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 Alness High Street |
 Stills at Dalmore Distillery |
 Strathpeffer |
Strathpeffer developed as a spa town in the 1800s as a result of its waters, which became known for their healing powers. With its Victorian splendour and charming atmosphere, Strathpeffer is also a very good base from which to explore the wider area. Ben Wyvis is virtually on the doorstep; and north west lie the still more striking mountains around Beinn Dearg, north of the Ullapool road, and Sgurr Mor south of it. Strathpeffer is also a reasonable place to stay when tackling the remote and inaccessible mountains around Loch Monar and Loch Mullardoch to the south west, and even those around Glen Affric.
As you descend the five miles that separate Strathpeffer from Dingwall you move between two different worlds. Gone is the Victorian upland gentility. Instead Dingwall is a busy and businesslike town that knows that its role is to serve as the commercial centre of the area.
Dingwall was also the birthplace of Macbeth, and lies at the head of the Cromarty Firth. This forms a superb, large and deep natural harbour with a narrow and easy to protect entrance. Today this provides safe anchorage for the repair and maintenance of oil rigs; during the First World War it was a major naval base.
On the north shore of the Cromarty Firth near Alness is Dalmore Distillery, whose new visitor centre and distilliery tours are well worth the slight diversion they involve from the A9. Another settlement bypassed by the modernisation of the A9 is nearby Evanton.
The oil industry has also made its presence felt along the northern side of the Cromarty Firth, and Invergordon and Nigg are just two of the settlements that have developed to service the industry. The visual impact in the Cromarty Firth is also significant, and the lines of moored oil rigs often strung out along it are a striking and unusual sight, oddly reminiscent of a film adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds".
West of Invergordon, not far from Nigg Bay, the coast road runs past Kilmuir Easter Church. Further around the bay, At Nigg, is the narrow mouth of the Cromarty Firth. Here you can catch Scotland's smallest car ferry (with room for just two cars) to Cromarty, at the tip of the Black Isle.
