The final stages of the Wednesday of my holiday in Scotland.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in Scotland. This post concludes Wednesday’s activities with some photos of the journey back from Applecross to Plockton which we did by a different route from the one we had taken there and an account of my birthday meal in Plockton.
THE JOURNEY
Other than a brief stop at Lochcarron we went from Applecross to Plockton without stopping. I will let the pictures tell the story…
THE BIRTHDAY MEAL
The food at the Plockton Inn proved to be every bit as excellent as we had been led to expect and there was an excellent locally brewed beer on tap as well (Plockton Ring Dong for the record). This was an excellent way to round off a splendid day.
An account of then time spent in Applecross on my recent Scottish holiday.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest post in my series about my Scottish holiday. This post deals with the village of Applecross.
LUNCH AND A WALK
We ate our sandwich lunches right by the water before setting off on a walk round the bay on which Applecross sits.
:Possibly the spot where St Maelrubha was buried.
THE SECOND HALF OF THE WALK
The Heritage Centre was closed due to a funeral, so we turned back after a while in the churchyard.
Earnest theologian to renowned biologist J B S Haldane “what have your studies of nature told you about god?” Haldane’s response: “that he is inordinately fond of beetles!”
Outside table at a coffee shop we visited just before leaving applecross
Welcome to this special post in my series about my Scottishholiday. In the first post of this series I wrote about my now established tradition of producing a photographic wall calendar and invited readers to nominate pictures for consideration. Oglach, whose blog can be found here, has risen to the challenge by making some suggestions in response to my post about the ascent to the Bealach Na Va viewpoint.
OGLACH’S PICKS
Here, if I have followed his comment correctly are the pictures Oglach deemed worthy of further consideration:
AFTERWORD – HOW THESE
PICTURES WERE TAKEN
All of these pictures bar the last one were taken from the back seat of a moving campervan and carefully edited to bring out/ preserve their best points. I will certainly give careful consideration to including some of these in the calendar, and I end this little post by reiterating my invitation to my readers to nominate pictures for the calendar as and when they see them. If you put your nominations in a post on your own blog I will reblog it.
The final stages of the journey from Plockton to Applecross.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest post in my Scottish series. In this post we conclude the journey to Applecross with the final descent from the viewpoint where the last post concluded.
DOWNHILL ALL THE WAY
Here are the photos from this section of the journey:
Continuing the account of the super scenic journey from Plockton to Applecross, reaching the Bealnach Na Va Viewpoint.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my holiday in Scotland. This post continues the scenic journey from Plockton to Applecross, reaching the highest point of the road through the mountains.
PASSING PLACES
This section of the journey involved a road that was mainly single-lane, with signposted Passing Places where space permitted. The rule about Passing Places is: if it is on your left side you pull in to let the other vehicle through, while if it is on your right it is the other vehicle’s responsibility to make way for you.
INTO THE MOUNTAINS
Here is a photographic account of the ascent to the viewpoint:
Continuing the account my Scottish holiday – this post covers Plockton to Castle Strome.
INTRODUCTION
We are continuing with stuff from the Wednesday of my Scottish holiday. The second part of our itinerary for the day involved visiting the village of Applecross, which entailed a very scenic journey that I have split into two parts, using the brief diversion to Strome Castle as a natural divider.
ON THE ROAD
The road out from Plockton follows the shore of Loch Carron pretty closely for the first part of the journey. Loch Carron, like Loch Alsh is a sea loch (readers familiar with Norway should think ‘fjord’ – the Scottish sea lochs were created by the same geological phenomenon as the fjords). Not withstanding the limitations imposed by having to shoot through the window of a moving vehicle I kept the camera busy:
This road won’t be extended any time soon!
STROME CASTLE
This ruined castle is well worth the detour if you are heading towards Applecross. Here are the pictures:
The latest post ion my series about my Scottish Holiday, dealing with Plockton.
