Took the “scenic” aka passing place heaven, route to Ullapool along the coast and back routes Oops forgot to take a before picture… remnants of langoustines and crab claws , delicious. At the Seafood Shack in Ullapool, highly recommended Arrived just as the rain started
Ying finally found her seafood…. lobster at Delilahs in Lochinver Then an afternoon walking 5 miles up a gorgeous salmon river to the falls. A couple of fly fishers came out to demonstrate their casting as we drove past (slowly and enviously)
This time at Achmelvich just next to the campsite (100m) but shrouded in mist. Signal poor so one pic only today but extraordinary scenery on the way down And now some extraordinary scenery… The road from Durness fell into broadly three phases… The first section from Durness was a boggy wilderness along single track/passing place …
And after a lovely seafood linguine at The Craggan Hotel a fantastic sunset, oddly with rainbow opposite!
Crossing the northern moorland past Doonreay and beyond really started to feel like an adventure with Ben Loyal and Ben Hope looming darkly in the background. Although the moorland might look like many others the presence of peat bogs and lochs transformed the appearance to something different At Farr we stopped for a very decent …
The day started well with breaks in the cloud and good visibility across the bay. Skeins of geese trailed across the sky commuting to ?Canada We stopped at the Castle of Mey (holiday castle of Queen Mother) and visited the walled gardens NB interrupted blog as ran out of data allowance for 24hrs (blasted 24Mb …
We decided to brave the rain and headed to the east coast town of Wick which looked interesting on a previous drive though We found the interestingly named Wickers World cafe by the harbour which server us up pea and ham soup and scampi then wandered through the town past the oddly named restaurant called …
Heading North we stopped at Helmsdale, a small port/harbour. We had coffee at the Timespan museum and Ying had a very local cuisine – fried plantain!!! On to John O’Groats, which I thought was a place but seemed to just be a destination but “had to be done” We stopped at Dunnet Bay, where it …
Today started grey and deteriorated into “Cornish mist”. We couldn’t see Ben Bhraggie let alone climb it! A walk along the coast from Golspie’s “Award winning” beach left us wondering what the award was, but then joined the John O’Groats Walk to Dubrovnik (Dunrobin – spellchecker!!!) Castle was very pleasant amid the Sea Buckthorn bushes …
The journey north saw the beginning of NC500 signs (in two directions!) and our first stop for lunch at Dornoch and “Milk and Honey” for very nice sandwiches and soups (courgette and potato, Thai carrot). Dornoch holds links to Anne’s family in the Cathedral and was a very interesting place to explore with side streets …