Highlands & Islands - The Far North & Orkney Package

Package Overview

Vast landscapes, spectacular coastlines and a brief glimpse into our ancient past
Welcome to this adventure and to the exploration of the far north of Scotland, its gardens, its vast landscapes and spectacular coastlines and its warm and genuine hospitality, and welcome too, to Orkney, a group of some 70 islands lying off the northern tip of Scotland. Orkney brings a particular and extraordinary dimension to this tour, and we have two days to explore its unique and daily-unfolding heritage.

This tour is, in essence, a scenic progress around the very top of Britain, visiting stunning gardens in breathtaking locations, learning a little of its history and heritage, and enjoying a good deal of excellent Highland hospitality.

The far north
The far north is a vast, sparsely populated area with a few, mostly single track roads, crossing a remote and wild landscape; it is stunningly beautiful, with huge, strange shaped mountains, remote lochs and enormous skies. This is truly the Highlands, not just an ill-defined area on a map, but a mindset and way of life. A little understanding of the Highland Clearances, the seminal event of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Scottish history will not go amiss, and it is worth noting that Sutherland, this most northerly part of Britain, is Sutherland because it was the southern land of the Norse raider!

Orkney
Five thousand years ago on Orkney, prehistoric man began constructing extraordinary stone monuments, a series of important domestic and ritual monuments which, individually, are masterpieces and, collectively, represent one of the richest surviving Neolithic landscapes in western Europe. We will spend a day in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, learning a little of this fascinating ancient past. More recently Orkney's chief influence, like that of Sutherland, was Norse, and, together with its northern neighbours in the Shetland Islands, Orkney remained a Norwegian province until 1469.

A superb three-part BBC series, Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney, was screened in the UK this past winter, and if you are able to watch it, I heartly recommend it. And this website, Orkneyjar, is useful for background reading - and, if nothing else, you will learn that it is Orkney or the Orkney Islands, but not the Orkneys!

The Gardens
Despite the remoteness and its northerly latitudes the far north has a surprising number of excellent gardens and we will take you to a selection of the very best, a range of gardens encompassing the different styles and sizes, and we do so unhurriedly, at our own pace. The charitable organisation, Scotland's Gardens, has a useful website and I remain indebted to Kenneth Cox and his wonderful book Scotland for Gardeners.

Sleeping & Eating
Because this is, in essence, a grand progress around the northern-most coast of Scotland we have placed an even greater emphasis on our comfort and convenience. All told, we stay in five establishments during our progress; all different, all individual, all in the Good Hotel Guide and, save for our first night and for Orkney, all known to us and well-liked by us.

Our first and final evenings - driving to and from the far north - are one-night affairs, and the middle six nights are spent at three hotels, each for two nights.

Our first night is spent just north of Inverness, at Coul House Hotel, Stuart and Susannah Macpherson's rambling 1820's mansion, bought by them in 2003, sight unseen! We then have Friday and Saturday nights on Orkney at, The Foveran, an award-winning restaurant-with-rooms and, frankly, the best table in town. Returning to the mainland, we have two nights at the wonderful Forss House Hotel, one of our favourite hotels and truly one of the best hotels we have ever stayed at, and then two nights in Ullapool, at The Ceilidh Place, a mildly quirky establishment, which I particularly enjoy, not least for its lovely residents' lounge, its honesty bar and its great range of local beers! Our final night is at the rather luxurious, and very comfortable, Roman Camp Hotel, within easy striking distance of both Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports.

We have chosen these establishments for several reasons, among them the fact that they have good kitchens, producing some superb food and we will dine-in every evening, with the possible exception of our second night in Ullapool - when we might go and get some exceptionally good Fish & Chips!

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Day wise Itinerary

• Day 1 : From Edinburgh to the Highlands, via Pitlochry & Blair Castle

  Tim will collect you from the Hilton Hotel Edinburgh Airport, from where we will drive north, crossing the River Forth on the Queensferry Crossing, the yet-to-be-opened new road crossing, and driving through Perthshire, to Pitlochry, for a brief stop in this charming Highland town, and nearby Blair Castle, for lunch and an hour or so in the fabulous Hercules Garden, a 9-acre/3.6 ha walled garden, restored to its original Georgian design and named after the life-sized statue of Hercules which overlooks the garden.
  
  Blair Castle is not quite halfway, and it's about another two hours to Coul House Hotel, where we will arrive in good time to check in, relax and have a stroll around their gardens, before drinks and dinner at Coul House.
  
