Note: This all happened 21st of August 2012.
From the little town of Lairg, we headed back out to the coast. From here on, it was an easy drive.
Our first stop is an unplanned one at Brora just for the toilet at the public car park.
There was a sign board there on the history of the town, and a path you could walk. It was not very long, so we decided to walk it. They used to harvest salt here and this town was the first in North Scotland to get electricity.
Here is the GPS track of where we walked in Brora. It was less than an hour, but because of my photo taking, it took a little longer.
At Brora, I also sampled ice cream at Capaldi’s Ice Cream Shop that originated from here and it was good. (Did I forget to mention that Orkney ice cream is also good? The original flavour is really milky.)
From there it was an easy and pleasant drive along the coast toward the end of the road, John O’ Groats. From here, you can take a ferry to Orkney. Indeed, it is nearer to get to Orkney from here, than from Aberdeen. But being unable to pick up a rental car from here, we had to return to Aberdeen instead. But I guess it was a good thing. Otherwise, we’d have missed places like the Falls of Shin to catch sight of the salmon leaping.
John O’Groats is nothing but a bunch of tourist shops at the end of the road. And if you are taking a ferry from here, other than saying that you got to the end of the road, it’s not really worth stopping here. However, we got a bit out of our visit here with a walk towards the Ness of Duncansby, which was good after sitting in the car.
Heading Westward now, we visited the late Queen Mother’s holiday castle, the Castle of Mey. You have to buy a ticket – one to visit the garden, the other to visit the castle.
Since we are no royal enthusiasts, we just paid for the ticket for the gardens. It included a visit to the farm where they talk about the royalty’s interest in breeding strains of various animals for competition.
The gardens were a let down. Nice they were, but the flowers are rather ordinary. Indeed some of them are flowers you can see along the roadside.
I’ve decided that after so many visits to gardens in other countries, in general, Asians take their gardens more seriously. When we say a garden is good, it really means we have taken the effort to bring in interesting species that are cross pollinated or imported from other countries, and flowers that are so huge you can bury your face in it.
You’d think the Queen Mother can do better, you know?
Then it was off to Dunnet Head where you can see the island of Hoy, Orkney from the coast. It’s the northernmost point of Scotland. And the weather here changes swiftly.
I really liked how moody the place was with the storm approaching the head. You could see a funnel of dark cloud rising from the ground to the sky. It was a thrilling sight.
Within a few minutes of us arriving, it started to rain.
We had expected this weather. Indeed, from the weather report, it seemed as if the rain would’ve started earlier, but it held back for us. By this time it was almost five and we were getting hungry.
At Thurso, where the shops close exactly at five, by the time we arrived, the town was mostly dead, except for some eating places, thankfully.
We found the Holborn Hotel and it has both a pub and restaurant. The pub serves pasta and what not. So we decided on the restaurant. I found the food here pretty good, and they use locally sourced products.
I don’t remember the fish we had, but I do remember that the scallops and black pudding was good.
The scallops cut through the sticky heavier black pudding. I had not tried black pudding with seafood before, and it was quite interesting.
They like to serve the steak hidden from sight in Scotland.
The steak was perfectly cooked. We appreciated our meal and forged on. We were running out of daylight.
As the sun set, we were lucky to find two batches of highland cows crossing the road. Lit by the fading light, they looked so gorgeous.
We passed through beautiful scenery and I wished I had more time to take photographs. It got a little more windy around Betty’s Hill and all these little towns along the way would have been excellent to spend the night. But we pushed on to Tongue and stayed at Rhian Guest House for the night.