Scotland Autumn Dispatch - Friday, 31st October 2014

 Dear Friends, on Wednesday we rose early, packed the breakfast we had been given by our affable hosts and joined the queue in the dark at 7.15 for the first ferry from Oban to the Isle of Mull. Our trip was delayed by 15 minutes as one of the engines was malfunctioning, but eventually we got away safely and arrived at Mull at 9am. Our Tom-Tom told us we could drive to the ferry point for Iona in just over an hour, and as the ferry left at 10.15am, we decided to give it a go. The car ferry wasn’t sailing, but there was a cute little pedestrian ferry, which we duly caught, after discovering that, in spite of lots of signs asking if we had paid for our car-parking, there was no charge today. Ditto on the ferry – we all got our money ready, but no-one collected it, and the Captain suggested he might do so on the way back or he might not!

  

Sunset from our windows in Greystones the night before

We were so pleased we couldn’t take the car – it would have been unnecessary on this beautiful, peaceful little island. You could ‘feel the serenity’ the moment we landed. There were about 20 of us and we all headed off up the hill towards the Abbey, some of us stopping on the way to visit the ruined Nunnery, which I thought was very evocative indeed.

Then off a little further to the Abbey, where we paid our money, got our headsets and strolled around for the next 90 minutes. There is something very special about this place that St Columba established in the 6^thC AD, and we were aware of how lucky we were to be visiting it. I particularly loved the church, which is probably the fifth or sixth on that site, only the well and some portions of the pilgrims’ path survives from Columba’s time.

Ferns growing on the nave walls (L) & me looking out from St Columba’s Mound, where he did his writing

We had another free ferry ride back to the Isle of Mull and set off to find Gruline, where our host had told us there was a tribute to Governor MacQuarie. We drove for over an hour along some of the prettiest coastline you could wish to see – avoiding sheep on the road; bird-watchers with cameras set up on the road; other cars, and even a lost cyclist, all sharing one of the narrowest strips of roadway you could ever see.

Finally we arrived at Gruline and much to our amazement found this sign for starters: so we parked the car and walked the 500m to the MacQuarie Mausoleum, through three private properties (shutting the gates carefully behind us) until we came upon a very special dry-stone walled garden.

We had no idea that MacQuarie was born on Mull and that he came back here to live out his final days. He, his wife, and their son & daughter are all buried here and the site is looked after very well. We even saw some deer just outside the gate you can see at the back.

On our way back to the ferry point we stopped at the capital of Mull, Tobermory, which is a very picturesque town full of colourful homes, and visited their Museum, which is an absolute treasure trove of information, photos and artefacts. We then joined the queue for the ferry, which was 15 minutes late as it hadn’t made up any time during the day, and finally arrived back here in Oban at 6pm. We parked our car near Ee-Usk Restaurant and went back there for dinner and more importantly a bottle of McLaren Vale Shiraz, which hit the spot after our busy day.

Our view of the Coliseum, Oban, from our room at night

Yesterday, after Wes rang Barbara, and I left a message for Leanne, we enjoyed another yummy breakfast before heading off for circular drive around various spots within a radius of Oban. We had hoped to go for a long walk but it was raining most of the day which put paid to that idea. Wes spent a lot of time deciding where we would go and we were very pleased with what we saw.

We started by travelling over Connel Bridge, (which goes over the Falls of Lora and is a single lane bridge governed by traffic lights on each end). Then on to view Castle Stalker, made famous by Monty Python’s Holy Grail film.

We stopped at a café in the grounds of the Dragon’s Tooth Golf Course, just outside of Glencoe, where Wes enjoyed the best coffee and a yummy hedgehog, while I had some lemon & ginger tea as we watched the rain come down. Then on to Glencoe and down a little lane where we found a magnificent MacDonald Monument, hidden away as all these things are and almost impossible to get within coo-ee of unless it is fine and dry and you don’t mind a bit of a walk.

Our final stop was the magnificent folly that is St Conan’s Kirk, in beautiful Loch Awe. This is the third time we have driven past this sheltered building and we decided we just had to go inside and we are so pleased we did.

Three internal & three external views of this wondrous building.

