Durness, we made our way to the B&B, only the GPS pointed us to the wrong one but the lady was helpful and directed us to the right one. The B&B we were staying at had lots of kids which was different for a B&B (lots of kids footsteps outside our bedroom).

It was cold and starting to fog up a bit.

(not sure when we did this) Stopped at Smoo cave, there was also a tour group there who wasn't dressed for walking.


We had dinner at a seafood restaurant. We also drove to the nearby town B??? which had a nice beach and craft village. There were some crazy people swimming.

Not sure when we saw these highland cows now, but they were so cute we had to stop and take some photos!

Newtonmore & Loch Ness

Today we departed from the hotel and headed to Kingussie (all these Scottish names remind me of home - Highland Park which streets are obviously named after these places in Scotland!). We stopped in a carpark there briefly while Andrew made some calls.

We visited the Highlands wildlife park where we drove through the park and saw the European bison, deer .... There were some animals that could only be seen by walking so we parked the car and saw wolves, cats, otter, snowy? monkeys, owls. It was cold.



Headed towards Inverness, stopped at Culloden Moor where the battle between Bonnie Prince Charlie and the English took place. Walked through the battlefield.

In Inverness, I posted my visa application (which was going to allow me to continue living and working in the UK) after eventually finding a carpark and the post office - damn one way streets.
We decided to drive on a circuit around Loch Ness. Stopped at Fort Augustus to check out the Caledonian Canal with the locks. Saw some beautiful views, Urquhart castle.


Headed to Dornoch where we were spending the night, lots of bridges on the way. Had dessert at the local pub, nearly had Chinese takeaways as Grace was craving some but decided against it in the end.

Stirling & Scone

Today we drove to get close to the castle, and then walked up the hill.

We spent the morning at the castle, and did a guided tour though I found the guide difficult to understand. Saw the great kitchens and tapestry studio.

We drove onto Perth and visited Scone (pronounced Skoon) palace and gardens. This is where the Stone of Scone was found? for the coronation of the king/queen.

The weather was better but still cloudy. We continued to Newtonmore where we were spending the night. We had a pub dinner at the hotel playing old 80s songs.

Scotland - Falkirk

First day of our 10 day tour of Scotland, beginning with the long drive from London, why drive you might ask? Well flying would have meant going through an airport which is a fairly unpleasant experience, the train would have taken almost as long, so we figured driving was still a fairly cost effective way to get there and since we needed a car to get around anyway it wouldn't be that much extra for a couple more days, never mind the fact that we were finishing our tour on a bank holiday and there didn't appear to be a rental car place in Scotland which is open on that day!
We got a car with a GPS, we didn't ask for one it just came with one!



We arrived at Falkirk mid afternoon. It was cold, rainy and miserable. We saw the wheel in operation (once). We had a hot dog for lunch from one of the food stalls - it wasn't very nice, we were just desperate for food I think.
First stop Falkirk wheel, I've been wanting to see this ever since a guy at Beca showed me a picture of it a few years ago.




We drove onto to Stirling, and checked into our B&B. We had dinner at Hermans which was very nice, lovely lamb rack and schnitzel. It was still raining as we made our way back to the B&B