Scotland 2017 - Distilled out

What's better than visiting one whisky distillery? Why, visiting three distilleries all in one day! Yes, I managed to visit The Dalmore, Glenmorangie, and also Balblair on Saturday. 

At 5pm I was done and headed off to find a place to camp for the night. With the sun shining I set up the tent next to the Strathrory-Scotsburn drove road, and Pip and I had our dinner bathed in glorious sunshine. 

My night of camping was slightly marred by a hole in my mattress, but I was determined to spend at least one night in my tent. 

Cold, tired, and bleary eyed, Pip and I got up for a walk at 6am. It was cold. Cold enough for gloves and a woolly hat, but I didn't have either of those. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful start to the day, with mist rising over the Strathrory. Now it's definitely time for a cup of tea ...

Scotland 2017 - The way up

Pip and I left the house in high spirits, at 7pm Wednesday.  The first part of our journey was uneventful, just lots of traffic. At around 11pm we hit some snag spots, but the worst was to come just before reaching our first stopover at Stoke-on-Trent.  Huge road works in action on the M6. No matter, it only delayed our sleep for around an hour, oh and it meant there was more traffic about. 

We left Stoke-on-Trent at around 5am.  Feeling tired, I had to stop several times to rest, which meant my journey time was longer than anticipated. We arrived in Scotland at around 11am, with another 260 miles to go!

Looking over the Cromarty Firth

Finally we reached Alness at around 7pm.  Too late to do much exploring, but I spent a good half hour looking for a good place to stop for the night.  We ended up based near the Fyrish Monument (the less said about that the better) with stunning views over the Cromarty Firth.  

It is so silent here, something I was hoping to find, but never expected to so close to towns and villages. The only sound greeting us were the calls of buzzards echoing up the valley.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some journey planning, and then it's off to The Dalmore!