Black Isle

October 16, 2012

After another wonderful meal, fresh baked oatmeal bread, scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, fresh fruit, white pudding on French toast and bacon, we headed out for the Black Isle. 

There was a hard frost last night.  It was .5 centigrade when we got to our frosty car.  We drove through Tore, Roskill, Avoch to Fortrose.  We pulled over to see the Fort Rose Cathedral.  It was built in the early 1200s and was added onto in the 1400s.  This is what is left.  This area appears to belong to the chieftain MacKenzie.  There were a lot of Mackenzies buried at this Cathedral. 

We pulled off to see Chanonry Point.  The road to get to the point is through the middle of a golf course.  There is one hole where the golfer must make sure no cars are coming before teeing off. 

While driving to the Crommarty Ferry we were listening to the BBC radio.  Evidently this is the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile crisis.  The radio played the original broadcasts explaining to people in hiding what to do with any dead bodies.  Yikes! 

We got to Crommarty to find that the ferry is closed for the winter.  Oh well.

We drove around through Jemimaville taking a side trip to Newhall Point which is on Udale Bay.  Across the Bay is Invergorden a large oil platform repair site.  Also, cruise ships now come in there.  Did you know that many birds come to Udale Bay during the winter because it’s warmer than Iceland, Greenland and the Artic?  Warm is relative!

We took the Conan Bridge over the Cromarty Firth.  We drive through Alness, Kildary, Tain stopping at the Glenmorangie Distillery.  We watched the movie about the distillery, but didn’t go on the tour.  

We stopped at a view point overlooking Dornach Firth.  Beautiful!

We were getting hungry and decided to head over to Beauly to see if there was a place to eat.  We drove through Ardross, Stittenham, Dingwall, crossing over the weak bridge (!!) on through Mary Bank, Ross & Cromaty to Beauly.  We had lunch at “The Comm” pub.  While at the pub I took this picture for Jeff Carroll and Jeff Kaminski.

Then we walked over to the Campbell’s Tartan store.  This is place is a piece of nostalgia.  Two sisters run the store and they are dressed to the nines in beautiful tartan skirts.  You can buy very nice tartan plaid fabric, jackets, pants, skirts, etc.  These articles of clothing will last you a lifetime.  Before we left Beauly we walked through the remains of the Beauly Priory.  Again, it was built in the 1300s with many Mackenzies buried there.  There is one MacKenzie buried in a crypt dated 1465.  Before Columbus sailed for America! 

We came back to our B&B in Strethpeffer, or Steppenwolf, as I call it.  We’ll relax this evening, write the blogs and get ready for our new adventure tomorrow. 

We miss you!  Take care, bc and gc.