Highlights north of Inverness?
Jan 10th, 2019, 11:15 AM
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Highlights north of Inverness?
It might be that we will take a Nat Geo Lord of the Glens cruise in August (maybe arrive Edinburgh early so we could see the Tattoo)
The Cruise would end at Inverness Airport (bussed there from Kyle of Lochalsh) where we were thinking of renting a car and driving north from Inverness along the North Coast 500 with side trips as suggested.
We would not drive the most southwestern part, having been in that area before, but head back to Inverness from Ullapool
Probably 5-7 days?
The Cruise would end at Inverness Airport (bussed there from Kyle of Lochalsh) where we were thinking of renting a car and driving north from Inverness along the North Coast 500 with side trips as suggested.
We would not drive the most southwestern part, having been in that area before, but head back to Inverness from Ullapool
Probably 5-7 days?
Jan 10th, 2019, 04:06 PM
#4
Five or seven days would be more than ample, maybe even too much. But I agree with historytraveler, IMO it's among the most, if not THE most scenic area of Scotland.
A few years ago on a trip to visit friends in Edinburgh, I found myself with just a couple of free days which I used to do a VERY high speed tour of the Highlands,visiting a few places I hadn't seen in some years. I did a brief trip report - Micro trip report - a few days in Scotland - which now has a bunch of broken photo links, so I'll re-post the second day's narrative here, and will insert some of the same pictures now that that's possible. I stayed at a bland but perfectly comfortable Holiday Inn in Inverness; I generally don't like the idea of using Inverness as a base (it's a pleasant but not especially attractive nor interesting place) but it was convenient in this case. Here's the old post -
-----
Overnight I decided to amend today’s plan to stay a little farther east then originally intended in order to avoid some bad weather (which never came as it turned out) but also to re-visit (after something like 40 years) one of the loveliest, and I suspect the loneliest, roads in Britain, so unnoticed that it doesn’t even rate a “B” designation, and Google calls it “unknown.”
But first I traveled north from Inverness to the Struie Hill Road, a shortcut to the inner portions of the beautiful Dornoch Firth and then up the lovely and lonely Strath Carron, to Croick Church.
Dornoch Firth from Struie Hill
A bit of relevant history: After the Highland rebellions of the 18th Century (the last of which was led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, who tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the Stuarts and Catholicism in Britain) the dominant English (with plenty of Scottish help) determined to undo the clan system and its traditional Highland economy.
That economy was based on cattle and small farming, both labor-intensive. By dividing up the clan lands into giant estates, owned typically by absentee English nobility, and then introducing sheep farming as the dominant activity – way less labor-intensive than cattle – the population of the Highland glens was too large for the economy to support, so the estate owners, with government help and the connivance of the (protestant) church, set about “clearing” the Highlands. People (who had lived in these areas for thousands of years) were summarily evicted and made to move to the coast to become fishermen (which they had never been) or to the growing cities (Glasgow) or to Ireland (hence “Scotch Irish”) or to the New World, often the colonies of Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia (hence much of the music.) The Clearances began in the late 18th Century and continued until the mid-19th.
Back to Croick. In the mid-1840s, the Clearances reached Strath Carron, and a large number of evicted families were encamped in the Croick churchyard awaiting transport to the North Sea coast or beyond. While there, the families scratched messages in the church’s windows, the most heartbreaking of which declares that the dispossessed were “the wicked generation” – words put into them by the fundamentalist preachers who were quick to blame the victims rather than the perpetrators, who of course were paying their stipends.
The church
The messages -
The leftovers -
Of course not everybody in Strath Carron suffered in the 19th Century –
So then I moved on up to the far north of Scotland, traveling to Dun Dornadilla via this little, remote and gorgeous road, nothing but damsel flies from the river, a few sheep bleating, and the wind for company. There it sits where it has for – what? – a couple thousand years at least. Was it a fort? A “safe house?” Nobody knows, but everybody agrees that setting the triangular stone over the entrance was one macho task for people with blue faces or whatever.
These straths and glens give testimony to the ancientness of this land. People have been living here since the Stone Age, and a few still do. Continuity and all that.
I drove up to where this road intersects with the northernmost road in Britain, near Loch Eriboll, then over to the Kyle of Tongue and its village, then back down past stunning Ben Loyal, to Altnaharra, Lairg, out to the coast and back into Inverness.
