Castles in Scotland

Driving the North Coast 500 – Part 7: Duncansby Head Lighthouse To Loch Ness or Castles, Myths & Bagpipes

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A small flock of sheep, sleeping on the tarmac, scattered when we rounded a bend to Duncansby Head Lighthouse before the crack of dawn. The pinnacle stood silhouetted against a brightening sky of pink, amber and blue, as the sun crested the horizon over the North Sea.

We followed the trail along the cliffs towards the Duncansby Stacks and passed a spot where we imagined an ancient Norse god had wielded a broadaxe and severed the bluff in two. The stacks were glowing red in the early morning light as Kittiwakes and Guillemots swooped along the cliff face, which stretched south for miles.

Following a delicious hardy breakfast, we packed our bags and said goodbye to the innkeepers at the John o’ Groats Guest House, one of our nicest stays while in the Scotland, then began the final leg of our NC500 tour and headed south along the A99 and A9 to Dunrobin Castle & Gardens, before spending the night in Strathpeffer. A pleasant distance of only 113 miles, which took us all day with all the photo stops we made. But that’s the way we roll.

There’s a debate about the best way to drive the North Coast 500 and the consensus seems to be that exploring it in a counterclockwise direction leaves the breathtaking scenery of the west coast for the last part of your trip.

We did the opposite and followed the NC500 clockwise, heading south from Inverness to Edinburgh, then west through the highlands to the Isles of Skye and Lewis & Harris before returning to the mainland and heading north to Durness and John o’ Groats, before heading south along the North Sea Coast of Scotland. We found the scenery breathtaking.

Our only complaint was the lack of official scenic pullovers, as we often had to park at the entrance to a farmer’s pasture or on a side road, and walk back along its shoulder to the spot we wanted. Fortunately, there were few cars on the road, because we stopped numerous times.

At Wick we visited the Old Parish Church and wandered amid its ancient gravestones, the oldest of which dates to 1639. The present church was built in 1862 over the foundations of two earlier churches, the earliest dating to the 12th century. A prideful lot the Wicks were, and they didn’t take kindly to anyone disparaging St. Fergus, their church’s patron saint. History tells of an Archdeacon, a noted reformer, who visited the parish in 1613 and vented his wrath on a beloved image of St Fergus in the old church, attacking and defacing it. The congregation was incensed, and the Archdeacon might have met his maker on the steps of the altar if the local sheriff hadn’t escorted him out of town. But he only got as far as the Wick River when he was ambushed and drowned.  During the following enquiry, “witnesses swore on oath that they had seen the ghost of St Fergus astride the unfortunate minister holding him down in the river.”

Clan Gunn Museum & Heritage Centre is beautifully set on the coast.

There are few natural harbors along Scotland’s North Sea coast. Ferocious storms blowing in off the sea required many villages to build stout seawalls to prevent their fishing boats from being smashed against the rocky coast. One such place was the tiny Latheronwheel Harbour. We had it all to ourselves when we visited on a Wednesday in August.

Crossing the River Helmsdale, we stopped at the Emigrants Monument which graces a hilltop that overlooks the village of Helmsdale nestled against its river and the sea. It’s a heart-rending tribute to those who were forced from their homes and livelihoods during the Clearances. The inscription on the monument, in Gaelic and English, reads:

“The Emigrants commemorates the people of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland who, in the face of great adversity, sought freedom, hope and justice beyond these shores. They and their descendants went forth and explored continents, built great countries and cities and gave their enterprise and culture to the world. This is their legacy. Their voices will echo forever thro the empty straths and glens of their homeland.”

It was commissioned by Dennis MacLeod. The son of a war-widowed crofter, he emigrated from Scotland to South Africa and made his fortune in mining.

Dunrobin Castle & Gardens was our main destination for the day, but our hopes were temporarily dampened by a sudden heavy rain. Fortunately, after we ran through the storm to the entrance, the sky cleared.

The castle is one of the best-preserved examples of how the landed nobility extravagantly lived. A castle has stood on this site overlooking the Dornoch Firth and the North Sea since the Earldom of Sutherland was created in 1235. Only a few walls of the ancient castle’s keep remained after extensive renovations and expansion in the 1700 and 1800s. The result was a French style chateau with towering conical spires and 189 rooms. Amazingly, the beautiful estate has remained the seat of Clan Sutherland for 800 years and is today owned by the 25th Earl of Sutherland.

Our self-guided tour (there were staff along the way to answer any questions) through the

exquisite rooms of this immense family home was very interesting. And it does feel like a family home, opulent but not pretentious. It was significantly nicer than the royal Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh.

As gardeners, we delighted in wandering through the Versailles-inspired oasis of flower beds and fountains.

Off the garden was the estate’s former two-story summer house, now a museum that displayed a notable collection of Pictish Stones, along with a variety of ethnographic items collected from travels around the world, and animal head trophies from safaris in Africa. 

At the lower end of the garden, we watched the castle’s resident falconer demonstrate and explain the ancient art of falconry as a Harris hawk, Gyrfalcon and Peregrine swooped low over the gasping audience. It was a very entertaining and informative show.

Farther south we turned off the A9 and headed to an early dinner at the Surf and Turf in Dornoch, a small town that traces its roots back to the 8th century. We discovered the Surf and Turf through one of the Instagram feeds we follow. The reviews were quite favorable and pictures of the seafood looked delicious, but we didn’t realize it was a takeaway shop. Luckily for us, they had a long bar with stools along one wall. The fresh fried fish, calamari and mussels we ordered were excellent and all locally caught.

The Dornoch Cathedral was just around the corner, and we spent a while studying the grotesque ancient gargoyles and stone interior of the church, which held its first service in 1239. During the medieval era the gargoyles were believed to portray evil spirits, which were driven from the church by ringing its tower bells.

In 1245 the 1st Earl of Sutherland was buried in the cathedral, the first of many Sutherlands  to be entombed in the family vault under the sanctuary floor. Three centuries later the church was left in ruins after fire destroyed the nave and roof during a climatic feud between Clan MacKay of Strathnaver and Clan Murray of Dornoch. Fifty years later only the roof over the chancel and transept walls were replaced. The cathedral remained partially renovated for another 300 years until 1835, when the Duchess of Sutherland financed a full restoration. Light poured through 27 stained glass windows and brilliantly illuminated the church’s interior. Three of those windows, with the themes literacy, music, and peace, were donated to the church in 1926, in the memory of the famous Scottish-American industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, who summered nearby at his baronial estate, Skibo Castle.

Also of interesting note, the last burning at the stake of a witch in Scotland happened in Dornoch in 1727.  Janet Horne, a local woman, was accused of turning her daughter into a pony and riding her around the highlands to perform her witchcraft. The Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 was repealed in 1736. The singer Madonna had her son Rocco christened in the cathedral in 2000, before her wedding ceremony to Guy Ritchie at Skibo Castle.

We ended our day in the quaint village of Strathpeffer, a Victorian era spa town whose sulphurous spring waters were touted as a cure for many ailments. A railway line reached the town in the late 1800s, and it became an easy destination for wealthy Victorians who sought “to take the waters.” Our hotel, the Highland Hotel Strathpeffer was one of those grand, four-story wood paneled, railway hotels built to ease spa-goers’ visits to the village. It’s glory years now a distant memory, the hotel still has its original warm wood paneling, but our room was very spartan, and a far cry from what we imagined were its luxuries during its heyday. During World War I the hotel was requisitioned as a convalescent military hospital, and in the Second World War served as a naval training school.

The village was very charming with a visually pleasing assortment of well-kept Victorian architecture. The old train station now hosts the Highland Museum of Childhood and a nice cafe. Across the street from our hotel the town’s original pavilion was recently renovated and once again hosts music and theater events, along with weddings, and exhibitions. Behind the pavilion is a small whimsical sculpture garden with five 13ft tall wooden sculptures of mythical figures from Celtic, Viking and Pictish legends. They were created by Allister Brebner, a local woodcarver with a workshop in the old train station, from the trunks of giant Douglas Fir trees, harvested from the Highland’s forests.

Is a tour of the Scottish Highlands really complete without visiting Loch Ness? We didn’t want to have any regrets, so on our last full day in Scotland we headed to Urquhart Castle and hoped to catch a glimpse of the fabled serpent so we could tell our young grandchildren, with our fingers crossed and a wink of the eye, that we had indeed spotted and encountered the creature and tried to wrestle it to ashore. I had his head and Donna his tail, but the slippery slimy thing was wildly thrashing about, and we lost hold of him, and in a final splash he vanished. An epic fish story about the one that got away is always good for a child’s imagination.

