Today, for the first time on this vacation, we woke to a steady rain, just in time to leave our cute little vacation cottage, where we have had nothing but sunshine for six straight days.
Driving past Loch Lubnaig again, this time with rain and misty mountaintops, gave us a sense of what this country really looks like and how different it was in the sunshine.
As we drove north, we were most impressed with the highland scenery around Glencoe, where steep green mountainsides, totally bare of trees, rise up until they disappear into the clouds. They seem much taller and more imposing than mountains of greater heights we know in New England, mostly because of how steep they are. The rain and fog only made them all the more impressive.
Taking pictures in the rain and as we were driving was very difficult. Also difficult was trying to take pictures of Loch Ness, once we reached it, because, being long and thin, there were few good vantage points in the direction we were traveling. Better luck tomorrow.
Our destination for the next two nights was Strathpeffer, a golfing resort town slightly northwest of Inverness. Arjan thought it would make a good jumping off point for heading in any direction. But our hotel turned out to be a total disaster. Our first clue was that the whole downstairs lobby area was filled with crowds of people over 80 who had just gotten off their tour bus and were waiting in line for dinner.
The hotel was one of those places that thoroughly insulates you from the local culture of the place you are visiting. That thought was clinched by the stuffed Nessies (the Loch Ness Monster) in the display case next to the reception desk. Later, when we came back from dinner (elsewhere!), a man in a kilt was singing Muzak about Scotland to the crowd that filled the entire downstairs lounge and lined up at the bar to buy more drinks.
The idea of staying here for two nights was so repulsive, we conned our way out of a second night and booked another place much further south for tomorrow night. We can now alter our itinerary to visit the ruins of Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness and the battlefield of Culloden just outside of Inverness tomorrow. We will miss the northern Highlands this trip, but we will make it easier to return to Edinburgh for our flight on Tuesday. With constant rain predicted for the foreseeable future, it makes sense to keep things simple.
Photographs © 2016 P.J. Gardner. All rights reserved.