A marvelous, gorgeous day, with a lot of ghosts.
Map - https://goo.gl/maps/MXLrqqdtRCB2
-------
As far as the North Coast 500 is concerned, note this is a creation of the Scottish Tourist Board, but in general it's a terrific route. There are lots of highlights, including the wild northwestern coast, Smoo Cave at Durness, and some very lonely country along the northern Sutherland coast and into Caithness. The North Sea coast south is less spectacular as you go toward Dornoch, a very worthy place for a day, including a visit to whisky holy ground at the Glenmorangie distillery near Tain. Dornoch also has one of the oldest golf courses in Scotland, and nearby Skibo Castle, built by Andrew Carnegie, has hosted numerous celebrity weddings. Dornoch was the site of the last witch burning in Scotland, Outlander notwithstanding.
One thing you might consider (something I'd do in a heartbeat) is take the ferry over to Orkney. You can go from Gills Bay near John O'Groats over to St. Margaret's Hope on South Ronaldsay, then drive up to Kirkwall and visit some amazing sights/sites like the Ring of Brodgar (standing stones.) This is a definitely off-the-beaten-path option, one that I'd give strong consideration to taking, even if it means truncating your NC500 drive by a day or two. Map - https://goo.gl/maps/KzxpUNQzsg32
http://www.pentlandferries.co.uk/
Just a thought, anyway.
A few years ago on a trip to visit friends in Edinburgh, I found myself with just a couple of free days which I used to do a VERY high speed tour of the Highlands,visiting a few places I hadn't seen in some years. I did a brief trip report - Micro trip report - a few days in Scotland - which now has a bunch of broken photo links, so I'll re-post the second day's narrative here, and will insert some of the same pictures now that that's possible. I stayed at a bland but perfectly comfortable Holiday Inn in Inverness; I generally don't like the idea of using Inverness as a base (it's a pleasant but not especially attractive nor interesting place) but it was convenient in this case. Here's the old post -
-----
Overnight I decided to amend today’s plan to stay a little farther east then originally intended in order to avoid some bad weather (which never came as it turned out) but also to re-visit (after something like 40 years) one of the loveliest, and I suspect the loneliest, roads in Britain, so unnoticed that it doesn’t even rate a “B” designation, and Google calls it “unknown.”
But first I traveled north from Inverness to the Struie Hill Road, a shortcut to the inner portions of the beautiful Dornoch Firth and then up the lovely and lonely Strath Carron, to Croick Church.
Dornoch Firth from Struie Hill
A bit of relevant history: After the Highland rebellions of the 18th Century (the last of which was led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, who tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the Stuarts and Catholicism in Britain) the dominant English (with plenty of Scottish help) determined to undo the clan system and its traditional Highland economy.
That economy was based on cattle and small farming, both labor-intensive. By dividing up the clan lands into giant estates, owned typically by absentee English nobility, and then introducing sheep farming as the dominant activity – way less labor-intensive than cattle – the population of the Highland glens was too large for the economy to support, so the estate owners, with government help and the connivance of the (protestant) church, set about “clearing” the Highlands. People (who had lived in these areas for thousands of years) were summarily evicted and made to move to the coast to become fishermen (which they had never been) or to the growing cities (Glasgow) or to Ireland (hence “Scotch Irish”) or to the New World, often the colonies of Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia (hence much of the music.) The Clearances began in the late 18th Century and continued until the mid-19th.
Back to Croick. In the mid-1840s, the Clearances reached Strath Carron, and a large number of evicted families were encamped in the Croick churchyard awaiting transport to the North Sea coast or beyond. While there, the families scratched messages in the church’s windows, the most heartbreaking of which declares that the dispossessed were “the wicked generation” – words put into them by the fundamentalist preachers who were quick to blame the victims rather than the perpetrators, who of course were paying their stipends.
The church
The messages -
The leftovers -
Of course not everybody in Strath Carron suffered in the 19th Century –
So then I moved on up to the far north of Scotland, traveling to Dun Dornadilla via this little, remote and gorgeous road, nothing but damsel flies from the river, a few sheep bleating, and the wind for company. There it sits where it has for – what? – a couple thousand years at least. Was it a fort? A “safe house?” Nobody knows, but everybody agrees that setting the triangular stone over the entrance was one macho task for people with blue faces or whatever.
These straths and glens give testimony to the ancientness of this land. People have been living here since the Stone Age, and a few still do. Continuity and all that.
