Our Scotland Adventure: Day Three

We set off this morning for a drive to Gairloch and Ullapool, two places that I'd not heard of until today's plans were announced. All I knew is that we were heading northwest and that by the end of the day, we'd have travelled further north than during last year's visit, when we journeyed to Portree on the Isle of Skye. The drive to Gairloch was filled with positively beautiful scenery:

We arrived at the village of Gairloch just in time for a picnic, and Jim and Anne knew the perfect scenic point at which to enjoy our lunch, overlooking the village and the sea.

Some other creatures were enjoying their own picnic right below us on the hill:

After lunch, we continued to Ullapool along more scenic stretches of road.

I've never actually seen someone with a shepherd's crook, but that's just what this man held in his right hand as he chased some rebel sheep down the road. We slowed down and saw the sheep duck into the bushes, leaving the man standing at the side of the road, whistling for his sheep to return.

Anne cleverly stopped at a spot on the highway which she remembered provided the best view of Ullapool before we descended into the town itself, and we were very glad we stopped, because the view was lovely--almost unreal, with the last row of houses jutting out into the sea.

Ullapool, founded in 1788 during the herring boom, is the main town in northwest Scotland. It becomes a busy tourist centre during the summer when many people take the ferry from Ullapool to Stornoway on the island of Lewis.

Considering the sparse number of people we had encountered all day, Ullapool did indeed seem busy with tourists.

As we walked along the harbour, I noticed this strange headline about Canada:

The "theft" turned out to be related to a film that takes place in Canada, but was actually filmed in Scotland. One section of the road was closed to traffic, and that's where everyone seemed to be, so we headed down that way.

There was a small Saturday market and a band played for a while before the Ullapool Junior Pipe Band started. As we listened to the band, the clouds blew away and the sun seemed to come out just for the performance.

Back in the car, we started heading back toward Burghead.

After Bob spotted a Canadian flag in the distance, Jim remembered what it was marking, and we made a short detour to do our Canadian duty and see the cairn that marks the site of Sir John A. Macdonald's grandparents' home (the cairn is made of stones from the house):

The plaque on the cairn reads:
-
Sir John A. Macdonald, G.C.B., P.C., M.P.
First Prime Minister of Canada -- Father of Confederation
His monument is a nation;
this cairn is but a footnote to his greatness
Dedicated on July 13, 1968,
by
Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker, P.C., Q.C., M.P.,
Thirteenth Prime Minister of Canada.
-
Back in Burghead, Bob and I decided to go for an evening walk. This is what 9:00 P.M. on Saturday night in the centre of downtown Burghead looks like:

:-) The post office is the village hub, closely followed by the corner store (called "Morning Noon & Night" but apparently not necessarily open during all of those times). The library is just up the street on the right, open a few days a week, for several hours at a time. The only bank in town is only open Tuesdays for three hours in the morning. Our running joke with Jim and Anne was asking them if they'd like us to pick up anything when we went out on our walks. As you can tell, there wasn't much that was possible to get at 9:00 P.M. on a Saturday! We kind of enjoyed that fact . . . .