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Easter Ross.
Moorland and forest slope down to a wide estuary in Ross and Cromarty.

Getting to Easter Ross and around.

The train, the A9 and the buses

By train

The Far North Line from Inverness stops at Alness, Invergordon, Fearn and Tain on its way north to Thurso and Wick.

It's a lovely, slow run along the shores of the Cromarty and Dornoch Firths.

By road

The A9 crosses the Cromarty Firth Bridge north of Inverness and runs up through Easter Ross to the Dornoch Firth Bridge.

Tain is under an hour's drive from Inverness.

Getting around

Buses run along the A9 between the towns, but a car is the easy way out to the Seaboard villages and the Tarbat peninsula.

The roads are quiet, and nowhere here is far from anywhere else.

Tain is the natural centre, with a station, shops and the Dornoch Firth close by. Portmahomack is the place for the Tarbat peninsula and its sunsets over the firth, and Invergordon or Alness suit the Cromarty Firth.

Two days covers Tain, the Tarbat peninsula and the Pictish stones of the Seaboard villages. It also makes an easy stop of a night or two on the way north to Caithness.

Easter Ross is one of the driest and sunniest corners of the Highlands, sheltered by the hills to the west. Winters are cold but often bright, and the wind off the firths can be sharp on the coast.

The Seaboard villages and the Tarbat peninsula have some of the finest Pictish carved stones in Scotland, at Shandwick, Hilton of Cadboll and Nigg. The Tarbat Discovery Centre in Portmahomack tells the story of the Pictish monastery found there.

Yes. Glenmorangie at Tain and Balblair at Edderton both welcome visitors, and both stand close to the shore of the Dornoch Firth. Book tours ahead in summer.

Nigg Bay is a nature reserve for wading birds and wintering geese, and seals haul out along the firths. In autumn and winter the skies over the Cromarty Firth fill with pink-footed geese.

More of Easter Ross.

Riders and hunting scenes are carved into a Pictish-style standing stone on the Ross and Cromarty coast.See and doPictish stones, an abbey, a lighthouse and painted wallsA lamppost and bench sit at a street corner above a Ross and Cromarty harbour, hills fading into haze across the water.Eat, drink and shopVillage inns, an old station and home bakingA sandstone church with a bellcote and pointed windows stands in a Ross and Cromarty graveyard.History and storiesPictish stones, a saint's shrine and a naval portTarbat Ness Lighthouse rises above grassland at the end of a rocky coastline in Ross and Cromarty.ItinerariesDays we have driven, stop by stopA gabled ruin with a pointed window stands beside an autumn tree in a Ross and Cromarty churchyard.What is on in Easter RossSomething new from the region every day