Across the Top to Durness

Another wonderful day of sighting and learning.

This morning we left Dunnet and headed west along the coast line to Thurso.

Our first stop was St Peters Church, which is a ruin, but we had been told of the Stone arch window frame that had been build from one piece of stone. It was amazing.

We then took a detour down to the harbor for a quick look. It was a quick look as the temperature this morning was 3, and the wind was savage.

The “main” road along the top of Scotland is nearly all one lane with passing areas every 100 meters or so. Most people are really polite and so travelling is fairly easy, but then I was not driving.

Main road across the top!!

Pass here on left

Our next stop was Bettyhill. We were here to visit the Heritage Centre and see a Farr Stone that was in the cemetery.

The heritage centre was really good. It is housed in an old church and had lots of wonderful info.

We found out about the Clearing and the Pict people and also about how they collected peat for fires.

Blackhouse replica - before the clearing

Peat for fires

Farr Stone

From there we continued west towards Durness. The road took us through the village of Tongue and across the Kyle of Tongue Bridge. It was a wonder to see, but the strength of the weird made me a bit nervous. 🥺

Centenary Cairn

We then travelled around Loch Eriboll and into Durness. By the time we reached there today the weather had turned even nastier. The wind was so fierce we could not get the van doors to open, and when we did, we could not shut them.

We stopped at Balnakeil Craft Village for a bit of a look. My favourite was Cast Off Crafts where they make items from recycled materials. It took all my strength to not bring home a hand-embroidered wall hanger that had shells, sand and beads with a heart hook. There is still tomorrow.

We then headed back to Smoo Cave.

Smoo Cave

This cave has been created from the sea at one end and rain water at the other. It was well worth the walk down in the rain to see. In summer you can get a boat tour through the cave, but today we only got to see the waterfall that ends the cave.

To finish the weather off today, we were treated to a quick storm that included the tiniest balls of hail.

Tonight we sit snuggled up in our van while the wind howls around us.

All for now.

The North coast 500 we are travelling on - Most anyway, around the top of Scotland

Stay safe and keep enjoying life.

Love us.

Comments

A magical day at Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers

Today was our planned helicopter ride to see the glacier and have a snow landing. We were a tad worried as the weather report the night before was not all that encouraging. We had a bit of a slow start and checked in at the flight desk at 10am as requested. The advice was, the flight would go ahead - however with the changing weather conditions the snow landing would be determined on a minute by minute basis. If the landing was scrapped we would have additional flight time added to keep our trip to the same length. Honestly we were just happy to be able to take off. Safety briefing done, the loading crew led us to the helipads. They were pretty cool. Looked a little like landing pads for space craft. The pads are made from the rocks that make up a large part of the landscape of the area. We were given our assigned seats and Thomas (our pilot) got us sorted and...

New South Wales Adventure - Armidale

We today we ventured about Armidale on foot. We started at the markets having a look see at what they had at the farmers market. A few marketers so not much to see today really. Off we walked around town to see the historical sights. Lots of old buildings from the early days. In Armidale 100 years ago you had a choice of 21 Hotels!! Today there are 9. Sorry beer lovers. The original Bank of NSW These guys had a 4 displays of miniature figurines- really cool Baptist Church Lots of churches within cooee of each other ; Catholic, C of E, Pressy, and Baptist. Lovely old buildings to be admired. Catholic Church grounds - Large area. Home to the St Ursuline Convent Pressy Church Town Hall Court House This Celtic cross was erected to commemorate the first Christian service held here in 1845. A walk through Central Park we came across some structures to commemorate efforts of soldiers in wars. Bore war memorial band ro...

Final wrap up of our NZ visit

We have had an amazing time visiting the South Island, and also a few days in the North at Wellington to mainly visit the WETA workshop. On Saturday the 29th Nov we flew up to Wellington for a few days to have a look about and visit the WETA workshop. Wellington did live up to its reputation of being windy. Its a nice city built around a harbor. Most things are easy walking distance from the city centre. We took a few walks along the harbor. Elizabeth wanted to try what they call white bait. It looks like worms with eyes. It was cooked with egg. Neither of us were a great fan of this. We took the cable car up the mountain to see the sights and buy more souvenirs :). Our main objective was to visit the WETA workshop who have lots of special effects and prosthetics used in films such as LOTR. The shop was amazing with lots of expensive models but also prints and other items at reasonable rates. We had orders from family for few things and we also purchased a couple...

Rob & Liz's Blessed Adventures

Search This Blog