An unexpected gem

 We got a photo of the "new" Skye bridge this morning before we left our hotel in Kyle.

Then we left to drive up to Inverewe, to visit the gardens there.  On the way, we stopped at Acnasheen to charge the car, via the ChargePlace Scotland app. 

Not sure I'm keen on standing in a big puddle while I hook up an electric charger...

Then off to Inverewe.  Like at Dunvegan yesterday, most of the rhododendrons are over, but that allows the spectacular bark to be seen.

But there are still a few late bloomers.

The woodland walk includes a path down to the loch.

panoramic view of the loch

And there are marvellous trees.

Californian Redwood

After about an hour and a half walking round all the gardens, we had lunch in the garden cafe.  Then time to drive to Inverness.

Just before we got there, we stopped at what looked like a large layby with a Public Convenience.  But it turned out it was the small car park for Rogie Falls.  An information board showed two trails: a half-mile Salmon Trail down to the Falls themselves, and a somewhat longer and "strenuous" Riverside Trail.  It was still early, so we put on our boots and set out on the longer trail.

We took the blue trail

disappearing down the trail

This brought us down to a path along the river above the falls.

an unexpected gem

The path led us to the falls themselves.

We guessed from the name "Salmon Trail" that this is a salmon river, but assumed it was too late to see any.  But no! There was a lot of jumping going on, but we failed to get any photos of fish.  We continued on the trail, back to the car park, and then drove to Inverness.

We chose a hotel that was supposed to have an EV charger associated with it, but it was no longer there.  So we went to a local shopping centre, plugged into a Tesco charger, bought some items in Tesco's to be legitimate customers, then ate in a local diner while the relatively slow charger filled the car.

Off to Edinburgh tomorrow!