Back in Oban it was time for a late lunch/early dinner, so we went to Rick Stein’s favourite fish & chip shop, where the chef was on his lunch break, so we settled for scampi, chips, peas and salad, and came home with a bottle of shiraz and some Ecclefechan tarts.

Today is going to be wet again and all the castles are closing, the ferry timetables are changing and Scotland is preparing to go into hibernation for Winter, even though there is still a month to go officially. We have loved spending Autumn here – the colours are superb and even now, some roads we drive along are still a riot of russet, yellow, green, & orange, with the greenest grass you will ever see.

The MacDonald Monument as seen through the mist & rain

Scotland Autumn Dispatch - Tuesday, 28th October 2014

Dear Everyone, I left you on Sunday morning still in awe of the experience we had enjoyed the night before at Michelin-starred Three Chimneys Restaurant in Colbost. What I omitted to mention was the incredible atmosphere in the kitchen at the end of the night when everyone looked at each other, smiled as if to say we nailed it and proceeded to finish cleaning up before heading out for a well-earned drink or two. I had left my umbrella there so we drove back that morning to retrieve it and to see it all properly in the daylight.

We drove around the area along some very narrow roads until we reached Neist Point (the most westerly point on the Isle of Skye), which looks out onto the ocean with waterfalls cascading from cliffs and wind strong enough to blow you off them. Wes was brave enough to take a photo, but I stayed warm in the car.

Then we headed to Dunvegan to visit the Castle there, but everything in Dunvegan was shut, whether for Sunday, for October or for the season was unclear. It was rather disappointing. Some places open until 31^st October, but others put up the drawbridge in mid-October, which is what had happened. It obviously has quite an effect on this little town, which was very quiet indeed. If it hadn’t been so wet, we would have been tempted to explore the picturesque graveyard and ruined Church.

The rain and wind was so strong that we decided we should retreat back to the warmth of our B&B after finding some oysters or Cullen Skink for a late lunch. All the seafood places were closed in Portree, so as a last resort we visited The Granary Café and were pleasantly surprised with a classy smoked trout & salmon salad which we accompanied by a big pot of weak tea. Perfect!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, listening to classical music, catching up on our emails and photos and planning our trip to Oban the next day.

We have been very concerned to hear that two of our very good friends have been unwell. Robyn let us know that Ian is in hospital suffering complications after what should have been a straightforward procedure, and Warren Pengilly had open-heart surgery last week, which was a very risky operation for him. We are feeling quite helpless being so far away but at least they all know we are thinking of them.

On a lighter note, Gail White sent a brief message when she read my last Dispatch to tell me that Rebus has stopped for a pot of tea at the Whistle Stop Café in Innerleithen, where we had tea and scones hot out of the oven, and which we recommended that Leigh and Simon visit on their way back to Inverness on Sunday afternoon.

We woke on Monday morning ready to tackle a pleasant drive from the Isle of Skye to Oban, with detours around the South of the Island and possibly lunch somewhere near Fort William or Glencoe, which we both love. Our hosts advised us that there had been landslides on the main road leading to Oban, and Mark wrote out a substitute route for us and advised us to take it. As Mark works for the Roads Department, we decided to take his advice and abandoned all thoughts of a leisurely drive as his solution involved just under 7 hours driving.

The view from our window at the Old Croft House B&B

Wes drove through some of the heaviest most persistent rain we have ever encountered in our lives – a bit like an Asian storm only never-ending. We were often on single track roads with passing places, but as nearly all Scottish drivers are patient and polite, we didn’t have any issues. Water was often over the road and the lochs seemed so full, we thought they would soon spill over as well.

Eventually we arrived here at Oban and discovered the road to our B&B was closed for repairs, so abandoned the owners’ careful instructions and let Jane on our Tom-Tom guide us there. Oban is hilly and most of the roads are single winding lanes, so it was a hairy 5 minutes or so until we parked outside the beautiful and imposing Greystones. We were warmly welcomed and shown to our spacious tower suite, where we gazed in amazement at the stunning views from seven windows, marvelled at the huge bathroom with an enormous bath as its centrepiece with a walk-in glass fronted shower behind it.

