The Highlanders

Monday arrived and already we are having a great time.  Today begins the next big adventure of our journey, a 3 day tour of the north coast called the NC500.

We use a tour service called Rabbie’s who we have used before. On any Scottish discussion board, anytime someone asked for recommendation for a tour service, Rabbie’s is always highly recommended.

The picture is the van we are using. In past tours the 15-passenger van was full, but this time there were only six including us. For this trip our driver is a jovial Scot named Willie. Our fellow travelers are a Russian lady named Olga, a young Canadian woman named Bridget, a young Englishman named Edward, who was traveling with Ekaterina, who is originally from Russia. Since this was a smaller group than usual we had more opportunities to get to know the other members of the group.

Much of the day was driving through the majestic highlands. But as I absorbed those amazing mountains,  I recalled that if we did nothing else but be surrounded highlands with taller highlands behind them and taller still behind them, I was satisfied. But Willie had some very cool things still in store for us.

On this first day of the tour we stopped at 8 sites and had plenty of time to explore some amazing waterfalls, forests and mountains.  Rogie Falls was the first of many natural sites that made this highlands tour nice.

As one does, I have certain experiences on my list I want to check off each year. Two of them are castles and highland coos.  I checked both of them off on this tour so I can go home happy.  But not yet.

In fact, the next stop was the ancient Strome Castle. Scotland has so many castles, many of them hundreds of years old. Like many, Strome Caastle is in ruins. But there was a certain elegant beauty to those ruins.

The young lady in the picture is Bridget from our tour group. 

Applecross seems like a routine stop for a tour but there is something very significant here. The Irish monk Columba is credited with bringing Christianity to Scotland. A disciple of Columba named Maelrubha came to eastern Scotland and is credited as the second most influential missionary to Scotland.

He founded a church and monastery here at Applecross.

The church we visited here is built on the site of the monastery, which is believed to be Maelrubha’s final resting place.

The rest of our highland tour continued to delight us with an explosion of mountains, beaches and waterfalls virtually around every turn.

The day ended as we checked into the Airbnb we had reserved in Ullapool. Just to make a good day great. It was the best room we have ever had with a view of the shore from our window.