BlackIsle - Inverness

We had breakfast this morning at 08.30 and got up at 08.00 because yesterday when we arrived at Black Isle at the Cammont House the lady told us that there was no running water because a pipe had burst somewhere on the island. We had to flush the toilet with 2 liter bottles of drinking water by pouring it into the top of the toilet. So I thought it would be best to sleep in a bit since we couldn't take a shower in the morning anyway. A shame though because both the bath and the shower looked quite nice. The bed was excellent and the best we had so far so sleeping wasn't much of a problem. When we had our breakfast Mrs Cameron told us that the water was running again... *sigh* I found it a bit peculiar that she didn't tell us sooner so we could have had a shower...

We left in the morning to go up north to Cromarty at the top of the island where there were supposed to be seals and dolphins swimming in the sea. On our way there we passed a cemetery so I asked A. to stop for a while because I wanted to take pictures and look at the graves to find the oldest one. It was a beautiful cemetery called the Kirkmichael burial ground. There was a little church called the St. Michaels Kirk. The first recorded mention of Kirkmichael dates back to 1429. Unfortunately not much was left of this church but it was still very interesting to see!

We continued our trip to Cromarty, when we got there we looked for the lighthouse and parked our car nearby to go for a walk. It was bright and sunny and we went to the beach to look for the dolphins but didn't see them anywhere, nor the seals. We walked along the beach for a while, looking for shells. I found a few big ones 'tropical' ones and a skull of a bird probably a seagull that had died out there and was eaten by fish or sharks *just kidding* A. thought I was crazy for bringing it along but I used to collect skulls a long time ago when I was a kid. I think I gave them all to my brother back then. I remember I had quite a few, also one of a rat and one of a rabbit... I will ask him if he still has those when we get back.

After an hour or so the weather started to change and a sudden wind started to blow. We looked at the sky and saw huge rain clouds so we decided to walk back to the car and go elsewhere. We went to look for this tiny little museum called the Groam House Museum at Rosemarkie where there was a free exhibition of Pics and standing stones. I found the brochure at Morefield when we had dinner there at the hotel/restaurant. The lady showed us a very interesting video about the Pics, their history, their origin and how they mixed with the Scots. About their carved standing stones and the Celtic symbols that they used. It was an ancient tribe that used to live in a certain area in Scotland.

Not much is known about these people and the reason why they used to carve the stones with all sorts of symbols and drawings. There were a few stones at this museum which were very interesting to see. I also found a wildcat in this museum which was cool because now I could see what kind of animal that is. It's probably the type of cat that killed all the rabbits at the Ardvreck Castle... It doesn't look very wild though but I reckon it won't be a nice snoring pussycat if you run into it... From here we went on to the next thing to see in Fortrose which was a beautiful chapel of what has been a huge cathedral with a burial ground next to it. The remains were just beautiful and it wouldn't be hard to imagine what the whole cathedral would've looked like...

We then moved on to Inverness and to the Balnuaran of Clava, also known as the Clava Cairns; a prehistoric cemetery built three and four thousand years ago. This place was absolutely amazing and the atmosphere there was kinda weird and eerie. The people who built this place worshipped something here, we don't know exactly what. A. and I think they were pagans and funny thing was that we both thought they would've had human sacrifices there. I didn't mention it to A. until he mentioned it to me, telling me that he had this feeling about this place. It was very intriguing to read about it and see all this! This place felt weird but not as evil as the Ardvreck Castle!

We then went back to Inverness where we bought some stuff at Tesco's, I bought my nifty battery charger there and a t-shirt because I don't have any clean stuff to wear; no t-shirts that is, only long-sleeve shirts that are too warm sometimes. Yes the weather has been beautiful with a shower every now and then but still quite warm. We decided to go to Loch Ness and visit the Urquhart Castle just after Drumnadrochit. We expected lots of tourists there so it would be a quick visit anyway. When we got there the place was just cramped with people and we would also have to pay £8,- to get in so we decided to take a few pictures and move on again. It wasn't really worth staying there since there were just too many people. We had a quick look at the lake to see whether Nessie was there but we didn't see her unfortunately...

We didn't really want to spend half the evening looking for a place to stay so we drove off in the direction of Fort William and had a short break at Fort August at the end of Loch Ness to make a phone call. A. called Abbotsford Lodge to ask if they had a room for us, it's the place where we were supposed to arrive at tomorrow night but we wanted to try to get there tonight so A. wouldn't have to drive much longer. He was just getting tired of it and it can be quite stressful at times. The people told us that there would be a room waiting for us in the evening which was pretty cool because we didn't have to rush anymore...

We drove to Fort William but unfortunately we were stuck behind a coach that was really slowing us down so in the end we had half an hour delay. After Fort William it started to really piss down, severe showers and this was slowing us down again. It lasted for about 20 minutes. We arrived at the Abbotsford Lodge at 19.30 and had dinner at 20.00. We then went to our room and I had a quick lie down but fell asleep for a couple of hours. We have faerie wallpaper in the bathroom *awesome!* I woke up in the middle of the night, faffed about for 30 minutes found a message on my cell phone from I., turn off the lights that were still on [A. had fallen asleep as well] and went to bed again... I didn't get a chance to write so therefore I wrote this the next day.