Fortrose Live Cam

Its industries today are largely fishing, forestry, farming and tourism, though life and work on the Black Isle has gone through many changes in its long history. It has supported well-established, active communities since before Pictish times. For example, there are the remains of a Crannog at Redcastle and there are several cairns scattered throughout the Black Isle, dated as far back as 1900 B.C. Castles and communities have come and gone since then, in a great many cases leaving remnants which can still be seen today. In places, some buildings and monuments have remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years. This is in large part due to the Black Isle's relative isolation, almost surrounded as it is with water, and for long periods of its history highly dependent on ferries for outside contact and trade.

Topographically, the Black Isle has a long, central south-west/north-east ridge, most of which is the Mulbuie Ridge, and the highest point of which is Mount Eagle. This Ridge gradually gives way to lower, gentler, rolling hills, culminating in a series of raised beaches on the coast.Though the coastline consists largely of long sweeps of shallow bays, there are occasional deeply incised inlets and prominent, sometimes cliffed, headlands.

Some of the larger bays and inlets have extensive sand and mudflats. Large areas of the Black Isle have extremely fertile soil, which has led to the development of a well-established, checker-board pattern of gently sloping treelined fields, interspersed with small areas of mainly deciduous or mixed woodland. The Mulbuie Ridge and other high ground is relatively less fertile, and large areas of it are given over to coniferous forestry, though there are frequent areas of open ground and heath.

This huge diversity of habitat types within such a small area - deciduous, coniferous and mixed forest, arable and livestock farmland, sand and mud flat, saltmarsh, littoral, hedgerow, moorland/heath and sea-cliff as well as the mixed habitats provided by the villages - leads to a huge diversity of flora and fauna; as many and diverse as can be found anywhere in Britain. In Autumn it can be a mycologist's heaven, if you know where to look.

There are no large towns on the Black Isle itself. Instead, the southern coastline is punctuated with small picturesque villages, each one in its own bay, and often hidden from the traveller by low lying hills until he is suddenly confronted by them just ahead. These villages tend to consist of tightly clustered collections of houses and other buildings, with often a huge range of ages and architectural styles, narrow lanes and twisting streets. Several of these are harbour towns. The northern coast and the inland areas have few centralised villages, and tend to have more scattered communities, with a small collection of houses indicating the core. None of them have harbours as they tend to be some distance above the shoreline, and the water offshore is too shallow. Another feature of the north coast is the appearance of churches at regular intervals as one drives through the countryside, which seem to be standing in the middle of farmland. These are Parish Churches for these scattered communities.

The character of the Black Isle is distinct from that of the surrounding areas. The inhabitants definitely feel it is a discrete area, and there is a feeling of common background. Due to its relative isolation, events, historically speaking, have progressed at a different rate, and often in a different direction than in other areas. As a consequence, its villages have remained relatively unspoiled, and each has retained its own individual character. That is to say each is distinct in architectural style, has its own history which its inhabitants take a pride and interest in, and has different and distinct folklore and tradition. To some extent, indeed, each village has its own dialect.

There is a huge variety of things to do on the Black Isle. Birdwatching and fossil hunting, relaxing on beaches, browsing in gift and craft shops, eating in tea rooms and restaurants, or just generally exploring - the only problem you might have is deciding between them.