Our turret room at dusk as we head off for an early dinner

After we unpacked we headed straight to the Oban Whisky Shop, where we were served by Grant, who chose a perfect whisky for Wes last year, and after a few tastings did the same again this year. Then onto dinner at the Waterfront Seafood Restaurant – oysters & scallops with an Aussie pinot grigio.

Today we were awake early and after a long chat with Leanne, the first in the breakfast room, which has lovely views of the water, being directly under our room, and enjoyed a very yummy meal. Our only criticism is that the room needs some classical music or something to stop you being conscious of every sound you make using cutlery and plates. Our host is too busy to stop and chat, which means there is an impersonality about it all. However, I loved my smoked haddock kedgeree and Wes’s smoked salmon with scrambled eggs was perfectly cooked and presented.

Last night’s oysters with lemon & tabasco – yum!

We set off for a walk down into town with a few chores to be done – I am running out of conditioner, we needed to cash some Aussie dollars, I wanted a postcard stamp (not the easiest thing to buy and we couldn’t remember where the PO was and didn’t want to go to the main one in Tesco’s) and we were keen to book a ferry to Mull & Iona for tomorrow. We achieved all these things, plus a beautiful woodland walk to Dunroille Castle, which was closed in spite of four notices saying it was open.

We opted for a late lunch at Ee-usk on the Waterfront and watched the ferries come and go. Then off to buy a bottle of tempranillo and some cheese for tonight and we came home. We have an early start in the morning – the ferry leaves at 8.00am and we need to be there at 7.30 to get the car on board. We are going to leave the car at Mull and go straight to Iona, see what we can of the Abbey etc and spend the rest of the time in Mull before catching the last ferry back at 5.00pm. Our hosts will provide us with a packed breakfast to take with us, as their dining room doesn’t open until 8.30am.

We found sitting in our turret very relaxing with five views of Oban to choose from, the changing sky and sea to contemplate and now the whisky and wine to enjoy. It is very sad to think this magic trip is coming to an end next Monday when we reluctantly leave Oban and drive to Glasgow to catch our plane home again. The sun came out this afternoon and is expected to put in an appearance tomorrow, so we should have a good crossing and stay dry for our islands visit. 

Scotland Autumn Dispatch - Sunday, 26th October 2014

Dear Everyone, the Isle of Skye is wild and woolly and we have gone from a three-room, two-bathroom cottage to a tiny one-room B&B with occasional difficulties with Wi-Fi. Our hosts, Sam & Mark, are very environmentally conscious and can’t do enough for us – however it would be good to be able to stretch one’s legs every now and again!

We left the Black Isle early on Thursday morning and set off along the scenic route to Skye. The whole thing was delightful with beautiful scenery, lots of water, and some fun experiences. We had to stop at Shieldaig to let sheep wander along the road; at Lochcarron we took a side street and found ourselves driving through the golf course. At the very end, where people watch for dolphins, there is an old lighthouse, an ice-cream van and lots and lots of dogs, including Sandy the 17-week old Labrador.

 The delightful Whistle Stop Café at Kinlochewe where we had tea, coffee & scones

Wes had decided to stop at Plockton, (site of Hamish Macbeth series) for a seafood lunch, and we wound our way into this pretty little village, found the Plockton General Store & Restaurant, and joined lots of others with the same idea. Afterwards we went for an hour’s walk around the village and finally headed for Portree and our B&B, which is about 5km out of town.

Wes in love with this boat at Plockton 

On Friday we set off for a walk after breakfast as we weren’t meeting Leigh & Simon until midday at the Eilean Donan Castle, about 75 minutes away from us. We went on a delightful walk to St Columba’s Isle in the River Snizort, which is a beautiful little island, where allegedly St Columba lived at some time, and where 28 Chieftains are buried. It is very green, with lots of haphazard headstones and remains of an old Cathedral. We just loved it.

After that we walked up the hill to a Pictish Stone, one of only two in Scotland and managed to get very wet walking back home.

