The Jewel Of The Highlands

We visited, The Jewel of the Highlands today. It’s called Plockton. We made an early start for us. It was about 10 am. This lot are like herding cats. I like an early start, but oh no, not this gang. Anyway, we went northwest into Wester Ross. It was a bit of a retrace for us as we had come this way from Skye.

We turned north toward the Bealach na Ba Pass, but before we got there Sheelagh spotted the sign to Plockton. She keeps reading stuff, and had seen this tiny town described as the Jewel of the Highlands. It was only 7 miles off the road, but 7 miles of twisty narrow road. It was well worth the trip. This is a beautiful little village enfolding a protected harbour with hills surrounding it.
We, happily, had arrived at lunch time. The Plockton Shores is an excellent restaurant just waiting to meet our lunchtime needs. Shush had a shellfish platter, and I had bangers (sausages) and mash (potatoes) and GRAVY!!! Mutti, I got gravy. Yahoo.

Leaving Plockton, we continued to the Bealach na Ba Pass Road that was described  as a “Must do if you’re in the area.” Wow. It is again, very narrow, very twisty and apparently put in before the invention of guard rails. We went from sea level to 2053 feet high in about 6 miles, and then down to sea level again in about the same distance.

The village of Applecross, on the end , was nothing wonderful, but the road and the countryside are breathtaking. There are small streams and waterfalls tumbling down the hills all along. The predominant colour is a coppery brown. Everywhere you look there are small white crofts looking just exactly as they are supposed to look. We meandered our way along the coast and then back in a big circle to get home just at dark. It was a great day.