Bike Trails and Seaboard Villages

28/10/2024

Following our walk up Ben Wyvis we drove back east towards the coast, through popular Fortrose and Rosemarkie where Chanonry Point offers good opportunities for dolphin spotting. We didn’t stop though because we were heading up to Learnie Red Rocks mountain biking trails. We parked up in the forestry commission car park, too tired to do much but sit in the van and watch the comings and goings of people enjoying their cycling on this sunny Saturday afternoon.

Learnie Red Rocks

As the day drew to a close we were joined by other vans, one at a time they turned up to park, each of them a hire van. We were now on the NC500 and it was pretty obvious. We hadn’t seen ever seen so many hire vans in one parking spot. The thought of being on the NC500 makes me a little anxious, there is so much bad press and negative social media vitriol aimed at the NC500 and motorhomers in particular. I wondered what was to come. Paul was unconcerned, much less bothered by other people’s opinions than me and not a social media consumer. It’s a good reminder that excessive social media consumption is not a healthy thing.

Worries were for another day though. We were treated to a sunset that washed the sky with rose pink and a stunning night sky with sparkling stars. When we woke after our peaceful night the hire vans were packing up and readying themselves to move off. They had a schedule to keep, presumably they had to squeeze as much from their trip as possible. We, on the other hand, had the leisure to enjoy the mountain biking before moving on.

Sunset skies at Learnie Red Rocks

And enjoy the biking we did. Learnie was party closed for logging but we popped up and down the blue and red runs for most of the day. As it was a weekend it was a good sociable day too with just enough people to chat to at the tops of the trails without having someone breathing down our necks on the way down (I hate feeling like I’m being hurried down the hill).

The Seaboard Villages

Learnie Red Rocks is on the roughly anvil shaped peninsular known as the Black Isle. North East of the Black Isle is the similarly shaped Easter Ross peninsular. Getting from one to the other involves a bit of a trek around and across the expanse of the Cromarty Firth.

On the way we got good views of the platforms out to sea

We were aiming for Ballintore, the central of the three Seaboard Villages, fishing villages that are close enough together that you can’t tell where one ends and the next begins.

First stop was the Seaboard Centre where a chemical waste dump is available behind the centre. We were more than happy to get rid of three days worth of toilet waste and to pick up a container’s worth of fresh water from the tap at the front of the building. We tried to use the QR code to pay our donation but the website link wasn’t working. Fortunately it was back up and running the next morning, although by that time we had made some change to put a donation in the honesty box.

There was parking across the road from the Seaboard Centre but it didn’t feel quite the right size and shape for us to comfortably park so we moved on to the harbour instead. From there we could take a look around the villages and, most importantly, pop to the village shop for cake (we had to make that change somehow).

We could see Bertie from the far end of the harbour

Pictish History

We walked the length of the Seaboard Villages to see two Pictish stones. At the Shandwick end of the village, involving a short walk up a road, is the Shandwick Stone. It has been protected with a glass case since it’s restoration in the 80s. The transparent box sitting on a hillside gives it a science fiction look but the stone is carved with patterns reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. It’s thought that the masons who carved the stones must have seen some of those treasured documents, and possibly the stones were coloured in a similar style.

At the Hilton end of the village is the Hilton of Cadboll stone. This is in a field behind the village, next to the ruins of a medieval church of (very) roughly the same age as the stone.

Between the two stones we followed the coast as and when we could. On the way we followed the sculpture trail which includes the impressive Mermaid of the North and three giant salmon, representations of the relationship between the villages and the sea.