It was wonderful to see Leigh & Simon who were waiting in the café at Eilean Donan Castle as the weather was wild, wet and cold. We all needed a hot drink before setting over across the bridge to tour the Castle. You are not allowed to take photographs inside, but it has been beautifully restored in the 1930s and we felt very privileged to be able to experience it, regardless of the weather.

We decided to take Leigh & Simon to Plockton and visit a local pub for beer, red wine and a good catch-up chat, followed by another walk around.

Then off to Portree to find their B&B, which is even further from town than ours and is operated by friends of Sam & Mark.

We picked Leigh & Simon up at 6pm and headed into Portree to find dinner somewhere. The first place we stopped was fully booked, but we found a table in the Seabreeze, where most of us had mussels followed by sea bass, and we drank our way through a couple of bottles of a particularly yummy NZ Sauvignon Blanc. We were home in bed by 8.30pm and asleep not long afterwards!

Yesterday we collected Leigh & Simon to do a tour of the North & East part of Skye, which they had boned up on with help from their B&B owners. Firstly we went back to St Columba’s Isle, where I wanted to tie one of Viva’s scarves in memory of her love of Scotland and particularly the Outer Hebrides. The weather is too wild for us to get over to those islands, but we thought this little island was perfect, and after a discussion with Leanne, who agreed, we went ahead. The scarf is tied to a tree near the burial site of the 28 Chieftains with the sound of water nearby, a lovely spot indeed.

Wes & I by the tree on St Columba’s Isle with Viva’s scarf, very well-tied in a sailor’s knot, behind us

Leigh did a wonderful job of navigating and we found Flora McDonald’s gravesite and discovered she was buried in the sheet Bonnie Prince Charlie slept in!!!!!

Then onto Port Gobhaig with a ruined church in nearly the Northernmost tip of the Island, which was sunny, but wild and woolly.

The three gravestones in this tiny area are all Ewen McDonald – great-grandfather, grandfather & father – quite an unusual sight.

We stopped at the Flodigarry Hotel in the Skye, where we could have tea and coffees out of the wind and enjoyed chatting to the young barman. Then back home via the East Coast through Portree to our respective B&Bs for a rest before going to dinner at the famous Three Chimneys Restaurant, where Gillie tells us she had the best scallops in her entire life!

What a treat this meal was last night – Leigh had arranged for a taxi to pick us up as we were about 30 minutes from the restaurant. Our taxi driver was very informative, chatty and polite and even opened the door of the restaurant for us. We walked in to an informal lounge area where we met Sarah & Paul Stanger from Edinburgh, who were sharing our table. We all enjoyed a glass of champagne, then donned our coats and went for a walk to the restaurant proper. What a thrill to walk through the restaurant, into the kitchen, where we 6 were seated at the Chef’s Table.

We were waited on hand and foot while all the activity went on next to us. Our Taste of Skye Menu was 8 courses and we opted to have the selected wines with each course, which was perfect.

Those smiles never left our lips – L-R Paul, Leigh, Simon, Wes, Karen & Sarah

Colbost Skink with egg yolk & haggis

King Scallop in Red Wine

View into the kitchen from our table

The highlight was being invited into the kitchen just before the end to watch our Hot Marmalade Pudding Soufflé being prepared by two of the chefs. We loved every minute of this very special treat – thanks to Leigh & Simon for arranging it and taking us there as their guests. They are off home later today so we won’t see each other, while we have to drive back to the Three Chimneys as I left our only umbrella there! It’s just the day for a drive without having to get out of the car.

Scotland Autumn Dispatch - Wednesday, 22nd October 2014

Dear Everyone, when I finished writing on Tuesday, we were waiting for the rain to settle down so we could head off for a big drive, main destination, Watten, which is where Viva & Jennifer’s Munro forebears come from. Jennifer and her daughter, Leigh, had done lots of detective work some years ago and armed with that information, we decided to find what we could. Watten is a small inland village between Wick & Thurso, about 90 minutes’ drive from where we are staying.

We followed Jeff’s directions and found the Old Mill, which is still standing, although in ruins. As the weather was being dictated to by the hurricane in this area, we didn’t linger long at Watten, which was bigger than we expected, but headed off to Wick in the hope of a hot drink and a break from travelling.

