To Helmsdale

The drive started wet and stayed wet and under low cloud until we were beyond the Cairngorms. How well they hide their majesty.

Then beyond Inverness things began to brighten. We went forth onto the Black Isle and marvelled at the rolling, brilliant barley fields. We switched shores and went through Jemimaville along the Cromarty Firth to the little headland village of Cromarty itself and the even tinier two-car Nigg Ferry. Amazingly there was no queue but for a BT van that was too big to fit on. The man beckoned us up the tiny ramp and off we went with a couple from Auckland who were on a brief whisky tour.

The Nigg rig yard had a huge oil exploration vessel tied up along the quay - the Deep Explorer. Getting off the ferry was backwards and all done with hand signals. The Boss gave me the wheel.

We pulled through Dornoch and looked through a Highland Hospice charity shop. Then Loch Fleet and up along the coast through Golspie and Brora til the turn for Helmsdale.

Our two-night stay was in an Air BNB four miles up the glen that was an old ghillie's wooden single-storey house. It had been cleverly restored with a new wood exterieor and modern tine roof but the inside was the original wood-panelled rather spartan living quarters of the ghillie, with strange marks on the broad pine planks.

As we pulled onto the short grassy track I spied deer in the nearby trees.  I fumbled with the camera as they took fright and left.

I walked down to the Helmsdale River (extra) which looked and is a top salmon river and is very expensive. How well the rich do live.

We lit the stove as the rain had fallen all day and watched the light slowly fade. As darkness approached about twenty stag (extra) filed past in front of the house under the aspen trees and pulled hungrily as the rich meadow.