Day 5 - Tain to Portree

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Today's travels are courtesy of the EX- hurricane Ganzalo. Another new phrase from the UK.

Extreme high winds with rain, sleet and hail. Temps dropped from 17 down to 4. Very unusual for this area.

After a breakfast of poached eggs & haggis we left the Morangie area and went to look for The Old Nigg Church. I had found this on the Historic Scotland website. It is signifigant because of it's Pictish stone which dates back to 700 AD. When St. Columba brought Christianity to the area he was converting the Pictish inhabitants. The stone shows their original beliefs on one side & Christian beliefs on the other.

The graveyard had another interesting stone. The Cholera Stone. It was believed that Cholera was caused by bad Miasma's (air that came from decaying bodies). When one church parisioner thought he saw some bad gases he threw a blanket over it and then placed a rock on it to hold the gas down.

Driving on further we found the Dalmore Distillery in a picturesque setting. No visit since they opened up at 10:00 but we still got some good pictures besides they have a cool logo.

Well one good distillery deserves another and considering that this area has around 200 it seems when you trip over one and fall into another.

So we stopped again at Glen Ord which produces Singleton of Glen Ord. They also make a Singleton of Dufftown in an entirely different location. Tried a 12, 15 & 18.

We drove thru some more spectacular vistas up to Loch Maree and stopped for lunch in Kinlochewe. At one lookout I was standing taking pictures and was hit by winds so hard it knocked me backwards about 5 steps.....time to leave....

We kept driving to Portree but were concerned about the high winds on the bridge. They had blocked high sided vehicles and wanted to make it across before they closed it completely. I didn't think it was any worse that a good summer day on the Burlington Skyway.

Landed in Portree in time to wander about before dinner. Then spent some time in the pub talking to to some guys from the Shetland Islands.

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