BLACK DIAMOND

The Black Isle, bounded by the sparkling waters of the Moray and Cromarty Firths, is an often overlooked part of the Highlands. Nicola Taylor savours the delights of this hidden gem.

It is easy to miss the Black Isle. Scotland's main artery, the A9, takes travellers rapidly north from Inverness over the Moray and Beauly Firths to Dingwall and beyond. Without realising it, you've missed a unique part of the Highlands. And that's a shame, because there is much to delight the senses here.

Maybe the scenery is less eye-catching than the dramatic mountains and sea lochs to the west, less grand than the solemn windswept moors to the north. The Black Isle offers something different - a quieter, more reflective kind of beauty. Gentle hills roll down to the coast from the central Mulbuie Ridge, its highest point Mount Eagle reaching 256m (840 feet), not much more than a hill itself by Highland standards. But the forested uplands were once inaccessible enough for the main settlements to have grown up along the coast of the oddly named Black Isle - odd because, as everyone hastens to tell you, with a Highland twinkle in their eye, it is neither black, nor an island. This diamond-shaped peninsula is in fact one of the greenest, most fertile parts of the Highlands.

This is a place of tiny villages clustered around sheltered bays, many of the roads still single track with passing places. You can travel for miles without seeing another car, a seclusion which makes the peninsula a haven for wildlife. Keep a lookout for the elusive pine marten and the recently reintroduced red kite, with its characteristic forked tail and russet plumage.

A single road runs round the peninsula, linking its pretty villages like jewels on a necklace, its clasp the roundabout at the unassuming village of Tore. This is the place to start a round trip - at only 12 miles long and 7 miles wide, the Black Isle is easily circumnavigated.

As the road nears the Moray Coast the charming fishing village of Avoch - pronounced 'Och' - comes into view. Some claim it was established by survivors of a Spanish Armada ship wrecked here in 1588. True or not, this romantic story suits the higgledy-piggledy old fisherman's cottages and the harbour which looks as though it has come straight out of some smuggler's tale.

Between Avoch and Fortrose the road hugs the coast, with breath-taking views across the ever-changing sea. Sapphire, turquoise, pewter grey - the capriciousness of Highland conditions swirl the Firth into a kaleidoscope of colour, amid which swims Scotland's only resident colony of bottlenose dolphins, leaping high out of the water as they race to Chanonry Point.

Fortrose, the largest village on our route, came to prominence in the 13th century when a cathedral was built here. Although its materials were plundered after the Reformation, the red stone spire and a goodly part of the walls survived and it is still an impressive sight. A place of contrasts, the medieval ruins are thrown into relief by solid Victorian houses, while a pretty harbour surrounded by traditional cottages is hidden away down a twisting lane.

Ancient Rosemarkie is famed for its intricately-carved Pictish stones, housed now in Groam House Museum, many of their symbols as enigmatic now as the day they were found. Fairy Glen, an RSPB Reserve, is an idyllic spot to walk beside the Markie Burn in the company of a multitude of flying creatures, including willow warblers, grey wagtails, dippers and buzzards - and fairies too, of course.

Cromarty, sitting at the tip of the Black Isle, is the centrepiece of the necklace. No flashy sparkler, it is a dignified uncut stone, weighty with a sense of history. It was once an important Royal Burgh, its ferries bringing in travellers and traders. It reached the height of its prosperity in the 1700s, before new roads and the railway made the ferry route an irrelevance and Cromarty's fortunes declined. However, its relative isolation kept the worst aspects of 'progress' away, and now it is one of the Highland's best-preserved historic towns, with many of its handsome buildings dating from the 18th century.

Today, tourism rather than trade makes Cromarty tick. The remaining handful of fishing boats shares the harbour with yachts which sail the deep waters of the Cromarty Firth, its entrance flanked by the twin headlands 'the sutors' - supposedly two giant shoemakers sitting at their lasts and guarding the narrow entrance.

Rounding the tip of the peninsula the emphasis changes. The settlements on this side of the Black Isle are less easy to describe as villages - more a string of hamlets, tiny seed pearls scattered along the road amid rolling green fields - while the views are far superior, the distant mountains of the north-west Highlands forming a dramatic backdrop.

The mud-flats of Udale Bay, between Jemimaville and Balblair, attract vast flocks of wildfowl and wading birds - as many as 10,000 pink-footed geese and wigeon pass through in the winter months on their way north.

The last settlement, before the road links back up with the A9, is Culbokie, sadly no longer much of a jewel as new homes are built and it becomes a dormitory town for Inverness and Dingwall.

But that's progress, and whatever happens, those marvellous views will remain. The Black Isle is a place which will always enjoy the best of both worlds.

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