Windswept Karen outside the Old Mill and below a house for Leigh to buy while she does up the Mill…the estate agents are also relatives 

The big joke in Scotland is that everyone drives through Wick and we fully understood after we had parked the car, used the toilets (under 5cm of rainwater) and gone for a walk. We found the answer after we left, without the hot drink, as we discovered a huge Tesco’s on the outskirts of town. It is clean, easy to get around, and petrol prices were reasonable as well. I hadn’t wanted to go into a Tesco, but nothing would have dragged me into most of the few remaining open shops in Wick. The petrol station manager had married a Munro and moved here and Wes was able to tell him the history of the Old Mill, which he didn’t know! Serendipitous. He advised us against driving to John O’Groats, but we decided to go ahead, as we have visited Land’s End.

The sea was wild and crashing over the pier and we could just see the Orkneys in the distance through the mist. There were no ferries going over today. We are so pleased we went – it is very different countryside and although the Lonely Planet guide suggested there was nothing here, there is a lovely new building offering meals, a few shops and respite from the wind and rain.

We decided not to stop as we had a long trip home and we did want to detour at the little village of Doll. My grandmother, Viva & Jeff’s mother, was always called Doll as she was born so close to Christmas her brother Frank thought Santa had brought him a doll. Her real name was Mary Magdalen, but I don’t think I knew that until she had died. As you can see below, the landscape is wild & woolly, but there were lots of friendly sheep & cows and even a house with a maze in its front garden.

The bad weather was punctuated by bursts of blinding sunshine, but mostly it was wet, windy and didn’t get above 6° while we were out. We stopped at the Storehouse of Foulis, a delightful small farm shop and purchased a few more bits and pieces to tide us over until we left for Skye.

One thing that made the driving very pleasurable was listening to BBC Classic FM and particularly in the morning when the presenter is John Suchet, brother of David. We could pick similarities in his voice and I googled him to be sure. The only downside is the ads, which we are not used to on our ABC – however they come in bursts of 6, played in random order, so I just turn the radio off for 4 minutes and give them a miss. It is that or recite them all off by heart as there only seem to be 6 different ones!

We are constantly amused by the difficulties we encounter when we want to stop. Certainly there are plenty of Passing Places, especially on single lane tracks and we are very appreciative of them. However, occasionally we need to stop and change our destination on the Tom-Tom. If Wes pulls into a bus stop, up looms a bus from out of the mist; if he swerves into a disused yard somewhere, someone is trying to reverse out of it; if he pulls into a large driveway, the next car wants to go up it, and if he turns into a side lane with a view to stopping, the next three cars all turn into that same lane.

All the beaches we saw on our trip along the coast were full of stones, except for the lovely area around Dunnet and Dunnet Bay, where we saw sand, and even sand dunes, although they were covered in long waving grasses. This mostly harsh, unforgiving area must have been very difficult to live in and no wonder lots of Scots decided to try their luck in the new worlds. How brave they were!

The flow from the Watten Loch to the Old Mill, which is in the distance on your left

We decided to make today a rest day, as there is lots of driving to do tomorrow. I did enjoy not getting dressed, drinking umpteen pots of Jasmine tea, while Wes lit the fire and worked on the laptop and read and slept in no particular order. I had been anxious about our friend, Jane Knox, who is not very well, in spite of her pacemaker and it was good to get some emails from her and to find she & her husband, David, are definitely coming to Melbourne for Days 2 &3 of the Boxing Day Test. I was able to get us some good reserved seats in the MCC area even though the tickets had been on sale for some time. Australia is playing India, so it should be a lively, colourful and loud affair!

We are heading off tomorrow to spend 4 nights in Portree on the Isle of Skye, with the very special excitement of meeting up with cousin, Leigh and her husband, Simon, who are spending Friday & Saturday with us. We haven’t seen them since July last year when we caught up with them, Jeff, Kevin, Mike, Kelly & Archie on the occasion of Mike’s 40^th birthday in London while we were doing the disastrous Ashes Test at Lord’s.

Our accommodation is a vegetarian B&B, where we are the only guests, which should be a fun experience. However we don’t know what the Wi-Fi will be like, so I thought I would send this off to you and will be in touch again whenever I can.