  We have chosen Hilton Hotel Edinburgh Airport as a departure point because of its proximity to the airport and because it affords customers, who are not staying at the hotel, a comfortable and secure environment in which to wait. Moreover, I plan to depart the hotel at about 10am, time enough to get to the hotel from Edinburgh city centre and, indeed, from Glasgow city centre. See also Joining Instructions.

• Day 2 : Inverness to Forss House, via Dunrobin and Dunbeath Castles

  We depart Coul House and return to the main road north, for our first visit of the day, to Dunrobin Castle, seat of the Dukes of Sutherland, a dukedom once covering 1.3 million acres and the scene of some of the most notorious of the nineteenth-century Clearances. Easily the largest house in northern Scotland, the current house is an older building remodelled by Charles Barry, inspired by French châteaux with a Victorian twist and just a touch of Disney, it sits high above steep terraces, leading to two parterres, each laid out around circular fountains.
  
  After an early lunch, at Dunrobin, we continue along the coast for an early-afternoon's private visit to the gardens at Dunbeath Castle, where head gardener, Neil Millman, will introduce us to the gardens: a pair of walled gardens, one either side of the drive leading to the fourteenth-century, clifftop castle, and one of them designed by Chelsea gold-medal winning garden designer, Xa Tollemarche. They are beautiful gardens, and widely regarded as among the best of their kind in Scotland.
  
  We leave Dunbeath and drive directly to the Penland Ferries terminal at Gills Bay, for the late-afternoon, one-hour crossing to Orkney, and to St Margaret's Hope, our ferry's destination. From St Margaret's Hope, on South Ronaldsay, we drive across the Churchill Barriers, erected during the Second World War to protect Scapa Flow from enemy attack, to The Foveran, our home for the next two nights, where we arrive in time to settle-in before dinner.

• Day 3 : The first of two days on the Orkney Islands!

  After a leisurely breakfast, and armed with our Orkney Explorer Passes, we drive into nearby Kirkwall, the largest town and capital of the Orkney Islands, to visit both the Bishop's & Earl's Palaces, and the majestic St Magnus Cathedral, before lunch and some free time to explore the town.
  
  Following the coast, we leave Kirkwall and head to the far north west of the island, to visit the Broch of Gurness, an impressive Iron Age complex and one of the most outstanding examples of a later prehistoric settlement in Scotland, and Brough of Birsay, a very special tidal island, reached only by a causeway, with Pictish, Norse and medieval remains to explore.
  
  From Birsay, we cross the island, to Houton, to take the ferry to Hoy, and visit the Scapa Flow Visitor Centre and, if time allows, the Hackness Martello Tower, but whatever we do today, we will return to The Foveran for drinks and a relaxed dinner.
  
  NB. Today's itinerary is particularly flexible, not least because the Scope Flow Visitor Centre is planned to close for refurbishment and a temporary museum may be housed elsewhere, that and the Brough of Birsay is a tidal islet, and we have to time that correctly!

• Day 4 : A day in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site

  We load the minibus and spend today exploring three of the four Heart of Neolithic Orkney sites, plus the hugely important excavations at the Ness of Brodgar, all close together in the centre of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site. At some sites we will be guided, at some free to explore at will, and we have chosen today deliberately, because there are no cruise ships due - and we should have the island to ourselves, figuratively speaking!
  
  In the morning we will visit the Maeshowe Visitor Centre, for a guided tour of Maeshowe Chambered Cairn, one of Europe's finest chambered tombs, built some 5,000 years ago, then The Ness of Brodgar, a hugely-important archaeological excavation at the Heart of the Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site and, finally, the Ring of Brodgar, one of the most spectacular prehistoric monuments in the British Isles, a stone circle and henge dating to the third millennium BC.
  
  From the Ring of Brodgar, it is all of a 10-minute drive to Skara Brae, the best-preserved Neolithic settlement in Western Europe, built long before Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids, where we have plenty of time to explore this extraordinary site. Late in the afternoon we drive to Stromness, on the western side of Orkney, for the ninety-minute ferry crossing to Scrabster, on the Scottish mainland, from where it is about 15 minutes to Forss House Hotel, our home for the next two nights, and we will arrive there in time to settle-in before dinner.