The castle commands a strategic point that juts out into Loch Ness, the natural geographic dividing line between the northern and southern Highlands. Built in the 13th century, it was one of Scotland’s largest fortifications and had a tumultuous 500 year history as it was captured then retaken numerous times during the Wars of Scottish Independence. Finally British soldiers blew it up in 1692 as they retreated to prevent the Jacobite army of Bonnie Prince Charlie from occupying it. On the grounds is a full-sized working recreation of a medieval trebuchet, a catapult-like siege engine that used a counterweight to hurl large stones against castle walls. Unfortunately, they were not demonstrating its use when we visited. Urquhart Castle, along with the Glenfinnan Viaduct for the Harry Potter train, were the busiest attractions we visited while in the Highlands. The rest of the time it felt like we had the Highlands mostly to ourselves. This was wonderful considering we drove the NC500 during the summer high season in August.

Our last stop before catching an evening flight from Inverness Airport was in Drumnadrochit, a crossroads village at the foot of a bridge that crosses over the River Enrick. We drove through it on the way to Urquhart Castle, earlier that morning, and thought it would be a nice place to break for lunch.

A young bagpiper commanded the village green as we settled into an outside table at The Fiddler’s Highland Restaurant to people-watch for a while. We were a little melancholic that our trip was finally coming to an end after driving a big loop around the Highlands, an area blessed with an amazing array of beautiful mountains and seascapes. The wizardly spell cast by the pipes was hard to break as we departed.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;

Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,

My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

The poem was written by Robert Burns

Till next time, Craig & Donna

Driving the North Coast 500 – Ullapool to John o’ Groats or Mountains, Lochs, Seas, and Midges

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True to form, blustery afternoon winds were ripping the clouds apart as the CalMac ferry steamed past the Rhue Lighthouse, heading into Loch Broom and the ferry dock at Ullapool. Being one of the last cars to board the ferry, we were one of the first off in Ullapool, and decided to pull over out of everyone else’s way to get our bearings before taking a spin around the village. Ullapool isn’t a particularly large village, only a couple of blocks, but within ten minutes of folks disembarking from the ferry, there was no sign of life on the streets. Granted, it was a Sunday, but in August, which is the tourist high season, and it felt like a ghost town. Fortunately, we did find the local Tesco supermarket open, and we bought some provisions for breakfast the next morning, as where we were staying for the night, the Altnacealgach Motel on Loch Borrolan only offered dinner.

We were back on mainland Scotland and on the NC500 again, after modifying our NC500 route to include the Isles of Skye, and Lewis & Harris, for seven days of exploring those interesting islands.

Scotland is so outstandingly beautiful, and with every twist and bend in the road there always seemed to be another vista worthy of photographing. While the roads around the Highlands are in excellent condition, our one pet peeve is there are not enough designated vantage points to pull over and take pictures from. Often, we u-turned and pulled into a gated entrance to a field. Pulling over onto the hard shoulder wasn’t an option as The NC500 throughout the Highlands is mostly a two-lane road without shoulders. The narrower country roads off the NC500 have pullovers called Passing Places for when you encounter oncoming cars, but they are not to be used for parking.

Our recently refurbished room at the Altnacealgach Motel was nice and large. Most importantly it had a kettle for our early morning coffee. The motel is a modest place with 8 rooms, but it’s beautifully situated, a pebble’s toss across the road from Loch Borrolan. Dinner was simply pizza and chili, but quite good. https://www.altnacealgachmotel.co.uk/

Our 144-mile route along the NC500 to Balnakeil Beach then onward to John o’ Groats the next day was our longest drive in the Highlands. We figured as always, we’d make many other stops along the way, so planned for an early departure the next morning.

For a third day in a row, it seemed we couldn’t shake the overcast sky from the heavens and have a sunny morning. It was unusually dreary weather for a Highland August, so much so that many of the folks we encountered felt it necessary to apologize for the unusually dreary weather.

We followed the A837 north and stopped at Ardvreck Castle, once the seat of the MacLeods of Assynt, and Calda House, now ruins. The ancient 3-4 story fortified tower house dates to the late 15thcentury and is set on an island in Loch Assynt. It’s a dramatic setting, with the loch surrounded by the magnificent mountains Quinag, Ben More Assynt, and Canisp. A narrow, sandy isthmus connects the island to the mainland. Accusations of a sinister betrayal made by the MacKenzies of Wester Ross ruined the reputation of the MacLeods of Assynt and was believed to be the cause for the rapid decline of the MacLeods’ fortunes. A final battle between the clans in1672 forced the MacLeods to surrender their rule of the Assynt region to the MacKenzies. The Calda House was built in 1726 by Kenneth MacKenzie II of Assynt for his new bride who found the old fortress dreary and uncomfortable, and “much to her dislike.” Built with imported sandstone, her new mansion stood three stories high and had 14 bedrooms. As legend tells it, the joy of a new home only lasted until 1737 when a late-night celebration continued past midnight into the sabbath, and the house was struck by lightning. Only a bagpiper who refused to play on the sabbath survived. The castle stood strong until 1795 when a lightning strike also destroyed it.  It wouldn’t be proper castle ruins without a ghost and local lore obliged with the story of the daughter of the MacLeod chief, who threw herself from the tower of Ardvreck Castle when she realized her father had betrothed her to the Devil, as payment for the Devil’s help in building it.

We pulled over at several spots along the A894 in Unapool to take pictures of Loch Gleann Dubh. The views of the loch were gorgeous, and we were a little envious of the folks who owned homes above the loch and could enjoy this panoramic vista every day.

The road swerved through a mountainous landscape sprinkled with lochs. Clouds raced across the sky. Surprisingly this popular route did not have many restaurants open on a Monday. This was a near crisis situation for two under-caffeinated coffee aficionados.  Our  pursuit of coffee was almost a forgotten memory when we spotted a Spar grocery store in Scourie, adjacent to a caravan campsite overlooking Scourie Bay and a beautiful beach. Back in the car we enjoyed two cups of coffee and the view.

We eventually turned onto the A838 at Laxford Bridge and followed it to Rhiconich. Past the hamlet this section of the A838 narrows to a single lane track as it winds through a desolate landscape of rolling hills and heather land. It was on this stretch that we encountered oncoming “traffic,” the occasional grouping of 3 or 4 cars or caravan. The narrow road allowed two-way traffic, but in order to pass an oncoming car one vehicle has to pullover into a small bump-out called a Passing Place. These are well marked and spaced along the country roads, but you need to be on the lookout for approaching cars, as the protocol is for drivers to pull into the closest Passing Place on their side of the lane and wait for the other vehicles to pass. It took some getting used to. Surprisingly, the speed limit on these single-track roads is 60 mph, but we were only comfortable driving at half that speed. Donna says that’s because I drive like an old man.

We pulled over at the Geological Information Point along the bank of Kyle of Durness, a sea loch, to read the placard and stretch our legs. Here we were fortunate to spot a shepherd on an ATV, as he and his sheep dog herded a large flock of the wooly beasts down the side road to a new pasture. The A838 continued as a single lane road all the way to the crossroad in Durness. It was suddenly a sunny day!

The beaches along the coast of Durness were our main destination for the day. Compared to the barren earth toned landscapes we traversed earlier in the morning, the striking Caribbean blues of the ocean off Balnakeil Beach were exotic, and for a moment we thought we might have been transported to the British Virgin Islands. The wide white sandy beach stretches for nearly a mile and is flanked by dunes covered with beach grass. Following the curve of the beach to the Faraid headland and stacks is a popular walking activity. There was a strong breeze which discouraged sunbathers, but there were a few hardy folks willing to take off their shoes and dip their toes in the chilly water of the North Atlantic, which hovers around 56F/13.5C in late August.

The location of the Balnakeil Church overlooking the beach and bay must have been very inspirational back in the early 1600s when it was constructed atop the ruins of an earlier 6th century Celtic monastery. Services were held in the church for about 200 years before a new place of worship was built on the southern side of the hamlet.

Today, headstones in the graveyard surrounding the ivy-covered ruins are slowly being swallowed into the peaty earth. Some interesting folks are buried in the cemetery. Notably Domhnull MacMhurchaidh, a hitman for the Clan MacKay. He is believed to have murdered 18 people and dumped their bodies into the waterfall that runs down into the caves at Smoo. “Apparently, he believed the folklore tale that the Devil lived below the falls and thence his crimes would never be discovered.” Fearing his grave would be desecrated after his death he paid a princely sum beforehand to be interned in a tomb inside the church.

A monument to the Durness born poet Rob Donn, aka, the Robbie Burns of Gaelic poetry, also stands in the churchyard. He never learned to speak English and composed in Scots Gaelic. His poems sometimes contained bawdy verse and satirical social commentary, but they were faithfully memorized and orally repeated around Scotland for 50 years before the first printed versions were available after his death.

Elizabeth Parkes, the aunt of John Lennon, is also buried in the churchyard, and he is said to have visited Durness frequently. It’s believed locally that his song In My Life, “There are places I remember,” reflects his experiences in the area.

Since the 1500s, one of the historic residences of the chiefs of Clan MacKay, Balnakeil House has commanded a prominent spot across from the ancient church, with a sweeping view of the beach. The current, bright yellow dwelling on the site dates to 1744.

