Back To Civilization

A bit of time for some catch-up blogging...you've missed me, haven't you?  A bit of a spoiler alert, it's been grand.

Wednesday was a travel day...First we bid our farewells to the Polochar Inn at the southernmost tip of South Uist.  The route involved an hour's drive across Benbecula to North Uist, a ferry too Skye and then the drive towards Inverness.

There's no further south on South Uist.  The nearest point of relief is Barra....

Alas, my nesest friend Bob was nowhere to be found for a proper goodbye.  Parting is hard when you've become such fast friends:

Bob's not so good at the playing hard to get thing.

We caught this bit of nostalgia before leaving the Uists.  Back in the day it was an objective of each trip to find the most splendidly isolated of the red BT phone boxes, one with no other signs of civilization in the frame.  This one, and John informs that they only remain on the islands, wouuld have been middle of the pack:

Bonus points for the dateline, but far too much of the modern world visible.

For most of the journey I simply snapped photos through the car's windshield.  Not perfect, but you'll see how we have suffered.

A good view of a typical Scottish single-lane road.  The passing are can be seen top left, and it's quite the well-synchronized choreography of two experienced drivers navigating a passing in order to minimize the braking.

We stopped at a lovely pottery shop en route to the ferry, with this view out the back:

Windy much?

The Cuillins on Skye.

And a typical Scottish traffic jam...you can guess who has the right-of-way in such circumstances.

Approaching the quaint town of Plockton, we found the Highland Cows out in force:

I loved this guy scratching his neck on the pole.

And yes, your eyes do not deceive, those are, in fact, palm trees.  Plockton is unusually sheltered, and is also warmed by the gulf stream.  They are of course not native, but they've survived when planted,  Still incongruous though...

Despite the horribly non-mellifluous name, it's quite the lovely village.

The beautiful Plockton harbor.

And it turns out that John may have unintentionally mislead us, because we happen upon a phone box in the heart of Plockton

Though, to be fair, this red box has been repurposed into a greenhouse.

From Plockton we made a beeline to Strathpeffer where we hunkered down for the night.  We'll continue our adventures anon with our day at Castle Stuart Golf Links.