Thanks again for emails, Facebook likes and comments, Viber & Skype messages – we both love staying in touch with everyone while we are away and we are both thrilled that so many of our friends and family are following our journey and adding to our enjoyment.

P.S. I have finally seen the Caulfield Cup – what a win by Admire Rakti – looking forward to having a bet on the Cox Plate this Saturday. It does seem strange to be missing all the excitement of the Spring Racing Carnival.

Dinner beckons – smoked salmon, Shiraz, dill herrings, crusty bread & cheese

Scotland Autumn Dispatch - Tuesday, 21st October 2014

Dear Everyone, as those of you reading this will realise, my efforts to email my Dispatch to its usual recipients was a huge failure before we left Edinburgh, and those who belong to the Daylesford Breakfast Group received anything up to 4 emails, with or without attachments. So far everyone has been far too polite to complain to me – perhaps you understood what I was going through – thank you. The minute we walked through the door of our cottage here and turned on the laptop, the Dispatch went through. However, email replies that I sent to Carol, Caroline & Eureka Kennels absolutely refused to launch themselves into the ether, so I went into webmail and sent them from there.

We had a lovely day driving here, although it was a lot of driving for Wes. We had hoped to be on the road shortly after 9am, but it was an hour later, by the time we found a taxi, got to Avis, and filled out a second lot of paperwork when the clerk discovered that we weren’t intending to return the car on 20^th October and that she was giving us someone else’s vehicle. At the desk next to us, a second lot of paperwork was being done for that customer as no-one could find the keys to his car.

Thinking of Celia & Cory as we cross the River Isla

We have a black Vauxhall Corsa and so far it is going very well. Wes has mastered the controls, we eventually worked out reverse and if we could just find the cruise control we would be very happy indeed. We were amused when we filled up with petrol on Sunday and looked everywhere for the fuel release to discover it was opened from the outside!

We stopped at the picturesque town of Blairgowrie for two reasons – one because Blairgowrie, Victoria means so much to us, (our family spent their February holidays there for many years, and later Wes and I shared a wonderful holiday house there with Paul & Sherryn Danaher). Secondly because the last of the Pitlochry plays which was called The Yellow on the Broom dealt with a travelling family who visited Blairgowrie to pick berries. We visited Bradberries Tearooms and enjoyed their wonderful local raspberry jam so much that we bought a jar to keep us going at the Black Isle.

Just loved the strawberry tea cosy & toasted tea cakes & Wes had a very decadent hot chocolate

We drove on, out of our way, to Aberdeen, to remember Joe Anderson, a much-loved Daylesford friend, who was responsible for unlocking the mysteries of Cryptic Crosswords for me, and in return I drove him topless in Teddy5, our black MX5, to the MCG one day to watch St Kilda play Collingwood. Sadly the Saints didn’t win, but he was tickled pink with the experience and I felt I went some way to repaying him. We found the Information Centre, bought a postcard and posted it to his wife, Marie, and can only hope she receives it before we get home!

After some false alarms we eventually found our cottage nestling in the gardens next to Kinkell Castle. For some reason there is no signpost to help you, just a bollard by the entrance which is on a major road, and rather difficult to meander down looking for bollards on the off-chance that the next one is yours!

Wes left me to unpack and went in search of food to get us through the next couple of days – he came back with tomato soup, bread, butter, cheese & red wine, while I spent my time unpacking our suitcases. The ensuite bathroom has a large claw foot bath, but no shower, and the small bathroom with the shower has nowhere to put anything, so we are moving between both to manage. However the cottage is warm, roomy and full of idiosyncrasies, built and furnished as it was by a man about 50 years ago, and not looked at much since then by his descendants.

We were thrilled to discover a Queen Size bed which is most comfortable, with a warm doona. The pillows aren’t too flash, but we’ll manage. The advertised laundry facilities involve a cement trough in the kitchen, which doubles as the kitchen sink and a single small plastic washing line outside. We were unable to turn on the heated towel racks, until Wes accidentally met the gentry on Sunday and they explained to us colonials that we needed to pull down a string in the boiler cupboard – silly us, looking for switches.

