Scotland: Torridon & Sheildaig

After seeing Culloden we set off for Torridon...the first step, really, into the Highlands. Wow. The woman at the visitor center at Culloden had warned us that driving to Torridon would be dangerous because we'd be whipping our heads around so much to see the scenery we might drive off the road. :) Boy, was she right!! I can't even begin to describe how beautiful and wild it was.

As we left Inverness, the road quickly became a small 2-lane road, then as we came into a the town of Kinlochewe the road became a single-track. And for the next 12 days we rarely set tires on anything else. Anyway...

This was my view from the back seat as we got closer to Torridon. I was always in the back since Pam did all the driving and Lauren was the navigator. I was in charge of snacks! :)

First views of the Wester Ross region

Loch Torridon

We couldn't find any lodging in Torridon so we continued on down the road

To a small village called Sheildaig. There we found a lovely B & B and a great pub.

This was the view from the pub as we ate dinner. It was 9:30 at night and only beginning to get dark.

At the pub we met up with a couple who, upon hearing of our proposed route, encouraged us to make changes. We changed our entire itinerary on the spot! We had planned to go to Torridon, on to Skye, over to Harris & Lewis, to Ullapool, up to Durness & Tongue and then head back to Inverness. But after our talk with our new friends, we changed it all up...and every single thing they told us to do turned out to be fantastic. So, instead of our original route, we went to Skye, then back to the mainland and headed up the west side of Loch Ness (no monster sighting) to Drumnadrochit, over to the east coast through Sutherland and Caithness to Thurso. From Thurso (Scrabster, really) we got a ferry to the Orkney Islands for a few days, then back to the mainland and on to Lochinver (through the Coigach/Assynt region--wild!!) and on to Ullapool.

We were busy! :)