Continuing our travels east on the A838, a two-lane road again, we stopped at Durness Beach. Though much smaller than Balnakeil, its waters were still a pristine blue and the beach, which backed to a steep slope, had dramatic rock outcroppings. 

Farther along from the overlook above Ceannabeinne Beach we watched paddle boarders in wetsuits set out onto the calm waters.

With our stomachs growling, we were beginning to envision all that lamb on the hoof turned in to chops; lunch was finally procured at the Norse Bakehouse in Rhitongue. This is a fine family-owned establishment that has probably saved the lives of many tourists driving the NC 500 on a Monday. It was an excellent casual restaurant, with indoor and outdoor seating that serves sandwiches, soup and pizza. Their coffee was wonderful and the food was fairly priced. https://norsebakehouse.wixsite.com/my-site/dinner-menu

“From Land’s End to John o’Groats.” We made it! Though the expression usually relates to traveling from the tip of southern England. We had cheated and started in Inverness and headed south to Edinburgh before going west across the Highlands to the Isles of Skye and Lewis and Harris. Then returning to the mainland and driving north along the west coast to John o’Groats, traditionally considered the northernmost point on the English mainland, though the designation actually belongs to Dunnet Head, about 13 miles west. Our own expanded version of the iconic NC500!

The clouds had thickened again by the time we arrived at the famous signpost overlooking a small harbor, and the sea. That’s pretty much the main drawing card to the village, which otherwise feels like an outlet shopping center. But it’s considered a must stop for most tourists before they continue on to explore the immense beauty of the northern Highlands. That seems to be the case since 1496, when King James IV granted a license to Jan de Groot, a Dutchman, to operate a ferry between this northern-most port in Scotland to the Orkney Islands, which had recently been acquired from Norway in 1472, as the resolution of an unpaid dowry for the King of Norway’s daughter Margaret’s marriage to James III of Scotland.

Business boomed for the enterprising de Groot and he was eventually able to build a large octagonal house with eight doors, in the center of which was an eight-sided table, designed so his seven sons seated at the table would be recognized as equals, as there was not a head of the table.  Over time Jan de Groot was anglicized to John o’Groats.  A modern art installation, in front of the John o’ Groats Hotel, now occupies the spot where the family home once stood. But a nod to his legacy was incorporated into the Victorian era John o’Groats Hotel built in 1875 with the inclusion of an octagonal tower in its design. The hotel now called the ‘The Inn at John o’Groats’ underwent an extensive renovation, which included a modern Norse style extension in 2013, and now features individually unique, self-catering apartments with 1, 2 or 4 bedrooms. https://www.togethertravel.co.uk/destinations/scotland/john-ogroats?guests=1&nights=1&bedrooms=0

Outside of town Leonna and Adam, the innkeepers of the John o’ Groats Guest House, warmly greeted us when we arrived very late that afternoon, but still with enough time for a short rest before dinner. While the inn looks a little spartan from the road, our accommodation was quite large and comfortable. https://www.johnogroatsguesthouse.com/

We were enjoying a whisky before dinner when Adam came into the lounge to mention that the sunset that evening, after several cloudy days, looked like it could be quite spectacular. Now, we had read about the intensity of midges during the summer months and came fully equipped to ward off the tiny nuisances with all sorts of repellents: bug sprays, lotions, insecticide wipes, and head netting. We were prepared! But in our almost two-week long trip through the highlands, we hadn’t encountered any – none, nada, zero, zip – until I spontaneously grabbed my camera and rushed outside to the corner of the building. Suddenly I was engulfed in a swarm of nearly invisible Culicoides impunctatus, the Highland Midge, Scotland’s most ferocious foe, and reportedly the reason why the Highlands remain so underpopulated. I was woefully unprepared! If anyone was watching me, I must have looked like a dancing fool with one arm frantically waving about my head as I tried to level the horizon through the viewfinder of my camera to capture the sunset. Thankfully there were still a couple of sips of whisky left to settle my nerves.

The dinners and breakfasts that Leonna and Adam created over the next two days, which showcased locally sourced provisions, were especially delicious. Their inn was one of the nicer places we stayed during our travels through Scotland. We would definitely return.

The next morning, we caught the ferry to Orkney.

Till next time, Craig & Donna

The North Coast 500, kind of – Part 2: Glencoe to the Isle of Skye or Castles, Lochs and Legends

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Rain pounding on the skylight woke us and revealed a grey day with not an inkling of sun in the sky. A real “drookit” of a day our innkeeper called it at breakfast. The tumultuous weather in the highlands is always a topic of conversation. “When the sun shines it’s glorious. For the other 364 days of the year we Scots amuse ourselves with over 100 Gaelic words to describe the variety of rain, and 421 words to describe the intricacies of snow.” It was a form of entertainment for our ancestors as they sat around the fire at night, in their ancient turf and creel houses, he related with a smile. With the way the weather blows in off the Atlantic Ocean, it’s possible to experience the four seasons in one day in the highlands. It’s a “dreich” day this morning – gloomy, damp, and grey – but the sun will most certainly shine later between sporadic showers. “It’s God’s way of cleaning the coos.”

True to his prediction the sun broke through clouds that were being torn apart by the wind as we stopped along Loch Lochy to photograph the multi-hued pinks, whites and magentas of the wild bush vetch growing along the side of the road. On the loch a sailboat was running downwind at a good clip with only its mainsail set. Our plan for the day was to head north from Glencoe along the A82 before following the A87 west through the highlands and across Loch Alsh to the Isle of Skye and end the day in Portree.

As the road turned west, we turned to the right and followed signs to Invergarry and Glengarry Castles down a narrow lane through an old growth forest. The ruins of Invergarry Castle eventually revealed itself from behind a curtain of woods. Sunlight cascaded through ruins. Only a few walls of Invergarry Castle remain, but in its glory it was a five story L-shaped structure with a six story tower, and seat of the Chiefs of the Clan MacDonell of Glengarry, a powerful branch of the Clan Donald. Clan legend believes that in the early 1600’s the stones for the castle’s construction were passed hand to hand by a chain of clansmen from the mountain Ben Tee, five miles away. The castle had a short and turbulent history. Oliver Cromwell’s troops attacked the MacDonnells for supporting King Charles I and burned the castle in 1654 during the Engilsh Civil War. Rebuilt, the MacDonnell’s castle was used by the Jacobites in the 1715 and 1745 rebellions. Bonnie Prince Charlie visited the castle after raising the Scottish flag on the shore of Loch Shiel at Glenfinnan when he returned from France, and again, to rest, after his devastating defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. As part of a systematic suppression of the Highlands the castle was destroyed again, but two walls refused to fall, as if symbolizing the Scots’ refusal to yield the British crown.

The castle was abandoned, and by 1760 the chief of the Clan MacDonell was in the new Invergarry House, just a short distance away from the ruins of the castle. In 1960s Invergarry House was reborn as the Glengarry Castle Hotel.

“Drive a little then café,” is our motto on road trips to break up our drives and Glengarry Castle was the perfect stop for our mid-morning caffeine compulsion. To describe Glengarry as a castle might be stretching it a little. It’s beautiful building, more accurately described as an estate home or chateau. It’s now a lovely hotel that harkened back to the reserved elegance of an earlier era. From its comfortable sitting room we enjoyed our coffees, and watched several boats motoring along Loch Oich. We lingered. From north to south the lochs Ness, Oich, Lochy, and Linnhe connect to one another via a series of locks along the Caledonian Canal which traverses the highlands to form a sixty-mile long intercoastal waterway that starts in Inverness and ends at Fort William, connecting the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. Conceived to give employment to highlanders displaced during the clearances, the canal was constructed in the early 1800’s and was designed to accommodate large merchant sailing ships. The canal reaches its highest point, 106 feet above sea level, at Laggan, between Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. One of the canal’s significant engineering feats is Neptune’s Staircase, a series of eight step locks near Fort William.

We rejoined the A82 for a few minutes before turning onto the A87 and followed it west along a route that paralleled the River Garry, before rising higher into the mountains and reaching the river’s source, Loch Garry. The views of Loch Garry under clearing storm clouds were spectacular, and we stopped several times, but the most rewarding photograph was taken from a farmer’s gate that led to an open field, high above the loch.

From the rocky beach at Loch Cluanie it was apparent that our luck with the weather was changing, and that “tha stoirm mhor ann,” was brewing with darkening clouds.

It was a real pish-oot by the time we sought sustenance at The Pitstop at Kintall, across the road from Loch Duich.  It’s one of the few eateries along the A87, and the folks that run it are good-humored angels. Their wings were especially visible the day we stopped. The small restaurant was full of people seeking shelter from the storm. Just inside the door, a large queue of dripping wet folks huddled, and created a loch size puddle as they waited for tables. On a nicer day the restaurant’s picnic tables outside would have easily accommodated everyone. Fortunately, the kitchen was quick, and folks didn’t linger. Their coffee was good, and the food was delicious.