Just loved this signpost – none of the advertised places was open by the way!

We got going slowly on Sunday – which was a driving day again, and after a long chat with Leanne; we headed for Wick, where there once were Munros (Viva’s maiden name). However we got waylaid at Dorloch, which is a very pretty town, and completely closed at 11am as everyone was at Church. We headed for the Museum, but it doesn’t open on the weekend, ditto the Information Centre, so took ourselves on a walk instead.

We had read about Helmsdale in our Lonely Planet Guide and decided we just had to have fish and chips for lunch at La Mirage, which was frequented by Barbara Cartland and celebrates her style. It was also recommended by the late Clarissa Dickson Wright, as one of the 5 best fish & chip cafes in the United Kingdom.

Wes having breaded sole with salad, mushy peas and chips – I’ve got the breaded haddock and we both have little bowls of beetroot! Our waiter, Joseph, wants to get involved in music so will spend next year either in Australia on a working holiday or in Thailand staying with monks….as you do.

After lunch, which we enjoyed very much, we headed down the street to the Time Span Museum, which has an interesting illustrated timeline showing what was happening in this little town while major events were occurring in the rest of the world. There was also a very moving tribute to World War I soldiers and sailors from the town; each celebrated with a simple wooden cross made by the local equivalent of a Men’s Shed.

After Helmsdale, we headed on the road to Wick, but were waylaid by the remains of a Clearance Town, Badbea, which was a site to which workers were evicted during the 18^th & 19^th centuries, on very short notice. After that we realised that we were too tired to drive another hour or so to Wick and then face a 3-hour drive home in Scottish mist, so we turned around and drove back here where we could relax for a while instead.

The gentry didn’t think to mention to the Colonials that when they looked out of their windows yesterday morning they would find a large truck and three workmen within spitting distance of their ‘secluded’ cottage. We were having a lazy start to the day, drinking pots of tea and coffee, reading, listening to BBC Classics and enjoying the serenity, before embarking on the day’s planned events. If we had thought to stay inside we very quickly made other plans, and set off for an exploratory tour of the Black Isle and surrounds.

We started off at the Urquhart Old & New Cemeteries, which produced one very interesting headstone that I wish I could show Viva! Two of the people died at Balloan, the first time I have seen that word apart from where I spent the first 8 years of my life @ 34 Balloan Street, Coburg. There is no place called Balloan now, but a Balloan Road in Inverness still exists, so it will go on our list to visit before we leave here I am sure.

Next stop was at Cromarty, where we had morning tea at The Pantry, the same place we stopped last year. We walked by the harbour, bought a second-hand book and set off for Rosemarkie and the Fairy Glen. This is a beautiful walk that we fell in love with last year and it was just as special in Autumn.

After our walk which took about 1.5 hours, we headed off again and turned down a side road offering Chanonry Point.

This delightful detour took us through the golf course and to the beach where there is a disused lighthouse and dolphin watching tours are available. The absolute highlight for us both was meeting Sandy, a 17-week old yellow Labrador full of joie de vivre and happy to make new friends.

Finally we drove to Dingwall, which is the nearest town to where we are staying. Sadly it is a sad little place full of empty shops with a huge Tesco’s on the outskirts no doubt responsible. We did drive up as high as we could to see Hector McDonald’s Monument and discovered it was the cemetery. Lots of the graves were of people who had died too young, including this very sad one.

As we headed for home we found a Farm Shop and indulged in smoked salmon, herring, crusty bread etc for a very decadent early dinner with a bottle of Australian Shiraz.

We woke early to the sound of a storm lashing our cottage – strong winds and rain that eventually died out by 8am. We had decided to travel to the North of Scotland today and provided the roads are OK we will go ahead with that – perhaps not as many single lane roads will be explored.

We were very sad to see the news that Gough Whitlam had died overnight, aged 98. What a wonderful, inspirational statesman he was and we have so much to be grateful for except perhaps the incorrect pronunciation of kilometre!

Sandy the Labrador, Dingwall’s only claim to fame, and the O’Reilly men building outside our front door at the cottage