SCOTLAND Explore the heavenly hills and verdant valleys of Easter Ross in the Highlands
Enjoy the natural wonders, wildlife, scents and colours of Scotland in all its glory
Late summer is special in the Highlands of Scotland. It’s a fruitful time before the frosts of autumn. The heather is in full bloom and its honey scent enhances every walk over the moors and hills. Juicy wild berries are ripe, wildflowers are having their last colourful fling and butterflies flit around sunny glades.
Andrew and I, as well as our dog, Braan, were all eager for a change of scenery and it was high time that we visited my brother. I’d picked a destination not too far from where my brother lives so we could combine a campsite stay with a family visit. Dingwall Camping and Caravanning Club site is conveniently situated for some lovely walks and for exploring Easter Ross.
Dingwall lies on the west shore of the Cromarty Firth, where the River Peffery flows into the estuary. Like the Tingwalls in Orkney and Shetland, the name Dingwall has a Viking origin and means the meeting place of the local assembly or parliament.
It has long been an important centre and was made a royal burgh in 1226 by King Alexander II. Although it was the county town for Ross-shire, it lost its status with local government reorganisation in the 1970s, when Inverness became the capital of the Highlands.
The campsite, which lies on the edge of town within easy walking distance of shops and cafés, is popular and staff were having to turn people away. It was a good job we’d booked! A fence separates the site from the riverside path, which runs west into town and east to the Ferry Point picnic site. That’s where we headed as soon as we were set up.
I’d printed off route descriptions of several walks from the excellent Walkhighlands website. The four-mile
Macdonald Monument and the Cromarty Firth walk proved a great introduction to the town and its surrounds.
We followed the River Peffery, past a hunting heron, to the picnic site, where old woodwork projects into the mudflats. In 1817, a canal designed by Thomas Telford was dug here with the aim of turning Dingwall into a working port on the Cromarty Firth. However, the builder didn’t follow the specification and allowed the River Peffery to flow into the canal, which soon silted it up. The picnic site occupies a grassy point with views down the silvery Firth to the Cromarty Bridge, which carries the A9 across from the Black Isle.
The route continues along the shore of the estuary. Lush wildflowers bordered the path, with tall meadowsweet, valerian and sow thistle dancing in the breeze and mauve and yellow vetches tangled through the grass.
Looking across flat fields of swaying barley, Dingwall was screened by trees, but Ben Wyvis, the massive local mountain, filled the skyline.
The castellated tower of the Macdonald Monument dominates a graveyard above the town. Built just over a century ago, it commemorates a local crofter’s son who rose to high rank in the 92nd Gordon Highlanders. Hector Macdonald was knighted for his services during the Second Boer War and given command of the army in Ceylon, but killed himelf in 1903 before facing a court martial for homosexuality.
Next morning we drove about six miles up the valley of the River Peffery to Strathpeffer, a Victorian spa town. A spur of railway (now dismantled) was built here to allow tourists to come and take the healthgiving waters. The delightful wooden ³
station, now painted red, has a glass and ironwork canopy on one side with a café.
Across the main road from the station, I followed a sign to the Eagle Stone, a Pictish carved slab with a stylised bird incised onto one side (it’s known in Gaelic as Clach na Tiompain, the ‘sounding stone’). The Pump Room next to the Spa Pavilion is where Victorians took their daily dose of mineralrich water; it’s now a sweet and gift shop with a small museum.
We had been looking forward to walking along the whaleback ridge of Knockfarrel, which promises wonderful views and an Iron Age hill fort, so drove to the Backmuir Wood car park on the south edge.
Two short trails are waymarked from here, but we had a longer Walkhighlands route to follow. We did it in reverse, because (since our knees became more creaky) we prefer going steeply uphill to downhill.
With pulses racing we reached the highest point, Cnoc Mor, at the south end of the ridge. Although cloaked in pine forest, we obtained a view by dropping slightly downhill to look west over Contin. Beyond, we could see the blue hills that surround Strathconon, where my brother lives.
Around the whitewashed trig point was a deep carpet of bilberries (called blaeberries in Scotland). Perfectly ripe blue-black berries clustered under the oval green leaves. We feasted until our fingers were purple from the juice and Braan told us it was time to get on with the walk.
Another distraction soon stopped me – chocolate-brown shapes flitted through the air wherever the sun shone between the trees. It was an enormous colony of speckled wood butterflies, vying with each other to attract a mate.
Beyond the forest, we strolled along a grassy path with blooming heather on either side. Loch Ussie shone below while, on the other side, Strathpeffer lay amid a patchwork of trees and fields.
Towards the end of the ridge, Dingwall and the Cromarty Firth came into view ahead behind the final bump crowned by the hill fort, once occupied by a Pictish king. At some point its timber-framed, stone-built rampart was burnt with a heat so intense that the stone became ‘vitrified’. Lumps of melted rock that have fused together stick out of the turf in a ring around the hilltop.
On our return route, lower down the hillside, we found plenty of wild raspberries to add to our five-a-day ration. The path passes the Touchstone Maze, a labyrinth that contains 81 boulders representing different rock types found in Scotland.
My brother joined us for another walk from Strathpeffer the following day. This time we did a circuit on the other side of the
village, around Loch Kinellan.
We met in Backmuir car park and started by crossing the road and walking up a quiet lane but, had I known it, we could have parked in a small car park almost by the loch. Just beyond this is a memorial to the dead of the Korean War and a bench with a peaceful view over the water. My brother’s black labrador, Edmund, immediately did what labs love and dived in the water, while Braan, the collie, looked on bemused.
It was a very pretty walk beside the loch, with meadowsweet, willow herb and meadow vetchling adding splashes of colour to the reeds fringing the water. On the far side we climbed past pines with bright red fly agaric fungi at their feet to a bench with a view. We walked along the hill and descended at the far end, returning on farm tracks past a field of curious alpacas.
After repeatedly glimpsing views southwest to the silhouetted hills around Strathconon, it was eventually time to head into the heart of them.
I occasionally drive into the glen from Contin, a village on the main road to the west coast, but that involves extremely tight turns crossing the Loch Meig dam, so we
normally approach from Marybank. It’s not a drive I’d readily recommend for a motorhome as it’s a twisty single-track road that runs for 17 miles before coming to a dead end midway between the east and west coasts. Although I’ve been driving it for years, I always tackle it cautiously as the visibility is poor around many bends and the locals drive like the wind, so the closing speed of an oncoming vehicle can be surprisingly fast. The reward is a wild Highland glen with three lochs along the way and magnificent scenery.
Walking and mountain bike trails start ³