The rain was lessening when we spotted the St Dubhthac’s Church on a small hill above Loch Duich and did a quick U-turn to investigate its ruins. It’s a pretty setting atop the hill with views of the loch and mountains covered in the purple heather blooms of summer. The exact date the church was built is unknown, but it’s believed to have been constructed in the 11th century shortly after Dubhthac a popular priest, and great missionary walker venerated for his evangelistic efforts, visited the area. An ancient cemetery, the Clachan Duich Burial Ground (“clachan” meaning stone or church in Gaelic) surrounds the ruins, and was the traditional burial place for many Clan Macrae chiefs over the centuries.

After the Battle of Glenshiel in 1719, the church was used to treat wounded Jacobite soldiers. Consequently, British troops later torched the church in retaliation. The church was eventually rebuilt and used into the 1850’s, but was left to neglect after the “clearances” reduced the area’s population. Today modern pilgrims can follow the St Dubhthac Way through Glen Affric via Chisholm’s Pass, along what is believed to be the evangelist’s original path through the highlands.

Fickle weather continued to plague our day, but we weren’t deterred from enjoying the moody weather when we visited Eilean Donan Castle, one of the Scottish Highland’s most iconic sites. Having invested in some good quality Gore-Tex rain gear that actually kept us dry made all the difference. And what better way to experience the harsh conditions of life in medieval Scotland than on a cold stormy afternoon in the highlands. Seems many other tourists felt the same way, and the parking lot for the castle was nearly full. https://www.eileandonancastle.com/?s=tickets

Eilean Donan means “Island of Donan” and refers to St Donan, an Irish missionary, who lived on the small island for a short time while he traveled through the western highlands and isles introducing Christianity to the Picts in the beginning of the 7th century. Later the island held an early Pict fort.

In the12th century a larger castle was built on the strategically located tidal island, situated at the confluence of three sea lochs: Loch Duich, Loch Alsh, and Loch Long, to defend the area from the frequent Viking raids that were happening at the time.

By the 14th century the castle was the western stronghold of the Clan MacKenzie and their allies Clan MacRae. Siding with Robert the Bruce, the MacKenzies granted him refuge at the castle after his defeat at the Battle of Methven in the early 1300’s, before he became the King of Scotland.

These were brutal and lawless times in the highlands and vividly illustrated in a gruesome event in 1331 when fifty “mysdoaris” (mis-doers) were gathered and executed, their heads then put on pikes along the castle’s walls to deter others from wrongdoing and assure the Warden of Scotland, who’s visit prompted this massacre, that there was law and order in the region.

During the unsuccessful Jacobite Uprising of 1719, Spanish troops allied with Bonnie Prince Charlie and exiled King James II were garrisoned in the castle. That May three Royal Navy frigates sailed into the lochs and bombarded the castle. After the Spanish forces surrendered, the British sailors used 343 barrels of gunpowder that the foreign troops left behind to blow the castle to smithereens. Some believe the ghost of a fallen Spanish soldier still haunts the isle.

The castle was left in ruins for nearly 200 years before Lt Colonel John Macrae-Gilstrap bought the island in 1911, and with the help of Farquhar MacRae set about rebuilding it over the next twenty years. Not knowing what the original castle actually looked, it’s believed Farquhar envisioned it in a dream. Surprisingly, years later when old plans of Eilean Donan were discovered in the ancient archives of Edinburgh Castle, his vision was confirmed as true to the original design. The only addition was the multi-arched stone footbridge we were about to cross above seaweed covered boulders exposed with the low tide. Wonderfully evocative on a moody rainy day, the views of the castle surrounded by water and mountains on a sunny day must be spectacular. No wonder it’s one of Scotland’s most photographed treasures.

It continued to be a dreich afternoon as we followed the A87 over the Kyle of Lochalsh, the narrow strait that separates the Isle of Skye from the Scottish mainland. The Sligachan Old Bridge was our last stop of the day before reaching Portree. It was designed by the famous Scottish architect Thomas Telford, better known for Dean Bridge in Edinburgh and the locks of Neptune’s Staircase on the Caledonian Canal, and it was built in 1810 with rocks collected from the river over which it spans. There is a mystical quality to the often mist-covered landscapes on the Isle of Skye. Fabulous tales of faeries and myths of ancient warriors inhabiting the land have been passed along by oral tradition throughout the Highlands and the Hebrides Islands since primitive folks first settled the region around 7000BC.

Two legends are associated with the River Sligachan. The first is the ferocious battle between Scáthach, the chief of a tribe of skilled female warriors, who had a fearsome reputation and was said to be stronger than any man, and Cú Chulainn, an Irish hero and demi-god who sailed to Skye to prove his strength against her. The battle raged for weeks. The earth shook as their weapons struck the ground, creating rivers and mountains across Skye as they wrestled in combat.

The second legend is the tale of the magical powers of the River Sligachan, when Scáthach’s daughter, Uathach, was granted eternal beauty and wisdom by following the guidance of faeries to dip her head into the icy water of the River Sligachan, for a very specific seven seconds and then let the water on her face air dry. It’s not as easy as it sounds considering the temperature of the water and that you have to get on your hands and knees to accomplish it. But she succeeded and was given a vision that the aroma of a wonderfully cooked meal would entice Scáthach and Cú Chulainn to stop battling. It worked and the combatants, realizing they were starving, called a truce.

Afterward Scáthach agreed to train the Irishman in her ways of warfare at her “Fortress of Shadows” on a remote windswept headland on Skye’s Sleat Peninsula. But the tale doesn’t end and continues to become a juicy Iron Age soap opera with Cú Chulainn seducing Uathach and killing her husband, then having a child with Scáthach’s sister and rival Aífe. Of course there are many versions of this ancient folk tale. The ruins of Dunscaith Castle, the 14th century stronghold of the Clan MacDonald, are believed to be the setting for this epic story.

The river valley and mountains west of the old bridge are called the Cuillin, an expansive area of pristine beauty with over 20 Munros, mountains over 3,000 feet high. South of the bridge the Collie and MacKenzie Statue, marks a trailhead into the wilderness, and commemorates the mountaineer and guide who mapped hiking routes across the Cuillin range and climbed many of Skye’s rugged mountains in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s.

Winds change the weather quickly on the Isle of Skye and by the time we reached Portree and checked into the Rosedale Hotel, located along the harbor’s waterfront, the sky was clearing. It was the height of the summer season and unfortunately, we couldn’t reserve a room with a harbor view, but we were quite happy with our accommodations otherwise.

Each morning at breakfast, the sweet waitresses gave us the table with the best view of the harbor, as if in recompense for our view-less room. Free parking along the quay is possible, but it’s almost impossible to find a space. The hotel did provide directions to the free municipal lot across from Phil the Barber and the Portree Community Centre on Park Road, a short distance away, that worked out quite well.

Later, we shared a seafood platter at Sea Breezes, a small restaurant in one of the colorful 19th century buildings along the harbor front, where it’s recommended to be among the first in line when it opens at 5 PM. Our meal was delicious and featured locally sourced sea trout, mussels, and scallops harvested from the waters around Skye that morning.

https://www.rosedalehotelskye.co.uk/              https://sea-breezes-skye.co.uk/

It was long wet afternoon after we lost the morning sunshine, and we hoped for better weather in the days ahead. But as our hotelier reminded us “today’s rain is tomorrow’s whisky.”

Till next time, Craig & Donna

The North Coast 500, kind of – Part 1: Edinburgh to Glencoe
A Road Trip in Scotland:  Monks, Potters, Flowers, and Kelpies or A Day in the Highlands

The North Coast 500, kind of – Part 1: Edinburgh to Glencoe

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Traditionally the North Coast 500 is a 516-mile tourist route that hugs the vast coastline of northern Scotland, and in its serpentine course includes some of the most scenic seascapes and landscapes on the planet, and in the Scottish Highlands as well. Maps show it as a large roughly circular route that starts and ends in Inverness, as our trip did, but bypasses Edinburgh and Glencoe since they are farther south. In planning our trip, we used the traditional NC500 as inspiration for preparing our own itinerary that included Edinburgh, Skye, the Isle of Lewis and Harris, and the Orkney Islands. Ultimately, we drove 1,430 miles over 15 days. Roughly 95 miles per day, which was a very manageable pace and offered plenty of opportunities to visit sites and explore. We used Arnold Clark for our car hire and were quite pleased with their pricing and service. Visit Scotland has a great website that outlines 15 other scenic driving routes that will get your wheels spinning. We hope you enjoy this first part of trip that we fondly call the D&C1430.

By this point in our trip, we had already been in Scotland for four days, but really considered this the first day of our Highlands adventure. Leaving Edinburgh and the Fringe Festival behind us, we zipped past the Kelpies. You have to be mindful of the speed limits while driving on the roads in the United Kingdom, as there are speed cameras everywhere. But it seems to be a lenient system where your speed is averaged between two points, so if you enter the camera zone above the speed limit you have a chance to compensate for the error by slowing down. Five months on and we have not yet received any notices of fines, but it did take some getting used to.

