Turn left at Tongue.....

Highlander crofters were evicted in their thousands to make way for the more profitable sheep. Their homes were burnt, people murdered and the  rich got richer.

Driving down from the tip of Scotland, along the West Coast is a wonderful experience. Glaciation has smoothes the lines of the land in the upper regions of this coast around Thurso.. the sea is that blue green colour which is awesome..... old villages and pubs appear along the road. Bettyhill is a small village in the highlands.... further along the coast and into the rugged and majestic highlands. It is here we stopped to view the stories of the clearances from the highlands in the early 1800's. Records show the hardship and misery caused by the greed of landowners as they reaped the benefits of the sheep industry and the highland crofters were totally and completely ruined. This was wonderful way to force the populace to move to towns where the weaving mills and other manufacturing needed cheap and desperate labour... The picture above is of a deserted croft that was never again inhabited after the Clearances.
Bettyhill also holds another fascination in the terms of one ancient carved Pictish stone from the 700's and there are even more ancient undecipherable ones Farr Stone and Celtic Mysteries.

Heeland Coos

Broch

Onwards onwards.... over mountain and dale etc ..... turn left at Tongue onto the road by the loch and down headed towards Laird on the road described int he book as" another kind of road" Indeed it was a track sort of for 30 miles..... running by the river and we watched red deer, heeland coos, and investigated a broch which is a large round stone house with no windows and only one tiny entrance. It was on a hill overlooking the glen and had been built over several thousand years ago.

Finally got into Inverness and stayed at the Waterfront Hotel which is right next to the river, Have spent the morning wandering the roads of Inverness and the huge cathedral here..... nearly time to move again... have loads of pics but will begin putting them up when I get back tonight. Some will be on Facebook and some here..... T;'is Loch Ness and Glencoe today.......then home to Ivory House.