Tarryn Liddell Photography: What do castles, whiskey and dolphins have in common?

Well for starters they were all involved in my epic birthday weekend roadtrip! And yes you guessed it they can all be found in Scotland.

My sister and I were told by her boyfriend Luke, that we were to keep the Sunday before my birthday open for a surprise roadtrip. Intrigued and always up for a surprise, especially when it involves a roadtrip, I was instantly game to give up my Sunday for whatever he had planned. My sister on the other hand is not too fond of not knowing what the surprise is so she promptly begun quizzing and trying to figure out where we were going to be heading. She was not very successful and against the odds Luke managed to hold out. The only thing he did tell us was that it was a three hour drive from Aberdeen and that we should dress really warm, wear our wellingtons and pack a change of clothes in case.....

And so we piled into the car at 7:30am (a timely rarely seen by me on a Sunday unless I have plans to photograph) and sipping condense milk coffee we zoomed off into the Aberdeenshire countryside with the Cairngorm Mountains greeting us with glimpses of its snow covered peaks.

Like all good roadtrips music was played, lyrics were sung and car games were played. Our favourite two being 'Spot the hairy coo' and 'That town is named what?!'. To explain my sister and I have grown up with a mother who adores cows - I have literally lost count of number of black and white cow decorated items in our kitchen (Love you Mom) - hence we think that the hairy coo or Highland cattle are so cute with their wavy sometimes even dreadlocked hair. But since arriving in Scotland four months ago I had yet to see one besides on every Scotland postcard I have ever seen....hmm a touch of false advertising perhaps, but I digress. Where was I, oh yes the second game involved reading all the road signs and trying to pronounce the names of towns. Easy yes? No. I was probably the worst at this game. Some of the funniest names for towns that we encountered were Tomintoul (Tom-n-tool), Dufftown and Boghead.

Finally on driving by Inverness, we saw a Moray Firth sign and it hit must sister well like a sign. We were on our way to Cromarty to see the dolphins with Ecoventures. And so it was a race to the RIB (rigid inflatable boat) and off out to sea that we went, hoping to catch a glimpse of the most northerly colony of Bottlenosed Dolphins in the world.

The view looking back at the town of Cromarty as we headed out on our dolphin adventure.

On our way out to the open water we pass the base of an old oil rig that is waiting to be sold. It has basically been sitting there for years and has become a nesting place for local birds and sea life.

Pulling up alongside the huge pillars Sarah, our skipper, explains the history of how they got here.

Sarah shares more local sea tales from the area.

The HMS Natal was a Duke of Edinburgh-classed armoured cruiser that was built for the Royal Navy. A series of internal explosion rocked the ship on the 30 December 1915 causing it to sink within minutes killing between 390 and 421 people on board. The remainder of the ship was blown up in 1970 to prevent it being a hazard to navigation. This is all that remains now to mark the resting place of this once great ship.