Exploring Inverness

What a lovely city! Up early,  with highland views of hills, rivers and clouds from my little window (in 1st extra). Very swanky breakfast of smoked salmon and eggs in the dining car, then out of the station and into the city.  I soon find my booked-online left luggage store (in 2025 you don’t have left luggage at the station - there is an app like Uber to pay online in advance to leave your stuff in a local shop, for example). Well, my place has all the shutters down, in fact looks closed down.  I sit on a bench, a bit flummoxed, and see a.  a big friendly gull, and b. an Oxfam shop. (1st  extra). I have an idea. The lovely manager K at the Oxfam shop agrees to store my case for the morning in exchange for a donation. We have a long chat about our Oxfam shops, books, social issues in Inverness, and especially about the gull. His leg was broken by a man who deliberately hurt him. K nursed him back to health and good mobility. While we were talking, he knocked on the door, and she gave him his breakfast (cat biscuits). His name is Baby:-)
My plan is to walk along the river to the botanical gardens,  I’m lucky, it’s not raining, though pretty grey. Walking west by the river is beautiful (1st extra) and most people say hello, or good morning to me. I see a thrush (1st extra) which is pleasing, I almost never see one at home. The botanical gardens are small and perfectly lovely. Main top left and right, I loved the magenta geraniums and I really want some for my garden. And there is a little display of carnivorous plants - including Venus fly traps, but the pitcher plants were more photogenic. Happily, there is also a nice cafe. Time to start heading back - I explore the little islands in the river Ness - which I had seen before on local blipper Martinski’s journal. So pretty there.main, bottom left. Then I’m back in the city, crossing a  fabulous suspension bridge, and meandering across to the bus station. A four hour bus journey, during which my legs start to feel quite uncomfortable, but luckily I’m distracted by listening to a Kate Grenville audio book. It’s pretty grey and rainy, but we follow the coast road A9 and the sea is on our right most of the way. The bus drops me at the final stop, Scrabster ferry terminal, just beyond Thurso. It’s now raining very hard, so I sit inside the ferry Hamnavoe, until we reach the point where we pass the island of Hoy, when I go outside a get a quick, dark blip of the west side of the island and the amazing stack called the Old Man. My friend M meets me at the port in Stromness, and we walk to the little house I’m renting. She has got me some food shopping which is wonderful. I’ve been travelling for 28 hours, but I’m so excited I don’t even get to bed til after midnight.