Inverness and the Scottish Highlands

After having such cold, rainy, snowy, and pitiful weather in Oslo and all along the train route through Norway, we were due a day or two of spectacular weather. I wouldn’t have ever guessed that it would happen in Scotland, though. And yet here we find ourselves in the Scottish Highlands with bright blue skies and sunshine.

A Scottish spring day without rain is like a church without a steeple. Oh, wait…

We set off in the morning and were instantly charmed by our tour guide, Sonia, who had a lovely lilt in her voice, she knew her information, and she even sang in Gaelic for us. In all the tours we’ve done, with Viking or otherwise, we both agreed that she’s the best guide we’ve had. The 3.5 hour bus ride flew by very quickly. Also, the countryside was putting on its best show today.

We had docked in the tiny town of Invergordon (more on that later) but the bus took us to Inverness (which means ‘at the mouth of the Ness river’, so the stress is at the end: InverNESS). Yes, that’s the same Ness that flows into Loch Ness a wee bit down the road from here. The Ness river is home to some otters, but our guide says that more people have seen Nessie in the river than otters, so don’t get our hopes up.

Inverness is a large city by Highlands standards at around 70,000 people. Most Highland towns sit at around 4,000 or so. Like Lerwick yesterday, it seemed like there were as many churches as houses. Our guide in Lerwick said they had more churches than congregations - some of the old church buildings had been repurposed. I’d be very surprised if Inverness were any different.

The river Ness has 26 locks that you have to travel if you want to get your boat from Loch Ness to the sea. While we didn’t get to Loch Ness, we did get to see the Ness locks.

We also saw a few ‘hairy coos’ as the Scots refer to them, or Highland Cattle as the rest of the world would say. They’re sorta like the Shetland pony version of a cow, short and strong with a mop top of hair.

We had some free time to walk about Inverness and decided to stop into McDonald’s for a coffee for me and a milkshake for Rob.

…but the shake machine was broken, because *McDonald’s*. I’m not sure why I thought a Scottish McDonald’s would have a more reliable shake machine than McDonald’s everywhere else, but it was worth a shot.

Then it was back to the ship for a quick lunch and I decided to go ashore and poke around the little town of Invergordon a bit.

There’s even less to do in Invergordon than in Lerwick, but it’s a pretty little town.

I loved all the old stone bridges over the railroad tracks.

Then it was time to walk back to the ship. Usually in a little town like this, the ship looks absolutely massive at the docks, but Invergordon is home to a Global Energy Services station with a ginormous facility that repairs offshore drilling platforms.