INTRODUCTION
We have reached the Wednesday in my series of posts about my holiday in Scotland, which astute readers will recall was the day of my birthday. For previous posts in this series please click here. There will be a number of posts about this day as we saw a lot of fantastic scenery.
PLOCKTON
Our first port of call was Plockton, where were hoping to book a table at the Plockton Inn (it is in the Good Food Guide). There were also a few other things to see in Plockton. Here are some early pictures:
This is the approach to Plockton
The Plockton Inn signPicture in the Plockton Inn
We were lucky at the Inn – they did have a table, at 6PM, so we knew when we had to be back in Plockton. This sorted, it was time to explore Plockton:
This ‘stone-look’ frontage is a fail as far I as am concerned.
I had identified a place for photo stop on the return journey while we were heading towards the Talisker distillery. It proved even better than I had expected, and in a few minutes I had taken a number of good pictures…
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At least one of these pictures will feature in the Calendar.
Click on this picture to hear the piece of music after which it is named – Hamish MacCunn’s evocation of his native land.
LEAVING SKYE
I got a few more pictures during the rest of the journey home…
A very brief post linking the one about the distillery tour to the last of my Skye posts.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the next installment of my series about my Scottish holiday. This post takes up the story from the end of our visit to the Talisker Distillery. My first post about Skye which contains links to all my pre-Skye posts can be foundhere.
FINDING SOMEWHERE FOR LUNCH
We found a place to have lunch at about 2:30PM (our tour had pushed us late). The food was good of its kind if somewhat overpriced. Here are the photographs from this section of the trip:
At some stage in this series I will be producing a post about the craft ales produced by the Skye brewery.
An account of a tour of the Talisker distiller on the Isle of Skye.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in my series about my Scottish holiday. My previous post contains links to all its predecessors in the series.
ARRIVING AT THE DISTILLERY
Tours of the Talisker Distillery are rather popular, so we had an hour to fill in before our tour started. There was an exhibition to look at and a gift shop. These occupied us for about half the time, and then we took shelter in my parent’s camper van for the rest. Here are some pictures from this preliminary period…
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THE TOUR
Most of the distillery itself was off limits as far as photography was concerned due to the possible triggering of dangerous chemical reactions. To give you an idea of the scale of the operation the whisky is produced in tranches of 30,000 litres at a time. Talisker whiskies are classified as mid-range peaty – not as peaty as the likes of Ardbeg, Islay, Lagavulin or Laphroaig but plenty peaty enough to taste.
The whisky here is double distilled (they used to triple distill until recently). By the time it reaches the end of the distillation process it has an alcohol content of between 64 and 74 percent, and is then diluted with distilled water to reduced this to the desired level which varies between 40% minimum and 57% for the variety which is called 57 Degrees, linking its alcohol content to the latitude of this part of the world.
The fermentation room contains eight giant containers, each at a different stage of the process, while there are two sets of stills. The first set consists of two each with a capacity of 17,000 litres and the second of three each with a capacity of 11,000 litres.
At the point at which it goes into the casks to mature the liquid is clear – the colour comes from the casks.
After we had seen the final stages of production there was the warehouse and a sampling session (a pub single each). In these closing stages photography was allowed again (I, unlike one of the others of our party had actually been listening when we were told this – I was annoyed when this individual piped up when I started photographing in the warehouse implying that I should not have been doing so, but the guide confirmed what I had already known by listening a few moments earlier – I was in the clear).
The barrel loses 2% of its content to evaporation per year – after 38 years which this barrel has been there for the amount left would be 0.98 to the power of 38 where 1 stands for a full barrel.
A few drops (emphasis on few) of water brings out the flavour
DEPARTURE
We decided that the prices in the gift shop were just too high, especially as only one of our three gift vouchers could be used per purchase. The 57 Degrees was priced at £68, while the less strong local stuff was in the region of £40 per bottle. There were also some super-expensive (“Oligarch Prices” as I termed them at the time) bottles. The biggest price tag I saw was £2,400.
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