The last full day of our time in Portmahomack was also my mum's birthday. I don't think the prospect of ending the holiday was the best present she could have asked for though! As she's got herself hopelessly addicted to the antics of Flipper, Neptune, Moby, Coral and Koi - the 'Under the Sea' litter of the Kitten Cuddle Room, I decided to get her a kitten of her own.
(click right to go through all the images)
After opening her gifts (which included, rather unfortunately, a scrunched up tissue which had fallen in the bag!) we wandered down the beach for a bit, finding the odd bit of glass and very sadly a dead seal pup, all floppy and saggy from decomposition. :(
The coffee and cake at the local tearoom lightened our spirits considerably and after consulting the map...
...we decided to pay the beach at Nigg a visit. As per usual, we got distracted en route, and ended up having a wander around Fearn Abbey.
While it wasn't nearly as old as this sign suggests, (the majority of the building is 17th century, having been rebuilt several times in its life) it still had plenty of old medieval features showing through.
I love buildings like this, where you can see it's life played out on the walls - old windows and doors that were filled in and replaced with the newer, more modern style of the time.
^ The temptation to ring the bell was incredible but I managed to resist!
Our curiosity sated, we continued on to our original destination.
While Nigg is now very obviously home to yet more oil rigs and other industrial applications, back in the day it was an important site, both in modern warfare and in ancient religion.
Much of the coastline around the town is inaccessible thanks to the industrial plants, but we managed to go for a wander down one wee stretch of beach by the harbour.
I loved this part of the dock where the metal was all corroded, I wish I could have photographed it longer!
Relics of past times were everywhere, from old fishing equipment to WW2 fortifications.
As we passed the dock, the wee ferry we'd seen the other day across the firth at Cromarty drew in to collect some passengers.
No sooner were they on board than the ramp went back up and the boat moved off - they certainly don't waste any time!
It was a fairly blustery day and once we'd walked past the harbour proper, there wasn't much for us to find amongst the sand.
Still, we did make one friend.
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| His belly floof fluttered in the breeze! 💓 <3 br=""> |
As the weather really wasn't great, we decided to head back to the cottage, calling in at one of the Pictish stones we hadn't yet visited, this time at Shandwick.
It's one of the few to still be in it's original location, though you can't get quite as close to it as we'd have liked as it's now protected by a big glass case.
Being behind glass is obviously the best thing for the stone other than putting it into a museum to conserve it, and leaving it more or less where it was erected is so much more preferable, at least to me. It sits high at the brow of a hill, overlooking the sea, and there's honestly something really quite moving about it. It really makes you wonder what the purpose of it was and what everything represented. Could it be seen from the sea and acted as some kind of local landmark or territory marker? Sadly we'll never know but it's great fun to guess.
The seaward facing side features a big cross slab with angels and a selection of beasts all looped around with that glorious Pictish knotwork. Due to the positioning, this side is far more eroded and damaged by the elements than the other side. Personally, I'm glad it's this side which has suffered because, well, just look at the landward side!
Absolutely spectacular knotwork with a hunting scene and it even stars the infamous Pictish Beast!
My personal opinion is that it's supposed to be a dolphin and I think being able to look at it whilst facing the sea is good evidence of that. Apparently it accounts for 40% of all Pictish 'animal' carvings so whatever it was it must have meant a great deal to them.
This site has some nice edited images which show off the hunting scene far better than my terrible photograph ever could as they were allowed inside the glass case!
We didn't stay long as it was pretty exposed up there, but we did get a lovely view!
We didn't stay long as it was pretty exposed up there, but we did get a lovely view!
As we had booked a meal for later on, Mum's birthday lunch, eaten at a bench in the cold breeze of Shandwick Bay, was a rather sparse affair!
After a quick jaunt at Shandwick, we headed back to Portmahomack as we had a rather snazzy evening meal to look forward to later on.
We'd booked a meal at 'The Oystercatcher' restaurant just down the road in Portmahomack, as it had very good reviews and sounded rather fancy.
It wasn't what any of us expected at all; really quirky decor, a surprising array of nibbles and genuinely amazing food!
My favourite aspect had to be the support column in the middle painted up like the nearby lighthouse of Tarbat Ness!
We began with a bread basket and three types of home churned butter to choose from, (one with yogurt?!) then rather randomly, a boiled quail egg and celery salt!
(Click right to see all the deliciousness!)
Following that came the tiniest tureen (like, eggcup sized) of the most delicious Cullen Skink, complete with totey wee toast triangles, and followed up later with some prawns smoked over potatoes! (We didn't order ANY of this btw, it was all part of the service, and this was all before the starter had even arrived!)
I went for the Eggs Caledonia to start; a glorious combination of smoked and cured salmon, potato, hollandaise sauce, spring onion and yet more quail eggs. The Loch Fyne smoked salmon in particular was incredible. Next came a palate cleansing apricot (and Brie?!) sorbet, then the main, which in my case was the vegan 'haggis', an oatmeal, vegetable and walnut pudding with crabapple sauce. It was absolutely divine and I could honestly have eaten it all over again if I could! I didn't think I'd make it to dessert as the portion sizes were very generous but I somehow managed to put away a single scoop of strawberry frozen yogurt! 😂 There was some flowering green tea too but I wasn't much of a fan tbh. 😂
We eventually staggered back to the cottage, and while I did go back out to attempt some astrophotography (I forgot I'd done that this night and not the day before, so my previous post is on the wrong day, lmao) it didn't take me long to fall asleep when I came back inside! 😂
We eventually staggered back to the cottage, and while I did go back out to attempt some astrophotography (I forgot I'd done that this night and not the day before, so my previous post is on the wrong day, lmao) it didn't take me long to fall asleep when I came back inside! 😂
The next day we left Portmahomack for the next leg of our holiday and somehow packed in even more interesting places, so watch this space for more!
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