The morning was gray. The plan for the day was to visit several intriguing sculptures around Cumbernauld, head to Stirling Castle, and spend the night in the small village of Kippen. Luckily, we had stopped at the Kelpies several days earlier, on a beautiful afternoon, as we drove into Edinburgh. The 100ft tall equestrian statues are located in Helix Park at the confluence of the Clyde Canal and the River Carron. The steel horseheads are the largest in the world, and were created by the internationally acclaimed Scottish sculptor, Andy Scott. They are based on Scottish folklore;  a kelpie is a dangerous shape-shifting water spirit that appears on land as a horse, who entices its unsuspecting victim to ride on its back, only to be sped away to a watery grave. 

We used to purchase guidebooks to research our travels, but now rely mostly on internet research and Instagram. We have found Google Maps to be a great tool and use it to find many points of interest that seem to fly under the radar. We highlight them as favorites on the app and then connect the dots for our itinerary.

That’s how we planned our first stop of the day at another artwork conceived by Andy Scott – Arria, the Angel of the ‘Nauld,’ or the Steel Mermaid. The sculpture appeared quickly above the tree line along the M80 then vanished from view like a mirage. There was not any signage to the sculpture, but we eventually found ourselves at the back corner of the Eastfield Cemetery in Cumbernauld, where a path led through the woods to the 33ft tall steel figure.        

The graceful sweep of the split tail combining as one is meant to represent the original meaning of Cumbernauld. In Gaelic ‘Comar nan Allt’, means the merging of water, which represents the town’s two rivers flowing into the Forth and Clyde.  The figure offers, with outstretched arms, the rivers as her gift of life to the earth. Encircling the base of the sculpture is the poem by ‘Watershed’ by Jim Carruth.

The first sounds spoken, from the spring’s core, are of a new beginning, of people and place,

a poetry that bubbles and gargles to the surface, to leave this watershed, flow east and west,

in a rush of words, that tumble and fall, to join the conversations, of two great rivers,

a voice calling out, I belong I belong, adding to the language of sea and ocean.

The name was chosen from a local school competition. Arria was the mother of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, who in AD 142 built a series of forts along the Antonine Wall which crossed Scotland from the River Forth to the River Clyde and marked the Roman Empire’s most northern frontier. The Romans only held it for thirty years before Scottish tribes forced them to flee to safety farther south behind Hadrian’s Wall.

A short distance farther on we pulled down a narrow country track bordered by fields and horse pastures to a trailhead for Croy Hill, where soldiers were once stationed in a fort along the Antonine Wall. The only remainder of that era is an 18ft tall steel sculpture of a Roman centurion, created by the Edinburgh artist, Svetlana Kondakova, in 2021. Today 78 miles of trails along the wall welcome distance hikers, dog walkers and equestrians to explore the ancient history of the area.

Hunger called and we found refuge along a quiet pedestrian lane in Kilsyth, at Scarecrow Bar & Grill. It had friendly staff, good food, and was a nice place to relax before heading to Stirling Castle.

The Saturday crowd was tapering off by the time we arrived, around 3:00 pm, and we were able to park conveniently at the top of the hill next to the entrance. The ancient castle was entwined throughout Scotland’s epic history. Situated dramatically on a volcanic outcrop, the castle was built in the early 1100’s to guard the shallowest fording point across the River Forth, which divides the lowlands from the highlands. Over the centuries nearly ever Scottish monarch has paced the halls and ramparts of this mighty castle. Alexander I, Mary Queen of Scots, James IV, V & VI, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Margaret Tudor, and Bonnie Prince Charlie are just a few of the dozens of Kings and Queens who have called the castle home and most likely cursed the food, from the dungeon like kitchen, along with the wet weather and wind, while warming their bones next to one of the castle’s numerous fireplaces.

Many reconfigurations and additions have happened to the castle over the centuries. One of the most significant was the building of the Great Hall by James IV in 1501. This cavernous structure measuring, 138ft by 47ft, has five walk-in fireplaces, and a unique hammer beam roof, which resembles the inside of a wooden boat hull,. It was used to host royal banquets, weddings, christenings and meetings of state. One lavish event featured a specially built wooden boat with 40ft tall masts, and 36 brass canons, which were fired in celebration. After the smoke cleared and the guests stopped coughing, a seafood banquet was served from it. And, I’m assuming, the party planner lost his head the next day. Centuries later it was used as a stable before being renovated and used as a military barracks until the 1960’s.

Touring the rooms of the palace was the highlight of our visit to Stirling Castle. They were noticeably better furnished than Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Gorgeous tapestries were displayed throughout and the ceiling of one main rooms featured replicas of the famous 37 “Stirling Heads.” They were quite an unusual embellishment for a royal residence, depicting mythical heroes, historical Scots, and everyday people.

The original three-foot wide portrait medallions, often referred to as “Scotland’s other Crown Jewels,” were carved from solid oak in the 16th century, and are on exhibit in the castle’s gallery. The new medallions, installed on the ceiling in 2011, were painstakingly recreated over a six-year period by the master wood sculptor John Donaldson and then painted in a renaissance style, appropriate to the era, by artist Graciela Ainsworth.

It’s always debatable how far out we should make our hotel bookings. Six months out for hotel reservations is what we normally do, and it usually works very well, but surprisingly to our dismay most of our first-choice hotels in prime locations were already fully booked by then. 

Which is how we arrived at The Inn at Kippen in time for dinner. Kippen is a quaint crossroads village west of Stirling and was a wonderful off-the-beaten track discovery. The first public record of Kippen appears in the 1300’s when the village church is mentioned. But its heyday was in the 18th century when it was stagecoach stop along a military road between Stirling and Balloch.

The Kippen is a historic coaching Inn and continues the friendly tradition of welcoming travelers, with a dog-friendly bar and restaurant on the first floor and five well-appointed rooms on the second. The hosts pride themselves on sourcing all meats, fish and produce locally and the menu changes accordingly with the seasons. Our dinner, as well as breakfast the next morning, was delicous.

A bright early sunrise encouraged us to quickly dress and amble around the quiet village, and enjoy views pf the countryside before breakfast. We then continued our drive west into the Highlands.

Glencoe was the day’s ultimate destination, but with us it’s never a straight drive. We are always zigging, zagging, detouring and stopping for photos along the way. The view as we crossed a bridge over the Eas Gobhain, a river that flows from Loch Venachar into Callander, was beautiful, so we U-turned and parked. Our timing was perfect, as we caught photos of kayakers out for a Sunday paddle.

Afterwards, we stopped at a riverside park called the Meadows that was a popular spot for feeding the ducks and for fishing from the riverbank.

The A84 is the main route into the Highlands from Stirling and passes through Callander. We followed it west through a rolling landscape that gently changed to mountains covered by pine forests. Brilliant sunlight reflected off the water and glistened through the trees as we stopped at Loch Lubnaig. Our first Highland loch! We were captivated by the crystal blue lake shimmering in the sun, before a background of verdant mountain and clear sky.

We had read about the Highlands being unbearably full of tourists during the summer months, but hadn’t really noticed it until trying to find a parking space. This became a recurring issue during our trip. While the roads were not congested, the small parking areas were, and there was often a queue for a spot if you arrived later in the day.

We veered off the route to see the Falls of Dochart, and the Clan Macnab Burial Grounds on an island in the river at the village of Killin. While many local folks apologized for the unusually rainy August weather, it was surely beneficial to the rivers, which were running high, and the spectacular waterfalls.

The earliest note of the Clan Macnab goes back to 1124 during the reign of David I, the 9th King of Scotland. It was a rather violent clan known for beheading its defeated enemies, which is rather surprising considering the clan descended from an Abbot of Strathfillan. But occasionally they backed the wrong cause and famously fought against Robert the Bruce in 1306, and subsequently forfeited most of their extensive territory, which encompassed land between the village of Tyndrum and the south-west corner of Loch Tay, until their property rights were reinstated by King David II in 1336.

Across the Highlands, the clans notoriously pillaged villages and stole livestock from each other in a vicious cycle of attack and revenge. One episode is best illustrated in a description, by the Clan Macnab Society, of the Battle of Glenboultachan in 1522 between the Macnab and the Neish clans, after the Neishes initiated a major raid on the Macnab herds. “As the Macnabs rushed downhill they threw away their plaids and, naked apart from their brogues, flung themselves upon the Neishes. The Neishes threw off their plaids as well, and soon the glen was packed with naked, screaming warriors locked in mortal combat.” I can only image they wished to keep their clothes from being shredded. Ninety years later, only two young Neishes survived the swords of the Macnab’s after a retaliatory attack for a Christmas season ambush. The A85 now passes the site at Little Port Farm where the epic fight took place. 

