Watch for bottlenose dolphins from Chanonry Point on a rising tide

See Stevenson's lighthouse of 1846 at the point

Visit Hugh Miller's birthplace cottage in Cromarty

Chanonry Point runs out into the Moray Firth on a spit between Fortrose and Rosemarkie, and is one of the best places in the UK to watch bottlenose dolphins from the shore, especially on an incoming tide when they fish the current. Alan Stevenson's lighthouse at the tip was first lit in 1846. Along the coast at Cromarty, the geologist Hugh Miller was born on 10 October 1802, and his birthplace cottage is kept as a museum.

The Black Isle: Chanonry Point Dolphins and Hugh Miller's Cromarty

The Black Isle

The North Coast 500 as a loop from Inverness: dolphins off Chanonry Point, the cliffs of Duncansby and Dunnet Head, Smoo Cave and Sandwood Bay, Handa's seabirds and Suilven, then the Bealach na Bà and Culloden.

The North Coast 500

Walk the path from the A832 through the cloth-hung trees to the spring

Look at which rags have rotted away and which have not — the custom needs cloth that decays, and synthetic rags defeat it

Find the spring at the centre of the trees, dedicated to Saint Curetán

Drive on to Chanonry Point, the spit between Fortrose and Rosemarkie, to watch for bottlenose dolphins on a rising tide

The Clootie Well near Munlochy on the Black Isle — Tobar Churadain in Gaelic — is an ancient spring dedicated to Saint Curetán, and rags are still tied to the bushes and trees round it. The belief was that the well could cure: you dipped a rag in the water, tied it to a branch, and as the cloth rotted away the illness went with it. Sick children were once left beside it overnight in the hope of a cure. Forestry and Land Scotland, which looks after it, asks visitors to leave only small, biodegradable cloths.

The Munlochy Clootie Well

Walk into the passage of the north-east cairn

See how the passages line up with the midwinter sunset

Walk the ring of standing stones around each cairn

Find the kerb stones carved with cup marks

The Balnuaran of Clava lie in a grove of trees by the River Nairn: three Bronze Age cairns in a line running north-east to south-west, the two at the ends passage graves with their entrances oriented south-west towards the midwinter sunset, each ringed by standing stones. The site gave its name to the whole class of Clava cairns, and the Culloden battlefield is a couple of miles away.

Clava Cairns: Bronze Age Tombs Aligned on the Midwinter Sun

Find the remains of the holly tree in the lowest room of Cawdor's tower

Walk the Culloden battlefield and the clan graves

Cawdor Castle was built around a living holly tree, which testing shows died about 1372; the remains are still in the lowest level of the tower, and the earliest document for the castle is a licence to fortify granted in 1454 to William Calder, 6th Thane of Cawdor. Shakespeare made Macbeth Thane of Cawdor, but the play never names the castle and it was built long after the real king's time. Eleven kilometres away, the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart was destroyed at Culloden on 16 April 1746 in a battle that lasted less than an hour, and the coast road runs on to Nairn and its beaches.

Cawdor, Culloden and Nairn: The Holly Tree and the Last Battle on British Soil

Tour the Glenmorangie distillery and see the tallest stills in Scotland

Find St Duthus Collegiate Church, the heart of the medieval pilgrimage

Find out why James IV came to Tain every year

See the Tolbooth and, from April to October, the Tain & District Museum and Clan Ross Centre

Tain was granted its first royal charter in 1066 by Malcolm III, making it Scotland's oldest royal burgh: a sanctuary under the protection of the church, built round the shrine of St Duthac, which by the late Middle Ages was one of the great pilgrimages of Scotland — James IV came at least once a year throughout his reign. Just outside the town is Glenmorangie: William Matheson turned the Morangie brewery, which shared the Tarlogie Spring, into a distillery in 1843 with two second-hand gin stills, and it has the tallest stills in Scotland.

Tain: Scotland's Oldest Royal Burgh and Glenmorangie

See the pump room and taste the sulphur water if it is running

Visit the Highland Museum of Childhood in the old station

Walk up to the Touchstone Maze above the village

Sulphurous springs found in the 18th century turned Strathpeffer into a Victorian spa resort, with a pavilion of 1880 built to entertain the visitors and a railway branch to bring them in. The pump room still stands, the old station now holds shops and the Highland Museum of Childhood, and the Rogie Falls and Ben Wyvis are on the doorstep.

Strathpeffer: The Victorian Spa in the Highlands

Find the Witch's Stone in Littletown, cut with the date 1722

Walk the beach and links east of the town

Dornoch keeps its 13th-century cathedral, the old town jail and a castle that is now a hotel, and its links and beach run for miles along the firth. It is also the last place in Scotland where a witch was burned: a woman recorded as Janet Horne was tried and condemned in 1727, although some accounts give 1722, the date cut on the Witch's Stone that marks the place.

Dornoch: The Cathedral and the Last Witch Burned in Scotland

Walk out to the lighthouse at the southern tip of Scotland

Look for guillemots and razorbills on the cliffs of the RSPB reserve

Pick out Ireland, the Isle of Man and Cumbria from the headland on a clear day

The Mull of Galloway is the southernmost point of Scotland, a headland of cliffs with an RSPB reserve on top and Robert Stevenson's lighthouse of 1830 standing 26m above it. On a clear day the view takes in Ireland, the Isle of Man and the hills of Cumbria.