The Wildcat and Dolphin Trails

Saturday 24th to Monday 26th September 2016

Newtonmore and The Black Isle

We were literally up with the birds on Saturday morning, and after another feeding/bonding session we were on the road just after 9am on the way to Phil and Anne's house (my cousin and his wife) in Newtonmore.

The weather forecast was pretty poor for the weekend so we weren't sure what we were going to do, although mountains were out of the running due to low cloud, rain, hail/sleet, high winds, and thunder and lightning.

We started our day in Newtonmore quite sensibly with a cup of tea and a chat, and then a bowl of soup before venturing out for a walk. We were quite excited to finally do the Newtonmore Wildcat Trail, which we have seen advertised numerous time but never completed. The Wildcats are not actual Scottish Wildcats (which look like big fierce tabbies, and are seldom seen), but painted models of Wildcats, of which there are 131 in total around the 10km route. In fact, Anne has her own Wildcat in the front garden, which has been the subject of a police investigation when it went missing. Some particularly diligent local police officers solved the crime before its presence was even missed.

A Scottish Wildcat

A Newtonmore Wildcat

We completed the trail in a very non-competitive way, with none of us making any attempt to count or tick off the cats, and had two coffee and snack breaks along the way. Miraculously, the rain held off until about 5 minutes away from Phil and Anne's, at which point we were drenched.
We abused Phil and Anne's hospitality to the limit, with use of the bathroom, electric hook up for George, water refill, laundry, plus bed, breakfast and evening meal (and lunch and snacks). We did provide wine but I feel the debt has not been settled in spite of my offer to reciprocate at any time in Stoke.

Dinner was delicious - traditional Scottish Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, the Haggis being award winning from the local butcher. Plus homemade crumble with homegrown raspberries for pudding.
We slept well, and left Phil and Anne to getting on with normal life on the Sunday morning, while we set off for The Black Isle on Anne's recommendation, which is a peninsula near Inverness.

We spent a while at Chanonry Point, an allegedly popular spot for spotting dolphins from the shore. We spotted a couple of Westies on the beach, plus a load of other dogs and a really weird man in bare feet wearing tracksuit trousers and a sporran made out of a real badger's head. We failed to see any dolphins but did see a rainbow and some very black clouds before getting drenched.

We stopped for the night on the headland near Cromarty, which turned out to be a pretty good overnight spot once the boy racers playing country music had left at about 8pm.

Cromarty Village viewed from the water

We were up early and down in the village before 9am to make enquiries about a dolphin spotting boat trip, which was the main expense of our holiday so far, and by sheer coincidence coincided with the need for my birthday treat.

I'd done some research on Google about dolphin boat trips, and had identified two possible operators on the Black Isle. Our favoured option started in Cromarty, and was based on the following key factors:

1. Entirely female staff, including boat skipper, support staff and dog (please don't accuse me of being sexist, we just thought it was cool)
2. Nicer boat
3. More time on the water

We were knocking on the shop door before they'd even opened up properly, and got ourselves booked onto the 11am trip. We then killed the following 2 hours in the van with bacon baps, almond croissants, coffee and kindles.

After a quick briefing and getting kitted out in full on fisherman's waterproofs we got aboard the boat, which is a 12 man RIB. A RIB is a Rigid Inflatable Boat, which I've always though would be very scary and make me feel sea sick, but according to the website is very stable, yet fast, and ideal for looking for dolphins and other wildlife. It turned out to be fast and exciting but much less bumpy and rocky than any boat I've been on before. Our skipper, Sarah, whizzed us up and down the coast for two hours, during which time we spotted seals, some porpoises, and loads of seabirds. But no dolphins, for which Sarah was very apologetic about, even though we all knew full well there was no guarantee.

I was wondering how to broach the subject with Claire about going out on the boat for another 2 hours after lunch, when she commented "I could do another 2 hours of that". So that was that.
Round two was just as good as round one, with a closer look at some dormant oil rigs, but no porpoises. We were just on the verge of docking in the harbour when Sarah received a phone call from some research students from Aberdeen university who were also out looking for dolphins and had just found a small pod a short distance from the harbour.

So we whizzed back out and soon saw the dolphin's fins surfacing near the university boat. We had to keep our distance for a while (apparently there are strict rules about dolphin harassment), but eventually the uni boat left and we had them to ourselves. There were four of them and they spent a while swimming around and under our boat and even doing a few jumps out of the water.

Here are a few fascinating facts about the dolphins for you...

1. They are bottle nosed dolphins, which grow up to 4m long, and are the largest bottle nosed dolphins in the world due to them having to put on extra fat as it is cold up here!
2. There are about 300 of them in the surrounding waters, and they are identified by their own unique dorsal fins (no tags or anything)
3. They hang around in mixed pods of male and female, and the babies (calves) stay with their mothers for up to 5 years.
4. The collective noun for a group of dolphins is the same as that for a group of Stoke on Trent social workers. I will be making further enquiries about this when I return home.

After a total of 45 miles and nearly 5 hours on the water we returned to the harbour, wind and sunburnt but happy to have finally found some dolphins. Sarah wouldn't take any money off us for the second trip, so to repay her generosity we've both left well deserved 5 star reviews on Facebook and stayed in the village for the evening to spend some money in the local pub which she recommended.

Aside from the annoying man playing dart in the pub who claims to originate from Stoke on Trent "like Phil The Power Taylor", but has a very strong Yorkshire accent and hasn't said "duck" once, we've had a nice evening, only marred by Claire's iPhone battery being flat and her insisting she's not bored as a result.

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