ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-SEVEN. I took 187 photos today! Because I am INSANE. But also, SCOTLAND IS INSANELY GORGEOUS AND COOL. ALL CAPS!!
Nononono WAIT! I won’t post all of them. I’ll whittle them down to the coolest and bestest! Don’t close this tab quite yet! Most of them are terrible because the clouds/sun make for some pretty grey scenes that looked much better irl and are for me, later, to supplement my memories of how cool it all was. I’m not THAT 80s guy who makes you sit through three hours of vacation slideshow. Yet.
The Lonely Mountain
From quite a distance in all directions, Suilven – one of the most distinctive Scottish mountains – rises up over the landscape. It showed up from miles and miles off as I was driving westward, and then kept appearing at random points from all sides. I bet it looks cooler with some snow on it, but none of these hills are tall enough to keep it frosty year round #WestCoastKid
So We’re Still Calling This A Castle
I guess, in my head, I picture some Lord Of The Rings/Game Of Thrones ancient castles and nothing on this trip has really matched up with that. Which I suppose makes sense. Fantasy writers were clearly not happy with the world and so created something more spectacular in their own. This little ruin was overseeing a lake on the side of the road. The coolest part is how the backside completely fell away and you can see the dungeons at the very bottom.
Oh Deer
Twice today I crossed the path of a herd of deer. Boy do these guys look kinda intimidating up close. Like, they just stare right back at you with those dead black eyes and if I weren’t in a three-ton hunk of steel on wheels I would not want to encounter them on my own.
Jurassic Peak 3: Secret of the Ooze
Those grey rocks were littered across the landscape once more. At one point, as I was winding my way towards the coast, an entire town was just a few houses spread out from each other nestled amongst the rocks. There’s a lot of pictures of them, but they’re everywhere and look cool and it’s so interesting to me. Also, side note, how does anyone farm up here with what is presumably not very much soil and just grey sandstone for ground?
No But Seriously What Causes Rock To Wave And Fold Like That?!?
There was also one point as I drove through a valley that I could see this weird rippled grey mountain off in the distance. I kept stopping and getting the camera out to zoom in and figure out what it was, but the sun was at an angle that made it impossible to tell. As I got closer it just turned out to be this massive hillside of rippled grey rock. The same sandstone as everything else? No clue. The photos don’t do it justice for just how weird it looked.
Open Skies Again
Today was another day of turning a corner into a valley or up onto a plateau and just seeing everything for miles and miles. Again, I’ve run out of words. SO COOL.
Familiar Territory
Toward the end of the drive I found myself back in a place I’d seen from my trip in 2017 but hadn’t actually driven through. It was a rainy morning last year and so I could see the spiky peak of the mountain and the plains and ocean beyond it, but my path took me southeast away from it. Today I was coming up from the southwest and getting to see those plains and the ocean from the other side, and then briefly overlapping that past route in the other direction. It was really cool to suddenly feel like I knew a place, like this road was familiar to me, before plunging onward into the new unknown.
A Serene End
At the very end of the day, a few miles outside of Inverness, I came down the coastline to this perfect spot of ocean and green farmland. I pulled over to grab a pic and ended up just standing there enjoying the view, breathing in the air, and ended up listening to two birds chirp their flirty songs at each other for a few minutes.
