Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

We took a ride up to Ullapool for fish and chips, enjoying them beside the loch. Since I moved there, they’ve set up a “rock trail” - a series of signs and even an open air “museum” that interprets the local geology. I learned that Scotland was once a part of the USA - about 600,000,000 years ago! - and has rocks in common with the Appalachians.

Stuff like this makes one feel very small…

From top to bottom:

Blackwater Falls: a loo stop (you understand there’s a loo there, not the river itself ;-) and a pretty view.

A dam, looking up towards that Achiltie (sp?) Hotel.

A strange ball made out of what looks, to my untrained eye, slate.

The pretty view I enjoyed while I was up there. We hiked the basic simple trail to see where it went, at Knockan Crag.

North of Ullapool, Loch Broom

North of Ullapool, looking back to the town.

Yes, *that* Cawdor Castle!

It’s been years and years since I was here. The gardens were just as pretty as I remembered; however, the flowers were coming to an end, apart from the Autumn crocuses, which are big unlike the little delicate spring crocuses.

I loved the castle - whoever wrote the interpretive text had a wicked sense of humour and it’s one of the few places where I’ve ever read every panel, chuckling merrily.

The leaves are from a set of trees planted in the 17th century.

The library has 6,500 books (but you’re not allowed to take pictures inside.)

But I might’ve. you would never have known.

Haven’t been online since the 27th. Been visiting with my friends. Got to pet a hedgehog today, and sit on a roof. I’m in Ipswich right now and have seen the ravens at the Tower of London, which is not in Ipswich. Just sayin’.

I’ll be back to normal online functionality in a day or two, as I return to the USA on Thursday. For now, I prefer to visit with my friends. :)

Anyway, I’m ok.

Today is my last night in Scotland.

I have no idea what my web access will be over the next 8 days. Worst case, there’s a Starbucks down the road from where I’ll be staying. It looks like my base camp will be Hitchin, with day trips out and some time to just hang and visit. You can assume that I’ll arrive safely - but don’t worry if you don’t hear from me in the short term. ;-)

We went for a ride out in the country. Aviemore is the staging point for climbing the Cairngorm mountains. We had lunch in town, which is pretty much a hole, and then went up to the mountain car park at roughly 2000′ to see the fog coming down off the mountains and have the car shake in the strong winds.

From top to bottom:

A nice view on the way to Aviemore.

Aviemore railway station. Lots of lovely old Victorian frilling and detail. There’s a real rail service, and another one for the tourists.

A rainbow at the Cairngorm car park. We’ve been going here for as long as I can remember. Many hikes were launched from here, but the wind was so strong I didn’t dare get out.

Aviemore stone circle. Even though it’s in the middle of a housing estate, it still seemed to be peaceful and have stillness.

Rather appropriately, a rowan grows as part of the circle.

Dad and I took a morning drive down to Cromarty, one of my favourite places in this neck of the wood. I got GPS coordinates for old snarfs, and even found a new one. It was quite nice when sheltered, but cold enough to make my ears ache in the wind. We gave up when the driving rain began. ;-)

To give an impression of Cromarty, it is a tiny place that can be walked through in 10 minutes, yet it has over 100 listed buildings and structures of varying kinds! It’s an old fishing village, with many of the cottages still intact and lived in.

From top to bottom:

Boats in the harbour; they were making quite a racket with their bells blowing in the wind, like a bucketload of wind chimes.

Pretty bench. It needs an old romantic couple to fill it, holding hands as they share their stories.

Look who came to see me?

Cromarty Lighthouse, built in 1848 by Alan Stevenson, who I think was uncle to Rober Louis Stevenson. RLS broke ranks to become an author, everyone else made lighthouses and/or were engineers.

Could you imagine a smaller post office?!

It’s nice that the American National Trust has a reciprocal agreement with the Scottish National Trust (but not the NT of England and Wales, oddly enough). We got into Brodie Castle for free. Normally it’s closed when I show up in Scotland, so it was lovely to look around. There is a lot of artwork in there and a library with — wait for it — 6,500
books!!!!!

Top to bottom:

– The castle

– The gardens

– A Pictish stone that was discovered/moved from neighbouring village of Dyke (I’m just not making this stuff up)

– You must bring me a shrubbery! And then, when you have brought me the shrubbery, you must cut down the tallest tree in the forest with….a herring! (ni!)

After the castle, we went up to Nairn Harbour, where with eagle eyes I spotted about 15 new snarfs, which can be saved for some other trip. We walked to the end of the pier and back, looking out to sea, before heading on home.

From top to bottom:

Duntulm Castle. It perches atop a precipitous cliff. I’ve been there a couple of times before, once in strong winds where only me and my (ex) husband were the visitors. Today there were hordes, and you can’t get into the site any more. It will eventually fall into the sea.

The Flora MacDonald monument. She is actually buried on South Uist, I think, but the Skye people wanted a monument, rightfully so. This is in a lovely old graveyard with some very interesting old graves. (Well, one would typically expect old graves in old graveyards, but humour me.)

We went flying (well, sort of) past a sign for a souterrain, and I requested a u-turn! It turned out to be a 55′ (17m) tunnel leading to an underground storage under an old round house–2000 years old. I went partway in, using the borrowed torch left for visitors, which I thought was marvellous, but it was very, very tight and muddy and I was a bit creeped out on my own!

Sunset, looking back towards the island.

It was glorious.

From top to bottom:

Craggy mountain seen by the roadside. The Black Cuillins are volcanic rock, the Red Cuillins are of red granite.

The Black Cuillin range, among the hardest mountains in the British Isles.

The Old Man of Storr, a volcanic upchuck and one of the few things I remember about my first trip to Skye, when I was eight or so.

Peat diggings.

The Kilt Rock, which in the morning sun is so striated and colourful it looks just like a kilt :-)