Welcome to
Ross and Cromarty.
Newhall Mains · The Black Isle
01
Ross and Cromarty
Where to go, eat and stay in Ross and Cromarty.
Just over the Kessock Bridge from Inverness lies the Black Isle, a green, gentle peninsula with a firth on three sides. Cromarty has streets of Georgian merchants' houses and fishermen's cottages, and from the shore at Chanonry Point you can watch dolphins in the firth.
Pictish stones, old towns and Eilean DonanPlaces to visit
Waterfalls, wooded glens and dolphinsWalks and the outdoors
Bakeries, village inns and wood-fired pizzaFood and drink
Shops, studios and makersShops and makers
The distilleriesWhisky
A farmstay on the Black IslePlaces to stay
Days we have driven, stop by stopDays out
From our guide
FortroseFortrose Cathedral
RosemarkieGroam House Museum
TainTain Museum
ShandwickShandwick Stone
PortmahomackTarbat Discovery Centre
Hill of FearnFearn Abbey
FortroseFortrose CathedralRosemarkieGroam House MuseumTainTain MuseumShandwickShandwick StonePortmahomackTarbat Discovery CentreHill of FearnFearn AbbeyThe history of Ross and Cromarty.
People have lived along these firths for thousands of years, but it is the Picts who left the deepest mark.
Read itDays out
A dayAonach Meadhoin from the Cluanie InnBy car
A dayA' Chraileag from Loch CluanieBy car
A dayBeinn Sgritheall from ArnisdaleBy car
A morningSaileag from Glen Shiel by the Bealach an LapainBy car
A dayBen Wyvis by An Cabar and the Main RidgeBy car
A morningA walk to the Pink House on Loch GlassBy car
A dayAonach Meadhoin from the Cluanie InnBy carA dayA' Chraileag from Loch CluanieBy carA dayBeinn Sgritheall from ArnisdaleBy carA morningSaileag from Glen Shiel by the Bealach an LapainBy carA dayBen Wyvis by An Cabar and the Main RidgeBy carA morningA walk to the Pink House on Loch GlassBy carNew days out in Ross and Cromarty.
Ready-made days, the newest first, each with its drive times, its stops and somewhere to eat.
See every day out in Ross and Cromarty
True or false2 hours ago
True or false: in 1982 a golfer at Abernethy, in Strathspey, hit her ball into the opening of the war memorial cross beside the 8th hole, and it stuck there.
The labourers who built the road over Bealach na Bà to Applecross, in Wester Ross, were paid a shilling a day, and the landowners fed them oatmeal.Corrieshalloch Gorge, near Ullapool in Wester Ross, is 60 metres deep but only 10 metres wide at its lip, and a Forth Bridge engineer built the footbridge across it.The golf club at Reay, in Caithness, shut in 1940 as the population fell away. Who brought it back in 1962?The Kessock Bridge, between Inverness and North Kessock, was built to ride out earthquakes on the Great Glen Fault.Hilton of Cadboll Stone, Easter Ross.Lunch near Highland Mobile Sauna.The Shandwick Stone, in Easter Ross, is known as a Class 2 Pictish stone, with Pictish symbols covering one face and an enormous Celtic cross on the other.True or false: part of the golf clubhouse at Lybster, in Caithness, was once a railway ticket office.Foxy, the 14th hole at Royal Dornoch Golf Club, is the only hole on the course without a single bunker.Loch Glass, under Ben Wyvis, is where the river that cut the Black Rock Gorge begins.At midsummer sunrise, the shadow of a standing stone at the Touchstone Maze, above the Highland town of Strathpeffer, reaches right to the centre of the maze.Groam House Museum, Ross and Cromarty.Until the 1950s the road over Bealach na Bà to Applecross, in Wester Ross, had no passing places.Some good places to go, newly added to the site.The last hole at Royal Dornoch Golf Club is named Glenmorangie, after the whisky distillery across the Dornoch Firth at Tain.True or false: near the end of every August, crows descend on the fairways at Killin, in Perthshire, to dig for beetle larvae.Caboc, a rich cream cheese rolled in toasted oatmeal and made in Tain, in Easter Ross, is said to go back to a Highland noblewoman of the 15th century.The stills at The Singleton of Glen Ord Distillery, Muir of Ord.Wild salmon leap the Falls of Rogie, in Ross and Cromarty, every autumn.Free to visit.William Munro Ferguson makes the UK's most northerly cider in the old stone stables at Novar, a Highland estate on Scotland's northeast coast.Inside Kirk & Co. with founder Erica MacphersonHow do locals say the name of Avoch, the village on the Black Isle?Pinehurst in North Carolina calls its Ross family office Dornoch Cottage, after the Highland town where the golf designer Donald Ross was born.The Black Isle, Cromarty and the dolphins at Chanonry Point.The little pink house on the shore of Loch Glass, under Ben Wyvis in Easter Ross, looks like a lodge from a picture book, but it is an unfinished, empty shell.Beach at Rosemarkie.The road over Bealach na Bà to Applecross, in Wester Ross, is said to have the steepest ascent of any road in the UK, from sea level to 630 metres in about six kilometres.The golf course at Durness, in Sutherland, calls itself Britain's most north-westerly on the mainland. What does its 9th hole