As we continued west the pine covered slopes faded from green to hills and moorlands covered in the pink, purple, and lavender colors of flowering heather shrubs in full bloom, and the yellow and amber of late summer grasses. Vast areas were a treeless wilderness without signs of habitation. The clouds slightly thickened and their shadows raced across the panorama. Patiently we waited with our cameras ready at the Buachaille Etive Mòr car park for the sun to break through and were rewarded with dramatic shots of endless landscape. We stopped along the way so many times that it seemed we were not making any progress toward Glencoe. 

At the National Trust for Scotland – Glencoe Visitor Centre we encountered our first highland cows, or hairy coos as the Scots like to say. With how heavily these wonderful animals are used in advertising to promote Scottish tourism, we thought there would be abundant herds of the coos everywhere. But that was not the case, and based on our experience, I swear these two hairy coos were the only ones in the Highlands. We did see some from a great distance in the northern Highlands later in the trip, although they were so far away that they could have been plywood silhouettes of the beasts. And I can just imagine an elderly pensioner exclaiming to his wife, “those silly tourists stopped again to take photos of our fake coos. If I had a Two pence for every time someone stopped, we’d be vacationing on the Rock of Gibraltar this winter.”

Beyond the coos stood a re-creation of an ancient highlander turf and creel house. Sturdy log framing was built atop thick walls of insulating turf and then covered on the inside with a basket-like weaving of freshly cut and still pliable ‘green’ wood. The steep roof framing was then covered with a thinner layer of turf and thatched with heather. The dwellings had high peaked interiors and were built without windows or a chimney. The only ventilation for the cooking fire, in an open stone hearth, was through one or two low entries that would be covered with skins to protect the inside from the fierce wind, snow and rain of the highlands, along with attempting to contain the heat thrown off by the fire inside. In an 1822 letter to a friend, a Londoner traveling through the region snarkily described a creel house, “smoke came pouring out through the ribs and roof all over; but chiefly out at the door, which was not four feet high, so that the whole made the appearance of a fuming dunghill.”

It was in homes like this creel house that one of the greatest atrocities against the Scots was committed by the English. On February 13, 1692, in Glencoe, Clan MacDonald extended their hospitality and opened their homes to 120 Redcoats. On orders sent from John Dalrymple, the Earl of Argyll, the night before, the soldiers were ordered to “kill all,” and “not to trouble the government with prisoners,” at 5 the next morning. The Earl of Argyll suspected the chief of the clan opposed the new monarch William III, and the MacDonald Chief was not prompt in pledging allegiance to the new king, after James II was deposed during the Glorious Revolution of 1688, for supporting the Catholic religion. It was also an opportunity for the Earl, a Campbell, to settle a long-standing clan feud with the MacDonalds.

Thirty-eight innocent men, women, and children were massacred as dawn broke. Another forty died in the snow as they fled into mountains trying to escape. After the tragedy, several British army officers were court martialed for refusing to follow the heinous order. The poor Earl, who was also the Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, was only told to resign. It’s difficult to imagine that this tranquil valley holds such tragedy. This verse from the poem Glencoe by Douglas Alexander Stewart, says it well. 

Sigh, wind in the pine,
Cover it with snow;
But terrible things were done
Long, long ago.

A memorial to the MacDonald Clan stands on the Upper Carnoch road in the village.

After we settled in at the Beechwood Cottage B&B for a two-night stay, and admired the view of Sgorr na Ciche mountain from our window, our host offered to make early dinner reservations for us, relating that during the high season, the restaurants fill quickly and it’s not like Edinburgh where things stay open late. In Glencoe everything closes early and without dinner reservations, there is usually an impossible queue. Following her recommendation, we enjoyed the view of Lock Leven from the restaurant at the Isles of Glencoe Hotel, while having a wonderful dinner and a decadent dessert.

We should have listened more closely to our host’s tip about parking at the Glenfinnan Viaduct to photograph the old Jacobite Steam Train, often referred to as Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Express. Our host suggested it would be wise to arrive an hour before the train is scheduled to cross the bridge, as there are usually hundreds of folks wanting to do the same thing, and it takes a while to hike up the hill to find the right observation point. Well, we were the last car in line before they closed the gate to the Glenfinnan Car Park. Folks who were willing to walk a greater distance back resorted to all sorts of creative and illegal parking along the shoulder of the road. We searched for a while, but the historic area never envisioned the mass tourism that the Harry Potter train brings to the region when the line was constructed in the 1880’s. It began to rain.

For Plan B we backtracked to the Corpach Caol shipwreck on the shore of Loch Linnhe, near the Caledonian Canal Locks, just west of Fort William. The rain lessened as we walked across the locks and along a stoney beach to the evocative wreck silhouetted against Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the United Kingdom. The wreck of the old fishing trawler has rested on the beach since 2011, when a fierce storm broke the boat from its mooring, miles away, farther down the loch in Camusnagaul Bay, where a new owner was renovating it to liveaboard.

Afterwards we headed back, across the canal, to a small café for coffee and a reprieve from the rain that had started again and decided to try our luck one more time at the Glenfinnan Viaduct. We planned to be there very early for the afternoon crossing of the train. We secured a parking space easily enough, even though it was beginning to rain harder, and followed the other mad fools as intent as we down a long heavily mudded track. It rained harder. And harder. We thanked our lucky stars that we had invested heavily in completely waterproof jackets for this trip. The rain finally deterred us from continuing up the slope to those spots from which all the iconic photos of the steam train puffing across the curve of the viaduct are taken. Instead, we claimed a spot, under a tree, along the stream that runs through a valley, and stood there stoically like hairy coos in a drenching downpour. That in Gaelic is called a Goselet. One of the infinite number of words that the Scots use to describe their finicky weather.  It was a bust! The train stopped mid span for a minute, for us paparazzi-like tourists to snap away, but the sky was so grey and low that the steam from the engine was indiscernible from the gloom. Our young grandson, having just finished reading all the Harry Potter books, was delighted to see our photos that we texted to him later that day.

By the time we finished a late lunch at The Lochy, a nice unpretentious pub, with some very good value daily specials, the morning storm had cleared, and we headed back to Glencoe. We didn’t get far before we came to a halt at the lowered gates of a railroad crossing. Imagine our surprise when  the Jacobite Steam Train passed in front of us in all its steaming glory in the bright afternoon sun.

We capped the day wandering about closer to Glencoe, exploring various shorelines and St. John’s Scottish Episcopalian Church in Ballachulish. The original church on the site is actually the smaller stone building to the left. It was a storage shed before it was donated to the church and consecrated for use as a sanctuary in 1770. The larger old stone church was built in 1842 and is surrounded by an interesting cemetery.

Till next time, Craig & Donna

Timetable for the Jacobite Steam Train

The Scotland Explorer Pass helped with the price of admission to many sites across the country.

Visit Scotland – Where to see Highland cows in Scotland

A Road Trip in Scotland:  Monks, Potters, Flowers, and Kelpies or A Day in the Highlands
Three days in Edinburgh or Jugglers, Sandstone, Whisky & Thistle  

Three days in Edinburgh or Jugglers, Sandstone, Whisky & Thistle  

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Good hosts, Shopkeepers, and restauranteurs constantly apologized for the unusually cold and fickle August weather that Scotland was experiencing. In the Outer Hebrides, on the Isle of Lewis and Harris, strong winds and high tides led to road flooding in the center of Stornoway, a destination on our itinerary. “Normally the weather is perfect this time of year,” was a frequent refrain. “Lively thunderstorms,” such a nice phrase, had delayed our flight from London to Inverness, several days earlier. Later in the month heavy rain and strong winds led to the naming of the 12th storm of the 2024 season, Storm Lilian.

We had donned our Gore-tex rain gear for two days straight, and were thankful we made the investment in some reliable waterproof jackets. But yesterday afternoon as we visited The Kelpies while driving to Edinburgh, it was 65°F and the sun was shining. The weather was brilliant. Rain then clearing storms was the weather pattern that would repeat itself for the next three weeks, which provided many opportunities for some dramatic landscape photography.

With the weather predicted to be nice for the next several days, we planned to head to the Dugald Stewart Monument on Calton Hill for that iconic view of Edinburgh at sunrise. It didn’t go exactly as planned, as we didn’t get up early enough, underestimated the length of time our tram journey from the Holiday Inn Express Edinburgh – Leith Waterfront would take, and we overshot our stop.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed a quiet early morning in the Princes Street Gardens, catching Edinburgh castle in early morning light from the Ross Fountain. Before walking back to Calton Hill, as the city’s streets slowly awakened, and sculptures atop buildings glowed in the morning sun.

Along our route were solid examples of buildings constructed with Craigleith sandstone. The locally quarried stone was the building material of choice for James Craig, the 18th century Scottish architect tasked with replacing the ancient city’s medieval Old Town’s unsanitary tenements and warren of alleys, with a grid of avenues, squares, and gardens. The results, James Craig’s New Town, are today treasured as  a prime example of Georgian era town planning.

An obscure alley-like entrance across the road from the stairs to Calton Hill caught our attention and we followed a forgotten walkway into the Old Calton Cemetery. Long neglected tombs and teetering headstones dotted the graveyard. In the middle was a stately monument depicting a freed slave looking skyward to a statuesque Abraham Lincoln.  

