Wednesday 6th June

First up we drove over to the battlefield of Culloden, the site of Britain's last battle in 1756. Here the English government soldiers beat the Jacobites lead by Bonnie Prince Charlie in a pitched battle which finished in the slaughter of 1500 of the latter for the loss of 300 of the former. It changed the whole lifestyle of the Scottish Highlands & the suppression of the people for many years after.

Culloden is about 10 k east of Inverness & the site has a large centre with audio visual displays explaining the build up to the battle, the action & the disastrous consequences for northern Scotland. We spent about 2 hours in the centre & out in the field where it took place. d*** had been there in the early 60s when it was just a bare site with minimal facilities.

From there we went on to Fort George on the Moray Firth, built in 1756-63, to help in preventing another uprising against the Hanoverian reign. Our navigator which has always been tricky, had played up but came back to life with one of its quirky routes. We ended up approaching the fort alongside a high wire fence with red flags on poles inside the perimeter. This was a firing range on which we found out later soldiers were practising rifle fire.

The fort is still an operational army barracks which surprised us & parts were for military personnel only. Apparently, it is the finest example of 18th century military architecture still in existence & in its prime, housed 1600 soldiers & covering more than 42 acres. It sits on a promontory guarding Inverness further down the Moray Firth & also holds the museums of several highland regiments. We were there for about 2 hours & didn't see everything. The construction was by the brother of Robert Adam who employed him & he made enough to pay for his Grand Tour after which he designed parts of Edinburgh & many fine country houses. As we left several soldiers were walking casually back to the barracks with their rifles, which we hoped weren't loaded.

Thursday 7th June

Today we moved on again starting in Inverness before travelling on the north side of Loch Ness down to Dromnadrochit. We then turned north & returned to Beauly to travel west across to Strathnacarron via Achnasheen on some very mixed road surfaces. At one point we were looking south west at mountains still with big patches of snow, which rather shook us. The countryside became emptier & rockier although in some areas there were pine plantations.

We dropped down to the edge of Loch Alsh & then visited Eilean Dolan Castle, a typical early Scottish castle on an island off the shore. This was better than expected but very busy with many European tourists. Finally we found the Kyle of Lochalsh, where the ferries used to go across to Skye, before returning to our B & B in Auchtertyre.