The second week of my annual leave didn’t turn out as wet as expected which was a pleasant surprise.
On the Monday we headed over to Plockton and then took a trip onto the Isle of Skye up to Sligachan Hotel to enjoy the scenery. Here’s a some photos from that trip.
With dryer weather, it seemed a good opportunity mid-week to take a road trip to Durness, which is a picturesque part of the Highlands coastline north of us. The journey was a long one, about two and half hours across miles and miles of moorland. Although passing through some lovely countryside north of Bonar Bridge - where autumn can be seen to be on its way,
At one point we passed through a small village and I almost couldn’t believe my eyes seeing this buzzard sitting near the road on top of a shed! I managed to capture a photo before it flew off chasing another buzzard!!
The morning was due to be sunny, with cloud coming in during the afternoon, so we had left quite early. It seemed like the weather front (cloud) was tracking our progress as we got closer to Durness but we arrived with some blue skies before the change.
The A838 as it approaches Durness takes you past the Kyle of Durness seen below:
The Durness beach is very sandy and littered with outcrops of rock standing in random patterns and some covered in seaweed. The tide was out when we arrived, and so there was limited initial opportunities to get photos of the breakers crashing in against them.
Willow was her normal self - charging into the waves at even the suggestion of pretending to throw something out for her to chase! With this level of energy you wouldn’t think she was over nine and a half years old!
Part of the plans for photography was to get photos of the breakers coming into shore - and so a majority of the time with the camera was endeavouring to capture the moment with the waves. I took up residence on top of one of the rock outcrops initially, and this gave great views catching the sunlight off the water as it ebbed and flowed onto the beach.
The most fun however was photographing the waves. I ended up with hundreds of photos, flattening a camera battery, and filling one of the cards of the camera - before the day was out. Here’s a selection of some of my favourites from the many.
A great day out, and after getting some tea, made the long journey home, arriving well after dark. A day that wetted my appetite for getting to the coast during a decent storm!