Of course I shot more of these. They are rather hypnotic and fascinating, wouldn’t you agree? Check ’em out:
The first video was on the journey on Cape Wrath. We were sitting on the van and the road bottoms out to the Daill River drainage basin. I shot this through the glass, thinking you don’t see places like too often:
For an American, though, I suppose you could say that a lot about this part of the world. Check out this terrain:
Science is just a few steps away from proving that bodies of freshwater just look more exotic if you call them lochs:
Of course those hills and mountains and clouds making such a dramatic backdrop don’t hurt, either:
There’s a ton of great stuff here. (The short version is, if you’ve contemplated visiting Scotland, you should make it happen.) In this post there are two videos, two dozen photos and a panorama at the end. They are all worth seeing, so let’s get right to it.
I took this picture thinking, really, how often are you going to see a lamb warning written on a tire?
Six times, as it turns out. Here are three of our Ovis friends now:
We visited Cape Wrath, on a whim, really, and it was worth it. I made you a video:
Only one person lives there now. There are a few houses, leftovers from the drovers and shepherds. And you drive right by the bombing range. It is a sparse and scenic one hour, 11-mile van ride to get up to the cape. The whole trip is worth it. Here’s some photo proof:
Cape Wrath is about a mile out of Durness, which is the little village on the northwest corner of Scotland. In that little quiet little place there are two small restaurants, an artists’ village, one gas pump, a hotel and Smoo Cave:
This area is dangerous for stick figures named Cliff. (The rest of us are on our own.)
Hey, sheep, your name isn’t Cliff, is it?
Finally, this panorama is from above the inlet at Smoo Cave. Way, way off in the distance to the left you could just make out Cape Wrath. And way off in the distance to the right, on a clear day, you could almost imagine seeing the far cliffs of the north east of Scotland. We’ll be there in a day or so. As always with the panoramas on the site, click to embiggen:
You can spend so much time in a car that you talk about everything. Even in a beautiful and new place you can spend enough time in the car that you have thought about everything. After a time, you realize you can think about nothing and then, finally, you realize that you’ve spent the last nine minutes thinking about nothing. So you force some thought back into your head.
My first thought was What happens if I shoot a slow motion video from a rapidly moving car?
Something really interesting happens. And, boy, did I pick the perfect spot to figure that out:
Here’s another one:
And one more, just in case you’d like another chance to see the local flora:
There are three videos, three panoramas and 10 photos below. You’ll enjoy them all.
If you’re just joining this story, we’re touring Scotland. It is a big tour and a grand place. It is worth your consideration.
We’re touring all of Scotland. This is what we are driving:
For scale, each letter above the car is the width of a quarter. Place them edge to edge, that’s the size of our car. It holds everything we brought to the UK, but only just. And all of the things must be configured in a particular fashion to fit. But we have legroom, it is pretty easy on gas mileage and our Vauxhall Adam cranks every time. Today, it got driven a lot. And we stopped and started our way through a great deal of this magnificent countryside today.
Here are a few clips from this morning’s drive:
The day’s first panorama was at your standard issue, beautiful Scottish loch. Click to embiggen:
You could get used to this sort of thing.
We also hit the beach!
This is Udrigle Beach. White sand, mountain views, odd smells. There were a few people enjoying the beautiful springtime weather. (We’ve been lucking out on the weather so far.) There were a few dogs digging in the sand. I had a nice little chat with an elderly woman who’d walked down from the nearby lodge to sit and soak up the sun. It was a lovely day, she said. She said it again to someone else, so you know she meant it.
And here’s a beach panorama. Click to embiggen:
We watched the ocean from the roadside for some time today, too:
I realized I tend to take a lot of panoramas with water as a main focal point. So I changed this one up and put a person in one corner of the shot. Look how The Yankee is peering through her camera allllll the way across the shot. Click to embiggen:
We also saw this today:
Let me explain.
We found that gorge along the way. This wasn’t one of our planned stops. It was just a name on the map. But you have to learn to be curious about names on maps. That curiosity often rewards you.
Down from the Victorian-era suspension bridge there is a viewpoint, where you see the gorge from a better perspective:
Then we saw a castle:
And you know what that means, right? Castle selfies:
I put the details of the ruins into a video package which is conveniently located here:
I don’t know how the routines in your life treat you, but we seldom get to take castle selfies, so we took another:
And now we are in Overscaig, which is about the most middle of nowhere place you can ever be. Over the last few days locals have been asking us our next stop. We’d tell them and they all said, “Where is that?” No one knows. And that’s a shame. It is simply stunning up here:
We’re dining in with our bed and breakfast hosts tonight. I have some more videos to show you after that. I’ve discovered a new technique that I’ll no doubt use far too often …
It was a good day to take it easy. Our vacations are usually action packed in some way or another. Often there are three or four different ways the action is packed in. And this trip is no exception. That’s not a complaint: there is so much to see and marvel at here. Eventually, though, you think about slowing it down a little bit. And that’s exactly what my travel agent, trip pilot and all around best girl had planned for today.
We’re in some of the most picturesque rugged mountain country that Scotland has to offer, with some incredible walking trails. We tried a few of those today, and the views and the scenery and the surrounding was worth it. I could tell you, but here see for yourself. This is on the 54-acre Torridon estate:
Now, if you didn’t watch that video, here’s your chance to go back and press play. You’re missing views like this:
On a different walk today, we saw several red deer:
I don’t know if you’ve ever had a loch, or a lake, all to yourself, but you should try it sometime:
I want to try it sometime soon again, myself!
Walking, we didn’t see anyone for more than an hour, which was grand, on trails like this:
Here are a few more bits of video I shot today:
We had dinner at the Torridon Inn tonight. I’m eating a lot of meat pies. They are all a little different from one another, and they are all so tasty. And they look pretty inviting, too:
