Pages

Sunday 20 September 2015

Travel: Inverness and the Scottish Highlands - Part 2

I thought I wouldn’t leave it too long before sharing the second half of my holiday… which seems like such a distant memory now.

Anyway, on our third day in Scotland we woke early again, and filled ourselves with another hearty hotel breakfast. Maybe not as hearty as the day before, but hearty nonetheless. Today was the day we were going to travel over to the Black Isle and explore the Fairy Glen. The weather was amazing, we couldn’t have asked for anything better to set off the beautiful colours of the brooks, rivers and waterfalls. You know what, I’m not even going to talk anymore about Fairy Glen, the pictures say it all.








Whilst beautiful, and impressive, Fairy Glen isn’t a long walk. Once we had finished we walked into Rosemarkie, and had a drink in a local pub with 3 old local guys. They were so friendly and chatty, and pointed us down a little side street to Rosemarkie Bay. To say we hadn’t been expecting the gorgeous beach we found would be an understatement. Sapphire blue sea, soft golden sand, amazing rock pools, blazing sunshine and not much of a crowd. It was idyllic, I only wished I had my bikini.

Rosemarkie bay
Rosemarkie Bay

You would never have believed you were standing on a coastline so far North on that beautiful hot day, and after a long walk through the rock pools, and the great volcanic rocks that lie further down the beach, it took us all of our effort to drag ourselves away and back to Inverness.

Rock Pools

We finished off our day with steak dinner in the hotel restaurant, and back early to the room to begin packing for the journey that lay ahead the following day.

Our final morning in Inverness and we chose to spend it in Leakey’s second hand bookshop. I had seen pictures of this book emporium on Pinterest and had put it on my list of places to go in Inverness. I don’t think I could have anticipated the array and choice which lay behind those doors. I was overwhelmed as soon as I went in, just perusing the shelves and trying to come up with an idea of what I might like to buy in such a place. First I was looking for some Edith Sitwell, but, surprisingly there was none (although there was lots of Osbert Sitwell), so instead I turned my attentions to my crafts and hobbies, finally coming away with a fantastic book full of cross stitch patterns.

Leakey's Inverness
How many books?

We set off, but decided to take a different route home to the one we came by, taking in another national park, the Cairngorms. Again, a beautiful hot and bright day lay before us, and really made the beautiful purples, greens and browns of the landscape jump out at us. We were awe struck, and decided to stop off in the ski resort of Aviemore. Whilst it wasn’t ski season, it was evident by the nature of the shops and bars that come winter, this would be a really fun place to be. Alas, for us, it was only a short stay as we still had a good 9 hours of driving ahead of us.

We arrived home late in the evening, exhausted, filled with wonder and enthusiastic to plan our next trip back to beautiful Scotland.

Scotland eh?

1 comment:

Kezzie said...

Oh wow Louise, the fairy glen is just beautiful as is the bay!!! You're so right-how was it so warm that far north!!!! I've actually never been to Scotland. I'm really looking forward to visiting some of the Scottish islands this summer as part of a cruise!!
Oooh, cool you're going to Newcastle. I've not spent lots of time there as we tend to stick to Hexham or Haltwhistle when we are there but I'd like to know more!!!x