We found Iona to be a tranquil and peaceful island. The small number of motorized vehicles allowed certainly contributed to this feeling. Inside the abbey itself, we sensed a seriousness of spirit, almost demanding a strong reverence towards God. In contrast to this seriousness were the playful and sweet juvenile highland cattle we saw elsewhere on the island, especially the one pictured in our Scotland album, who strutted towards us with his backlit golden locks and seemed to enjoy posing for pictures. Here he is scratching his face against a fencepost.
On our way from Tongue to Aberdeen we stopped at Chanonry Point with hopes of sighting the chubby Moray Firth dolphins; the largest (up to 14 feet / 1/2 ton), most northerly bottle-nosed dolphins in the world with an extra thick layer of blubber to help insulate them from the cold North Sea. During the Spring and Summer, the dolphins feed on Atlantic salmon which migrate through the Moray Firth to the Ness and Beauly rivers. The firth narrows considerably at Chanonry Point which makes for it really easy for the dolphins as they can just wait for the salmon to come to them. While watching a dolphin pod swim through the firth, a couple of them surfaced about 20 feet in front of us as we watched from the shore. Nothing remotely as impressive as the picture on the left from the visitor display taken by Charlie Phillips, but it was still pretty cool to see.
Following Chanonry Point, we saw a bit of Inverness, Loch Ness, and the Cairngorms National Park on our way to Aberdeen. In Aberdeen we relaxed and recuperated from all the travel, driving, packing, unpacking, walking, walking, and more walking. Though we did do a lot of laundry - actually not a lot of laundry, just a lot of loads in the very small, very slow UK washer / "dryer". The residential washer / dryers in the UK (at least the three we encountered) are a single unit without a dryer vent. No vent combined with the high humidity means drying times are very, very long. Other than the dryer, the expansive one-bedroom apartment in a Grade B listed Scottish building from 1903 overlooking the River Dee was a dream.
Our last stop before returning to London was Keswick, situated on the North shore of Derwentwater, in the Lake District. Jane, one of the owners of the B&B we stayed at, is a landscape artist. She recommended some wonderful, charming, beautiful, easy to access, yet off the beaten path, locations that we thoroughly enjoyed away from the throngs of tourists. She even gave us the best days/times to visit to avoid the crowds. Thanks to Jane we had leisurely and relaxed day trips that included Faeryland at Grasmere, Rydal Hall Garden, The Grot at Rydal Hall (view from inside The Grot pictured on the left), Honister Pass, Buttermere, and Whinlatter Pass. The Grot at Rydal Hall was used by artists William Turner and John Constable, and described in a poem by William Wordsworth.
“…a small cascade
Illumes with sparkling foam the twilight shade
Beyond, along the visto of the brook
Where antique roots its bustling path o’erlook
The eye reposes on a secret bridge
Half grey, half shagg’d with ivy to its ridge.”
- William Wordsworth, 'An evening walk', 1793
