“Interior, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin” — Looking down the length of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland.
I have recently shared a lot of photographs from Scotland, where we spent almost two weeks in May. But that was not the extent of our trip — in all, we were “on the road” for six weeks, also visiting Ireland and England. Ireland was next on our agenda after we departed Scotland, and we had a bit more than a week there. This time we concentrated on cities, quite a contrast with our rural adventures in Scotland. Our first stop was the marvelous city of Dublin.
“Mountains and Cascade” — A stream cascades down from a mountain valley in far northern Scotland.
Most of our May visit to Scotland consisted of a big loop from Inverness out to the Isle of Skye, north (often on the NC500 route), eastward along the North Sea coast, and then down the eastern coast to return to Inverness. This took us through lots of highlands country, but on this day, as we drove across the north towards John O’Groats, the mountains were receding more and more into the distance. Driving east and looking south (the North Sea was to our left) we saw this spectacular ridge.
“So That Sheep May Safely Graze” — A road sign on a single-track road in Scottish sheep country.
On the Isle of Skye, and for that matter all over Scotland, there are sheep. A LOT of sheep. What cattle are to the American west, sheep are to Scotland, or so it seems. The sheep and their abundant pastures are a significant component of the Scottish landscape — you encounter them everywhere when you walk or drive. I’ll let you speculate on the purpose of this road sign for a moment before explaining… (If you read this post where the next paragraph is already visible, pause and see if you can figure it out.)
“Below Applecross Pass” — The road from Applecross Pass winds through a deep canyon toward Kishorn and Ardarroch.
We were surprised by this spectacular canyon soon after we began our return drive towards Ullapool from Applecross, on the western Scottish coast. The road climbed steadily from Applecross, passed through barren alpine country, and offered great views to the west toward Skye and other islands. The road leveled off near the high point as it arrived at the pass.