The Scottish-American Soldiers Monument, as it is called, commemorates the six Scotsmen who volunteered to fight against slavery during the American Civil War. Donations for its construction were solicited across the Scottish dispora in the United States with the American business magnates; Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller becoming major contributors. The memorial monument was erected in 1893, was the first statue of Abraham Lincoln outside of the United Sates, and continues to be the only American Civil War monument in Europe.

Even though our heart rates were up, after the walk from the center of Edinburgh, the long climb of stairs to the top of Calton hill was a challenge, though it was well worth the effort for that iconic view across The Athens of the North. The 19th century nickname references the Grecian architectural influences incorporated into some of the city’s most notable neoclassical buildings.

Atop the hill the style is most evident in the Dugald Stewart Monument, a memorial to the Scottish philosopher and mathematician; the old City Observatory; and the National Monument of Scotland, a Napoleonic Wars memorial built in remembrance of the soldiers and sailors who fought in those wars. Afterwards we walked down the opposite side of the hill towards the Omni building, a theater and entertainment center, across from the tram stop at Picardy Place. A tall statue of Scotland’s favorite detective, Sherlock Holmes, commands the plaza located a short distance away from the birthplace of the writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

Our goal now was to walk towards the Port of Leith along the Leith Way to delve into some of Donna’s family history. Here’s Donna to explain:

Before I was Donna Hammell, I was Donna Leith. My mother-in-law was a sweet Italian woman who married a Scottish fellow named John Leith. In the 1970s, they traveled to Scotland to explore the family heritage. They knew that generations back, one of the Leith men had been a sailmaker with a shop along Water Street; another had been a ship builder. Mom and Dad wandered around Leith, trying to find the shop. They were about to give up the search, when they decided to ask at a pharmacy. Turns out that was the very building the sailmaker had occupied, and the people who ran the shop were cousins, once or twice removed. The two women corresponded for decades and exchanged recipes. I just baked a batch of Eyemouth Tarts – deliciously addictive little squares of candied fruit atop a buttery crust. My children are named Sandra Leith and Ian Leith, and I was determined to bring them a souvenir with the Leith name on it. Although for obvious reasons there is some antipathy between my former and current husbands, nevertheless Craig kindly indulged me on this search for my kids’ ancestry. I think he was as pleased as I was when we hit the jackpot at a lovely little store. I cleaned her out on all things Leith.

Leith Way, is one of Edinburgh’s oldest streets, that followed the line of a now long- gone earthen rampart built to defend Edinburgh from Oliver Cromwell’s army in 1650. On either side of the road, it seemed as if every storefront we passed incorporated Leith into the name of their business: Leith Shwarma, The Dog House Leith, Leith Artisan Coffee, Leith Walk Denture Studio, Leith Barber, and Tribe Leith, a yoga studio. Nearing sensory overload, we stopped for a pint of beer at the Boundary Bar. It’s an unpretentious neighborhood pub famously known for its line painted along the floor that marked the border between Leith and Edinburgh, and most importantly allowed customers who crossed to the Leith side of the bar to party an hour longer, when the pubs in Edinburgh closed at 9 PM. Leith’s advantage ended when the two cities merged in1920. Across the street we enjoyed an inexpensive lunch at the Kukina Turkish Bakery, just down from The Wee Leith Shop, which was only twice as wide as its door. Farther along we found a very nice shop, Destined for Home, with all things Leith souvenirs. Donna was thrilled!

Leith’s history was tied to the rise of Edinburgh as the seat of the Scottish crown. Archeological discoveries along the port’s waterfront suggest an extensive wharf area that dates to the 12th century. The port thrived for centuries upon shipbuilding, whaling, fishing, and glass making, along with warehouses storing whisky and wines imported from Europe. Leith was so prosperous that it had gas street lighting in 1822, and electrified its tram network in 1905, years before the town merged with Edinburgh in 1920. Severely hard times fell on Leith after WWII when ship building declined, and the advent of mega container ships required larger, modern port facilities. Notoriously, the city was unceremoniously depicted in the 1993 novel, Trainspotting. It was a much different perspective than that of the Proclaimer’s1988 hit song, Sunshine on Leith, which the BBC hailed as a “love song to the city and Scotland.” The song became an anthem of endurance for a city once down on its luck. But since then, the dock area has undergone a transformation with new office buildings and residential towers being built along the old canals and dock area of the port, reinvigorating the area and earning the designation as the “Venice of the North.”

Later that afternoon we returned to the center of Edinburgh via the tram and walked across town to theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall, a performing arts theater, to see a play hosted by the Fringe Festival. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change was written by award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro, who happens to be the little brother of Donna’s girlfriend from grade school. The four-person performance, the second longest-running off-Broadway play, was performed in a small intimate space with seating on three sides of the stage. The play was fantastic, and the tickets were extremely inexpensive. 

At this point we need to confess that we didn’t know anything about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a large three-week entertainment event held every August in Edinburgh, for over 75 years. It was only after purchasing our airfare, when we tried to book a hotel, six months out, that room availability was severely limited, and we delved deeper as to why. The Fringe Festival started as an act of rebellion against the status quo in 1947 when eight theater companies, not invited to the Edinburgh International Festival, performed on the streets in Edinburgh. The event has mushroomed over the years and in 2024 “sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featured more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,746 different shows across 262 venues from 60 different countries.” The Edinburgh Fringe Festival website and catalog of shows was very helpful in planning what to see. Everything we read said Edinburgh would be insanely packed with tourists. But our barometer was a New York city rush hour, and Edinburgh’s streets were an oasis of calm in comparison. Not being able to find any reasonably priced hotels near the center of the city, the Holiday Inn Express Edinburgh – Leith Waterfront, located on the tram line, was the perfect alternative.

For the next morning Donna secured us tickets for the opening time at Edinburgh Castle, and we arrived to join the small queue already forming. The top of this massive rock has been a safe haven since the Iron Age when folks first sought refuge there. It was the seat of the Scottish crown for several centuries after Malcolm III Canmore, the first King of Scotland, set foot upon the Castle Rock in the 11th century, though the principal royal residence, since its construction in the 16th century has been Holyrood Palace.

I imagine the wind carries the stories of Mary Queen of Scots, James VI, Oliver Cromwell, and soldiers barracked, and prisoners of wars in its dungeons, that walked upon the rock. Noteworthy historical oddities include: the first fireworks lit the sky above the castle in 1507 to celebrate a lavish jousting tournament hosted by James IV. In 1838, the 78th Highlanders, stationed at the castle, returned from serving in Sri Lanka with an elephant in tow. The parade ground before the castle entrance hosts a spectacular event every August evening called The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

Afterwards we wandered the streets and alleys of Edinburgh’s ancient Old Town below the castle. The cheerfully painted storefronts along the bow of Victoria Street certainly brightened the day after a gloomy morning. The streets were busy with crowds gathered around entertainers performing in the squares. Eventually, we found our way to the Greyfriars Kirkyard Cemetery.

The land for the graveyard was granted to the city by Mary Queen of Scots in the mid-16th century. Soon the city started to use the graveyard for the mass burials of thousands that died during the multiple plagues that struck the city over a seventy-five year period. Though there are only several hundred headstones in the cemetery, it is thought nearly 100,000 people were buried there over a three-hundred-year period, and tour guides will have you believing it’s the most haunted cemetery in the world.

After the establishment of Edinburgh’s Medical College in the 1700s, graverobbers often exhumed the recently deceased and sold the cadavers to the school for use in their anatomy classes. The cemetery is also known for the story of Bobby, the beloved pet of John Grey. The Skye Terrier is remembered for dedicatedly guarding his owner’s grave for 14 years before his own death at age 16, in 1872. More recently, the success of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books have drawn fans of the novels to the cemetery where the author borrowed the names of Robert Potter, Thomas Riddle (aka Lord Voldemort), William McGonagall (a famously bad poet), Elizabeth Moodie, and Margaret Louisa Scrymgeour Wedderburn off the gravestones for some of her important characters.

After lunch at the Greyfriars Bobby’s, a pub at the entrance to the cemetery, we walked across town. At the National Galleries of Scotland we stopped to watch a juggler tossing flaming torches from atop a tall teetering platform, held aloft by members of the audience.

At the Princes Street Gardens the skirl of bagpipes filled the air near the sculpture of Wojtek, an orphaned Syrian brown bear cub that Polish soldiers found in Iran, and adopted while they were serving with the British army in WWII. After the war Wojtek lived out his life in the Edinburgh Zoo.

Our destination was Dean Village, an old, though now gentrified, milling community, that once had eleven mills along the Water of Leith. It’s a tranquil bucolic area with a foot and bike path that can be followed to the Port of Leith, four miles away. Saint Bernard’s Well is along the walkway, and during the Middle Ages the water from the natural spring was believed to have curative powers.

