Fyrish

Today, the Van Eyks (the wonderful family I'm staying with for a few days) took me up Fyrish. Let me say, the words beautiful, gorgeous, incredible, stunning, and stupendous hardly do it justice. Unfortunately, for you non-whovians that is, the only way I can think to even partly explain my feelings at seeing it in one word, and one word only (and no, that word is not "Pond"...though there was a pond there....hmmm...there was also a river...but it wasn't the only water in the forest, because the pond was also there . . .), is "Fantastic," though you need to say that like Christopher Eccleston in order to get the full affect. But whovianness aside, it really was fantastic!

I need to say now, I did not get many pictures. I was so very unfortunate as to have my sd card in my dear friend Jessica's camera (the one I am borrowing) decide that it was going to be formatted any more. Needless to say it was very depressing. I did get a few on the way up, and you can see the awesome river/brook, but you can't see the stunning view. "...You can see for miles" (name that movie fellow Austenites). Down to the South, fields, forests, cottages, a few small towns, and across the Firth of Cromarty; to the West high snow covered peaks, and a few bare dales, and some white Manor that looked castle-like; to the North more wind swept dales and a few cottages nestled in the hills and fields; and to the East basically the same as the North but also a wee bit of the Firth.

These is a monument at the top. I shall explain its significance and I'm sure I'll get something wrong. I apologize but I just heard the story today for the first time. It was built in the 1800s, during the potato famine. The owner, at that time, of those lands wanted a gate built as a replica of a gate he had seen in India, so he got the people to build him one and paid them in potatoes. Anyways, I do not have a picture, but you should really look it up on Google. It's super cool.

**Update here is the Monument, and, yes, that's me standing in the archway

Here are the pictures I did get, some might be blurry and I apologize for my lack of picture taking skills...

The woods are so beautiful. Full of lots of moss, they look like something out of a faery story, which, come to think of it, is probably why a lot of stories about faeries come out of Scotland.

Looking down off the bridge at the river. It was your typical Scottish brook, bubbling and babbling over the rocks. The trickling was so delicate yet loud, fast, but not rushing.

Looking up at the other side of the bridge

Part of the Firth. This was from about 2/3s of the way up, I think, near the Pond anyways. (hah! see what I did there?)

**Update: This is looking East from the top

That's about all I have to say. I did get my SD Card issues worked out, thankfully, and tomorrow I plan to walk around Tain a bit and take some pictures there. From what I've seen driving, it's a very pretty town with lots of old buildings. So I shall blog again tomorrow. As closure, I must repeat what I said in my blog description, I shall not be doing this every day forever. I will probably go down to once a week after I get to Barcaple. So until then, I shall try to do an update each day, and then the first day I'm at the House I will, hopefully, take pictures and blog in the evening again. Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy it! "Goodnight, sleep well...most likely kill you in the morning" (name that film)

**Update: thank you to my fantastic mother for sending me the pictures that the Van Eyks kindly took and sent to her from the top! : )