Black Isle

Courtesy of a very useful leaflet we picked up in the Tourist Information office in Inverness, we spent the day exploring the delights of The Black Isle. We missed the Clootie Well, but took in the beautiful red gothic ruin of Fortrose Cathedral, the windswept harbour at Cromarty and the grand sandy swathe of beach between Rosemarkie and Chanonry Point. At Cromarty we had very good Scotch pies from the Cromarty Bakery and ate them on the front in the shadow of the oil rigs. At Rosemarkie we had a look at the surprisingly cool Groam House Museum, which has a collection of Pictish carved stones and the complete archives of George Bain, an artist who based his whole study of Celtic art on them. Unfortunately, they'd sold out of copies of Bain's book, 'Celtic Art: The Methods Of Construction', which is a brilliant conflation of Celtic, Arts-and-Crafts and Folk revival stuff - I might have to hit the internet for a copy when we get home... At Chanonry Point we were lucky enough to see a number of Bottlenose Dolphins basking in the incoming tide and even jumping clear of the waves at points. After a cup of tea at the Rosemarkie Beach Cafe we drove over Loch Ness to our B&B at Fort Augustus and later on we walked into the town over the golf course and ate chips by the locks of the Caledonian Canal. Music: just the radio and a couple of songs by the Kinks; Song of the Day was 'Waterloo Sunset.'