EIS – Ullapool and back to Inverness (Day 09)

EIS – Ullapool and back to Inverness (Day 09)

(8/26/2010) While in Inverness, we are here for two nights so we are still in this hotel for another night.  The hotel we are in overlooks the Ness River.  Here is the view across the street from the hotel looking across the river. 

Today we travel into the northern highlands with its moors and mountains finally ending up in the port city of Ullapool. From Ullapool we will return to Inverness by a different, more direct route.

We leave the hotel and begin our trip following route A9, then A99 heading to Wick. On our way to Wick and ultimately the Falls of Shin, we pass farm fields and heather filled fields.

We crossed the Moray River. The river was so still it was almost a mirror providing an image of the ground above it.

As we cross the river, and turn northward, we could see in the distance three off-shore well drilling rigs in various stages of completion. At least one of them is completed and might be in for maintenance. (Later when we returned in this direction, I think we came back by this same bridge, the rigs were no longer there.)

Prior to reaching the Falls of Shin, we stopped for a short photo break at Struie Hill, an overlook 660 feet above sea level. Looking straight behind Carmen, we are looking north.

We have passed many stone bridges; I finally was able to get a picture of one of the bridge. It was actually on our side of the coach and had enough of an angle to get a picture. You can see the stones that make up the bridge.

After turning onto a side road, we stopped at the Falls of Shin on the Shin River. Salmon run this river and supposedly jump the falls trying to get further upstream to spawn. Although when we watched, no salmon were trying to jump the falls, but the timing might not be right to see them.

We took a couple of pictures from both below the falls and above the falls.

Leaving the falls, we head towards Ullapool. The country side again has farm fields along acres of heather growing up the mountains. These fields are used primarily for grazing cattle and sheep.

We arrive around noon and before we ran around taking pictures of the town, we got some fish and chips and ate outside. The fish was very good and the fries tasted very much like the pier fries in Old Orchard Beach in Maine. The bar in the restaurant has a very wide variety of alcohol including 28 draft beers (some you cannot see in the picture) and untold numbers of liquor bottles, some upside down ready to deliver shots.

We walked around town and since it was low tide, some of the boats were “dry” docked, so to speak.

Some of the boats looked quite old and I would say questionable to even tread water when the tide comes in.

With shops lining the water front, the town had a quaint feel to it. We didn’t get in to the shops to look around; instead, we headed down the other end of the street first going to the pier.

We walked to the end of the pier and found a sea lion in the waters.

We also saw a commotion further out in the harbor and thought it was either another sea lion or a porpoise. We figured by the sea gulls attacking the waters that something was causing fish to swim to the surface so that whatever was chasing it could catch them. Later when our sea lion headed in that direction we figured it was another sea lion. Once at the location, we could no longer see them and we left.

Many of the houses on this end of the water front street were bed and breakfast houses or private cottages. It is easy to see why people would want to come to this location for awhile.

On our return to Inverness, we past many hills filled with heather. Much like the trip here, the views were quite impressive. We also past a hydro-electric dam.

There are many more pictures that we could post on the blog, but to conserve space, they are loaded into the album, just not on this page.



Until later, Bob and Carmen – EIS.