I drove up to where this road intersects with the northernmost road in Britain, near Loch Eriboll, then over to the Kyle of Tongue and its village, then back down past stunning Ben Loyal, to Altnaharra, Lairg, out to the coast and back into Inverness.
A marvelous, gorgeous day, with a lot of ghosts.
Map - https://goo.gl/maps/MXLrqqdtRCB2
-------
As far as the North Coast 500 is concerned, note this is a creation of the Scottish Tourist Board, but in general it's a terrific route. There are lots of highlights, including the wild northwestern coast, Smoo Cave at Durness, and some very lonely country along the northern Sutherland coast and into Caithness. The North Sea coast south is less spectacular as you go toward Dornoch, a very worthy place for a day, including a visit to whisky holy ground at the Glenmorangie distillery near Tain. Dornoch also has one of the oldest golf courses in Scotland, and nearby Skibo Castle, built by Andrew Carnegie, has hosted numerous celebrity weddings. Dornoch was the site of the last witch burning in Scotland, Outlander notwithstanding.
One thing you might consider (something I'd do in a heartbeat) is take the ferry over to Orkney. You can go from Gills Bay near John O'Groats over to St. Margaret's Hope on South Ronaldsay, then drive up to Kirkwall and visit some amazing sights/sites like the Ring of Brodgar (standing stones.) This is a definitely off-the-beaten-path option, one that I'd give strong consideration to taking, even if it means truncating your NC500 drive by a day or two. Map - https://goo.gl/maps/KzxpUNQzsg32
http://www.pentlandferries.co.uk/
Just a thought, anyway.
Last edited by Gardyloo; Jan 10th, 2019 at 04:11 PM.
Jan 12th, 2019, 11:29 AM
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Gardy, great pictures and information! Thank you!
We're not 100& sure we're going to Scotland as the Nat Geo trip we wanted is already sold out
We could go on another one in September, thoughts on weather in September?
I found a nice self catering cottage in Dornoch, with the idea that we would do the southern part of Gardy's route (and Dunrobin Castle, Glenmorangie ) from Dornoch. It has that all important washer and dryer for before or after we take the cruise (if we do) Dornoch looks like a nice town.
We could do the upper part of Gardy's route from Tongue (?)
Orkney would be a definite. I was going to look up in the cruise section of any other cruises that specialize in the Scottish Islands (small ship cruises) Any suggestions welcomed.
I'm hoping we will know what we are doing by the beginning of the week!
We're not 100& sure we're going to Scotland as the Nat Geo trip we wanted is already sold out
We could go on another one in September, thoughts on weather in September?
I found a nice self catering cottage in Dornoch, with the idea that we would do the southern part of Gardy's route (and Dunrobin Castle, Glenmorangie ) from Dornoch. It has that all important washer and dryer for before or after we take the cruise (if we do) Dornoch looks like a nice town.
We could do the upper part of Gardy's route from Tongue (?)
Orkney would be a definite. I was going to look up in the cruise section of any other cruises that specialize in the Scottish Islands (small ship cruises) Any suggestions welcomed.
I'm hoping we will know what we are doing by the beginning of the week!
Jan 12th, 2019, 01:13 PM
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Regarding Orkney, I don't think there are any small ship cruises but there are ferries that will get you across the Pentland Strait at John O' Groats where a bus waits for passengers and does a tour around the main island hitting the highlights. See Orkney Island Day Tours. Also, Go-Orkney www.orknet.co.uk/ orkney-tours. For more information www.visitorkney.com
Jan 14th, 2019, 04:29 AM
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Well, I hope to revive this thread next year or the folowwing year (or start a new one) We definitely want to return to Scotland, have been there twice, but so much more to discover!
And we did decide we really want to return in late June/early July so we can visit the Scottish Game Fair again.
I'm headed to the Italy forum to find out more about Puglia
Thanks again for the help, this trip is already imbedded in my mind!
And we did decide we really want to return in late June/early July so we can visit the Scottish Game Fair again.
I'm headed to the Italy forum to find out more about Puglia
Thanks again for the help, this trip is already imbedded in my mind!
Jan 14th, 2019, 08:45 AM
#13
It is no more likely for a lot of rain (or less rain) in September than in August . . . or June . . . or May. It can be cold, cool, rainy, warm, dry, sunny - or all of the above any time between early May and late September.
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