• Day 5 : The Castle of Mey, John O'Groats and Dunnet Head

  We spend a leisurely day exploring the north eastern corner of Scotland, starting at the late Queen Mother's private Scottish residence, the sixteenth-century Castle of Mey, where the high-walled garden reflects the Queen Mother's favourite flowers, many of which were gifts and, nice though the garden is, and it is, the real treat is to be conducted around the castle by all the Queen Mother's staff, who talk of their former employer with much reverance and great fondness.
  
  After lunch, at Mey, we take the coast road to John O'Groats for our statutory group photograph by the John O'Groats sign, and return via the much wilder Dunnet Head, the most northerly point on the British mainland, and, hopefully, a brief visit to Dunnet Bay Distillers for their late-afternoon tour and a sip of some very decent gin!

• Day 6 : From Forss House to Ullapool, via House of Tongue

  We say goodbye to Forss House and continue our anti-clockwise progress of Scotland's northern coastline, driving west along the top of Scotland for a private visit to one of Scotland's most northerly and isolated gardens, the House of Tongue, home to the 96-year-old Countess of Sutherland, where Head Gardener, Richard Rowe, will meet us and show us around this beautiful, isolated garden.
  
  We continue west, until we are as far west along the road as we can go, and stop for a picnic lunch on the golden beaches at Durness, just about the farthest north west that one can go, and here we turn south, and head for Ullapool - for refreshment, sustenance and a comfortable night at The Ceilidh Place, a mildly eccentric establishment, created by the late actor Robert Urquhart. Today is a long, wonderful day on the road, and we will sleep well.

• Day 7 : A day out from Ullapool

  Another leisurely day on the coast, visiting two private gardens south of Ullapool, firstly to the House of Gruinard, where head gardener, Fiona Clark, will show us around this amazing seaside and riverside garden - one of our favourite gardens. Having gone as far south as we intend to, we retrace our route northward, along the coast for a picnic lunch, to Dundonnell House, for a private guided visit at this splendid walled garden, dominated by a truly magnificent and ancient yew tree. Head gardener, Will Soos, formerly of Inverewe Gardens, down the road, will show us around.
  
  Our final two stops are on our way home, firstly to see the Falls of Measach in the Corrieshalloch Gorge, and secondly for a brief visit to the Lael Forest Garden, a relic from the days when wealthy gentlemen sponsored plant-hunting exbititions around the globe and brought back the seed to create arboreta, like this one.
  We return to Ullapool for dinner, either at The Ceilidh Place or elsewhere in the town.

• Day 8 : From Ullapool to Callander, via Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness & Glen Coe

  We leave the far north, driving south east to the shores of Loch Ness and to our first stop of the day, at Urquhart Castle. Once one of Scotland's largest castles, Urquhart saw great conflict during its 500 years as a medieval fortress and control passed back and forth between the Scots and English during the Wars of Independence, and the last of the government troops garrisoned there blew it up as they left!
  
  We continue along the Great Glen, through Fort Augustus, to Fort William, where we will stop for lunch and a brief exploration of the self-styled 'Outdoor Capital of the UK', and then continue our journey into Glen Coe, possibly one of the most beautiful of Scotland's great glens, where we will stop for photographs and to take in the breathtaking views along the way.
  
  We will arrive at Roman Camp Hotel, our rather luxurious hotel, late in the afternoon, for a relaxing evening and a sumptuous end-of-tour dinner.

• Day 9 : And back to reality . . .

  After a leisurely breakfast and one final loading of the minibus, we set off to Edinburgh Airport, some 60-minute drive away, where we plan to be by late morning, in good time to catch afternoon flights and afternoon trains from Edinburgh Waverley Railway Station.
  
  Please note that if you need to be at the airport significantly earlier than this, we will be happy to arrange for transport to the airport, at your expense, and if you are staying on, in Britain, and don't wish to return to Edinburgh, but would rather be dropped off elsewhere, then please let us know, so that we may assist you in getting to your next destination.
  
  NB. We will arrange transport for those of you wishing to go to Glasgow Airport or Glasgow itself, though this will be at the customer's own expense.

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Inclusions

• Hotel
• Sightseeing

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Terms & Conditions

Payment Terms & Methods :
* Some Advance Percentage of total booking amount
* Airfare/Transport fare to be paid full at one time in advance.

Cancellation & Refund Policy :
* Upon cancellation, refund will be made after deducting the Retention Amount.
* Retention Amount varies as per the number of days left before your package start date.

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This Tour is Offered by

Adderley Travel Ltd View Profile

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• 49 Chapel Lane, Wymondham , Norfolk , NR18 0DJ, Oxford, United Kingdom
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