Legendary Tour of the Black Isle from Inverness or Invergordon

Home to the Valliscaulian Monks whom lived here happily since around 1230 to 1510. It was visited in 1564 by Mary Queen of Scots and on arrival she said what a BEAU LEU or beautiful place. After the reformation the priory fell into disuse and the lead was removed in 1582. In 1652 Oliver Cromwell took some materials to build a fort in Inverness. This is where Jamie left Scotland for France in the Outlander TV Series

The Ord distillery dates back to 1838 it is the only single malt distillery on the Black Isle. The water for the mashing was taken from the Cuckoo Well and employed 18 people in the early days. Now it has 7 was stills and is owned by Diageo now the water come from the White Burn.

The Black Isle Brewery offers a short free tour and the Black Isle is another place I can highly recommend. Not a lot of the tours end up on the Black Isle which is a real shame as it is absolutely beautiful and has some great walks and an interesting history.

Chanonry Point is one of the best spots in the UK to view bottlenose dolphin from theshore. The dolphins are often visible off Chanonry point, particularly on an incoming tide when they play and fish in the strong currents. Other wildlife, including porpoises and grey seals, can also regularly be spotted. European otters are occasional visitors too.

Hugh Miller was a tall (nearly 6ft) man with a great mass of flaming red hair and "sapphire" blue eyes (according to his wife, Lydia). He possessed immense physical strength, and most importantly a questing intellect of extraordinary range. He was a self-taught geologist, and wrote about the history of the earth with an eloquence, breadth of imagination and descriptive power like no one else has then or since. His fossil collection of over 6,000 specimens became the founding core of what is today's Scottish national collection in the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh. His books, such as The Old Red Sandstone, The Cruise of the Betsey, Footprints of the Creator, Testimony of the Rocks, Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, and My Schools and Schoolmasters (autobiography) became bestsellers in many editions. Hugh Miller was an evangelical Christian. He could be ferociously aggressive in debate with his religious opponents, via the columns of his newspaper, The Witness. He helped to found a new Presbyterian Church, and gave it its name, the Free Church of Scotland. For all his ferocity in print, he was intensely shy, introverted, humble, prone to melacholy, and plagued with silicosis all his life because of his toils in his youth as a stonemason. In the end he was to die by his own hand - a single shot in the chest - in the early hours of Christmas Eve, at his home in Shrub Mount, Portobello, just outside Edinburgh. By then his brain was "burning," tormented by nightmares and fears of approaching insanity. He left a widow, Lydia, herself a writer, who edited and secured posthumous publication of some of his books, and four children, Harriet, William, Bessie and Hugh Junior, who became a geologist like his father. MILLER HOUSE opened to great acclaim on 8th April 2004.

This elegant Grade A listed former courthouse, built in 1773, now houses fascinating exhibitions about the historic town of Cromarty and the neigbouring parish of Resolis, which are FREE to visit.