We took a day trip from the East Coast Scotland at Dornoch, over to the West Coast at Ullapool for a day trip. It took a little longer than expected to get there given that the trip really included a fair hike across some nice high hills. With a rather big 4 x 4, hills don’t bother us as we usually have a van on the back, so unfettered, we tottered over for a trip.
The windy and single track road for much of the way seemed quite long and fairly never ending when we started off, but we really did see some lovely scenery along the way.
Deer and Sheep seemed to be the order of the day, and freaked middler out as they ran towards the car when we stopped so that I could get a picture. Can you see the deer standing straight up on it’s back legs as it watches for goodness knows what. It certainly didn’t seem bothered by the Scottish Mum family and our jaloppy. We’re used to seeing some young deer out the back of our garden, but we never, ever see a big group of them. There must have been about 30 in total
Sheep just wander onto the road as they graze at some spots without fences. It is a road that needs a bit of wits about you to travel along.
The road seems to climb and climb and climb until it seems we are in the mountains, but reaching the other side at Ullapool doesn’t seem to come with a matching downward descent so I have no idea how the sea levels work out. I really must look that up.
In Ullapool, we had a walk around, but we’re not really into shop browsing much. It’s a fishing port so it was nice to see a working fish house in operation and well mannered seagulls (well the ones we saw were).
It was quickly a bit tedious for the kids, so we headed into the closest easting place that we could find. It turns out that it was a good choice.
The Seaforth is an award winning fish restaurant that serves great food, and given that it is right next door to a fish house, I was happy to give the fish dishes a try. We chose to go informal and go to the bar. My healthy happy hearts schedule would be happy with me. There was a lovely open log fire, but with people right in front of it, I didn’t like to be as forward as ask them to shift over so I could get a piccie.
The man and I had the main fish, which is the smaller portion. There is a bigger version of what we had to eat so I dread to think how big it actually was.
Middler had a childs portion of fish which was bigger than it looks on this plate.
The other two had chicken fillets which they were happy to eat. It looks like there are only 2 on this plate, but there were 3 in total. They also got ice cream with their meals and a drink so kids meals were really good value.
Once we were done at The Seaforth, it was time to head back over to Dornoch and back through the pretty views. It’s always amazing to me how it never takes as long to go home as it does to go somewhere new.
