After our foggy day in Lerwick was topped off by clearing conditions that gave us some nighttime aurora sightings at sea the skies continued to remain clear the next day when Regal Princess docked at the Scottish port of Invergordon. Our balcony was facing away from the main part of the town with a view across the flat Cromarty Firth.
We didn’t have any plans to look around Invergordon at all prior to visiting, knowing that other than being the home of the Stoltman brothers – we do like strongman competitions – there didn’t appear to be much to do or see there. I’ve mentioned already that some of the excursions on this cruise seemed to be far too expensive – perhaps a reflection on having lots of Americans on the ship and them really not knowing any better so being easier to fleece, but also perhaps Britain just not being a cheap place to visit when the only people getting subsidised by taxpayers are the already-wealthy and corporations or entities that prioritise shareholders over the public good (always with the politics, Mark) – so we ruled out trips with specific purposes and picked a drive with free time to explore around nearby Inverness instead. You can read that here: Inverness And The Ness Walk. Spoiler: we loved Inverness.
However, as our bus took us from the cruise port on the short drive to the lovely city to the south we passed through the outskirts of Invergordon and I spotted some street art. I like street art. So, upon our return, and having a bit of time before everyone needed to be aboard, I headed into Invergordon alone – my wife wanted to get back to the room – and had a short stroll to take some pictures.
A lot of Invergordon’s buildings can be dated to the latter half of the nineteenth century when the town began to expand around the harbour. The town hall and parish church were both erected within ten years of each other during this period.
Later, just prior to the First World War breaking out, a naval base was built in anticipation of what was to come and it featured during both global conflicts of the twentieth century. More interestingly, the base was the site of the UK’s last naval mutiny in 1931. The base closed down in 1956 but the deep water port that had been in use during that time is still in use, and we know that because that’s where our cruise ship docked.
Invergordon’s street art is called the Off The Wall mural trail and was officially opened by Princess Anne in 2007 although the idea for the public artwork came about five years earlier. In addition to the pieces that are properly part of the trail there were some other smaller works that were just as enchanting.
Invergordon is not a large place at all and if you’ve got an hour to spare then you could easily walk most of it and find all the street art. I didn’t quite find them all but I also wasn’t using a map for this and just simply wandered around at random. This wandering around did lead to an interesting encounter (at a distance) with one of the locals on the other side of the street. Fairly young, pink lycra, smoking, walking several dogs on leads, and generally shouting her head off at everybody and nobody in particular. Head down, Mark, don’t make eye contact.
I headed back to the port at this point and spent a small fortune at the gift shop before boarding. After that it was just a case of relaxing on the balcony and then watching the Scottish landscape drift slowly by as Regal Princess made her way out to sea, passing by a couple of large platforms: the Stena Spey and the Well-Safe Defender. The Cromarty Firth is often used as a parking lot for these sorts of rigs or for those awaiting removal to be scrapped.
In the next post in this British Isles cruise travelogues series we’ll reach the penultimate port of South Queensferry which is often used by cruise ships looking to disgorge their passengers on Scotland’s capital of Edinburgh. That wouldn’t be what we ended up doing on the day, though.