ask golfers to hit over?At Chanonry Point on the Black Isle, bottlenose dolphins come in on the rising tide to hunt salmon and sea trout.Platform 1864.Since the Black Isle Brewery, near Inverness, set about restoring wildlife on its farm, a survey has found eight red-list bird species there, the birds of highest conservation concern.Royal Dornoch Golf Club.John Sutherland became secretary of Royal Dornoch Golf Club at 19, in 1883, and ran it for 58 years.True or false: Tain, on the Dornoch Firth, lies almost as far north as Juneau in Alaska.A Weekend Exploring the Black IsleEuan Ramsay turned the old farm buildings of Newhall Mains, on the Black Isle, into a hotel with its own grass airstrip.At the Fairy Glen near Rosemarkie, on the Black Isle, children once decorated a pool beside a spring so that the fairies would keep the water clean and pure.For ten days in 2004, the Black Rock Gorge at Evanton was a set for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.Every August the golfers at Royal Dornoch, in Sutherland, play for the Carnegie Shield, named after the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.Ratagan Pass viewpoint.True or false: a golfer from Jedburgh won an Olympic medal.Dolphin Trips Avoch.In 1628 a Highland writer boasted that the golf links at Dornoch were the fairest and largest in Scotland, better than St Andrews.Glenmorangie House, the whisky distillery's own hotel near Tain in Easter Ross, was turned into a dazzling wonderland by Russell Sage, the designer who also transformed The Fife Arms.Struie Hill Viewpoint.Some of the stones of the Touchstone Maze, near Strathpeffer, are among the oldest rock on Earth.The royal family's nine-hole golf course on the Balmoral estate, on Deeside, opens with a hole flanked by statues of whom?Cromarty.When Old Tom Morris laid out the golf course at Tain in 1890, he gave it fifteen holes, because that was all the ground would take.Fairburn Tower, near Muir of Ord and about half an hour's drive from Inverness, was a gutted, roofless ruin before the Landmark Trust restored it as a holiday home.Bakhoos Bakery.Inver Inn, Easter Ross.At Brora, in Sutherland, the golf links is shared with crofters' animals. How much may each grazing share put out on the course?In Ullapool, The Ceilidh Place began in 1970 as a small café in a boatshed, started by the actor Robert Urquhart at Broomview Cottage, where he was born.Donald Ross kept the greens at Royal Dornoch Golf Club before he sailed for America in 1899 and became one of the great golf course designers there.Stories from Ross and Cromarty.Stories from Ross and Cromarty.Stories from Ross and Cromarty.Stories from Ross and Cromarty.Ryan Sealey, a Cornishman who makes Caledonian Cider on the Black Isle, has traded bottles of cider with the Dornoch distillery for whisky casks to age it in.Fortrose Cathedral.When Old Tom Morris made the golf links at Dornoch, in Sutherland, into eighteen holes in 1886, he is said to have declared there could be no better ground for golf.The nine-hole golf course at Arisaig, looking out to Eigg, Rum and Muck, is called Traigh. What does Traigh mean in Gaelic?A day out in Ross and Cromarty.A day out in Ross and Cromarty.A day out in Ross and Cromarty.A day out in Ross and Cromarty.A day out in Ross and Cromarty.A day out in Ross and Cromarty.A day out in Ross and Cromarty.Jeni Iannetta left a career in the arts to bake gin and tonic cupcakes at Bad Girl Bakery in Muir of Ord, in the Highlands.Balblair Distillery.True or false: under the local rules at Brora, in Sutherland, a golfer whose ball lands in animal droppings gets a free drop.Somewhere to eat in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to eat in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to eat in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to eat in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to eat in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to eat in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to eat in Ross and Cromarty.Something to do in Ross and Cromarty.Something to do in Ross and Cromarty.Something to do in Ross and Cromarty.Something to do in Ross and Cromarty.Something to do in Ross and Cromarty.Something to do in Ross and Cromarty.HMS Owl, a wartime control tower on Fearn Airfield at Tain in Easter Ross, became a family home once a foot of cow dung had been dug out of it.Where to stay in Ross and Cromarty.Where to stay in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to go in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to go in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to go in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to go in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to go in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to go in Ross and Cromarty.Somewhere to go in Ross and Cromarty.Portmahomack, a fishing village in Easter Ross, is on Scotland's east coast but faces west, and a berth in its harbour means a wait of 25 to 30 years.