For dinner that evening we headed back into the new town and stopped at The Black Cat pub, which was recommended as having a great selection of whisky, friendly knowledgeable bartenders, and good fairly priced food. We tried a flight of three single malt coastal whiskies. Two were from islands off Scotland’s west coast; an Arran 10 year from the Isle of Arran, and a Ledaig 10 from the Isle of Mull. The third was a Glenglassaugh 12 year distilled near Sandend Bay in northern Scotland. The young barkeep was also a well versed whisky sommelier, and guided us through the subtle influences the Atlantic and North Sea air have on the aging process.  Poetically using a cask full of adjectives to describe the Nose – floral seaside aromas, with gentle smokey palate – a malty creaminess, and finish – sublimely spicy, a kick of cloves, or an exquisite lingering saltiness, to variously describe the warm amber liquors we were enjoying. All were very nice to sip slowly, though the Ledaig 10 was a little too peaty for our taste, and we likened it to inhaling too deeply with your first cigar – it took some getting used to.

The following morning, we set off for the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It has been an official royal residence since James IV constructed the palace in1501, adjacent to the Holyrood Abbey’s cathedral that was completed in 1230. The original palace was destroyed in the 1650s when a fire consumed much of the building while it was being used as a barracks by Oliver Cromwell’s troops. Though there have been many interior alterations over the centuries, the façade of the palace today closely resembles its 1679 construction.

The Renaissance fountain in the forecourt was installed in 1850 to spiff the place up for a visit by Queen Victoria. Sadly, that seems to be the last attempt to improve the place, and our tour of the inside felt like we were walking through spartanly furnished, shabby aristocratic public housing. The Abbey’s cathedral is an ancient ruin, and the gardens surrounding the palace get much better PR than they deserve. For the exorbitant admission price, they didn’t deliver the expected enthralling experience. If you are watching your budget, we suggest skipping Holyroodhouse and visiting Stirling Castle or Dunrobin Castle with its spectacular interior and garden instead.

For our last afternoon in the city, we visited the Royal Botanic Garden, seventy acres of beautiful, manicured rolling woodland with formal gardens. We followed the signs through the park, passing under a 23ft tall hedge over 100 years old, to the Queen Mother’s Memorial Garden, that’s noted for its perennial flowers and collection of indigenous plants.

The gardens were thriving in the moist moderate weather of Scotland, and bursting with color. At the very end of the garden is a small building called The Memorial Pavilion. It’s very unique, with every square inch of the interior walls and ceiling covered with shells collected by school children all across Scotland.

Planted outside was a bed of thistle, Scotland’s national flower. Scottish folklore credits the thistle with saving an ancient village from a Viking raid, when the barefooted invaders stepped on the spiky plant. Their cries of agony alerted the sleeping warriors of the village who then defeated their enemy. It has since become an important symbol of Scottish heraldry, and being invested into the ancient chivalric order of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, is one of Scotland’s and England’s highest awards. The prickly flower was even celebrated in a 1926 poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, by the famous Scottish poet by Hugh MacDiarmid. The epic, “stream-of-consciousness” poem touches on everything from the state of the nation and the mysteries of the universe to the joy of whisky.

Edinburgh was a fantastic destination, that requires multiple visits to fully explore.

Till next time, Craig & Donna

P.S. The Scotland Explores Pass helped with the price of admission to many sites across the country.

A Road Trip in Scotland:  Monks, Potters, Flowers, and Kelpies or A Day in the Highlands

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Large swathes of sunlight graced the rolling landscape of the northern highlands as the plane began its descent toward Inverness. The change in weather was welcomed after a delayed flight from London put us two hours behind schedule, and we were landing in Inverness after all the car rental agents in the airport closed at 5 pm. It was a situation we didn’t realize until we departed London, and in the air. Being from the states where the airports stay open extremely late, we hadn’t made any contingency plans for this unexpected delay, and it, along with fretting about driving on the left side of the road, filled us with anxiety as the last car hire bus to Arnold Clark’s offsite lot ran at five. While waiting at baggage claim we somehow connected with another couple on our flight with the same dilemma and shared our worries. An audible sigh of relief was released when to our surprise an Arnold Clark agent was waiting for all of us, holding a placard with our names on it, as we exited the baggage claim area. Our cars were parked for us outside. The agent was absolutely wonderful, and prevented a rough start to our vacation. He also recommended an excellent restaurant, The Snow Goose, just minutes from the airport. Arnold Clark really went the extra mile for us, and we thanked the agent profusely.

I think driving away from any new airport is the most dangerous part of many trips. Horns blared. Stay left, look right was our mantra. Lunch had happened many hours earlier, and with a two-hour drive south to Pitlochry ahead of us, we decided to stop for dinner. First impressions of a new destination are important, and ours were pleasantly exceeded when we stopped at The Snow Goose, first with a riotous display of color from beautiful hydrangeas that lined the walkway. Then the realization that customers’ dogs are welcomed inside restaurants, pubs too, and just want the chance to wag their tails, and have their heads rubbed. This is something totally alien to the restaurant scene in the United States, but it was very nice, and all the dogs were so well behaved. Lastly, the food was great. Beetroot and Pumpkin Seed Arancini to start, followed by Seared Sea Bass and Pan-Roasted Lamb.

Grand expanses of heather covered the hillsides between forests of pine, while tufted vetch in infinite shades of purple and pink carpeted the edge of the road.

After a little difficulty finding the driveway, the hosts, a husband-and-wife team, of the Craigroyston House & Lodge greeted us as dusk was descending, and showed us our room. It was late, a friendly “See you in the morning. Good night,” was all that was called for. The Full Scottish breakfast  – bacon, sausage, black pudding, haggis, mushrooms, tomatoes, and egg was a delicious as the dinner the evening before. The small medallion of haggis that accompanied this breakfast was the perfect introduction to the national dish of Scotland that’s made with minced liver, heart, and lungs of a sheep, and mixed with mutton suet, oatmeal, then seasoned with onion, cayenne pepper, and other spices. It really was very good, and we enjoyed it many times with breakfast during our stay in the Highlands.

The Craigroyston House is a small eight-room inn, with a beautiful, terraced garden, conveniently located one block away from Pitlochry’s main thoroughfare. Colorful hanging baskets hung from many shops, and brightened a gray morning. The weather report for the week ahead showed the possibility of rain every day.

Shopkeepers apologized for the unusually cold and rainy August Scotland was having. We soon realized, though, that those dreary mornings often gave way to brilliantly sunny afternoons. Heading back to the inn we stopped at Heathergems, a shop that turns highly compressed heather stems into unique jewelry. If you are looking for a souvenir this is definitely a place to consider.

The plan for the day was to drive to the village of Dunkeld. Then continue to Drummond Castle to wander around its formal garden, before ending the day in Edinburg.

By late morning we arrived in Dunkeld and spent a while searching for parking close to the town’s ancient cathedral. It had started to rain, and it became a futile task competing with other tourists also wanting to find a parking space in the small village. We opted to park along the Tay River at the Tay Terrace Car Park, only a short walk away from the cathedral. The village has a long history that has always been tied to the early church in Scotland since 730AD, when Culdee Monks, Celtic missionaries, built a monastery there. One hundred and twenty years later the small village’s influence mushroomed when the first King of the newly united Picts and Scots, Kenneth I MacAlpin, moved the relics of Saint Columba from the Hebrides’ Isle of Iona to Dunkeld, to prevent their desecration by Viking raiders. Columba was a 6th century Irish missionary who founded an abbey on Iona, and is credited with spreading Christianity in Scotland.

In the mid 1200’s construction of a grand cathedral started above the ruins of the ancient Culdee Monastery. It was finished 250 years later in 1501, but only served in all its glory for sixty years before the altar and nave of the cathedral were seriously damaged when the roof of the cathedral was destroyed during the Protestant Reformation. At this time, the Scottish Parliament outlawed Catholicism and ended centuries of Papal authority over Scotland, which fundamentally altered the country’s cultural and social landscape. “Churches were to be stripped of their idolatrous religious art and decoration and then whitewashed, so that only God and Christ would be worshipped, and not their images, or images of the saints.” 

The choir end of the cathedral was reroofed in 1600 to serve as the parish church or kirk, but was again damaged, when most of Dunkeld was destroyed in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1689. Over time the village slowly re-emerged as a market town, and supported weaving, candle-making, tanning and brewing businesses.

Off to the side and behind the altar in the “new” parish kirk, there is an interesting small museum with sculptures and tombs. Nearby in front of the cathedral, in the town’s old market square, there is an elegant stone fountain detailed with carvings of animals, birds, and Masonic symbols. It’s dedicated to George Augustus Frederick John, the 6th Duke of Atholl, and a Grand Master of the Scottish Masons, who brought piped water to the village in the mid 1800’s.

Dunkeld, with its many nooks and crannies and architectural details, was a delight to explore. When it started to rain harder, we sought refuge and lunch at Palmerstons, a small café busy with wet tourists. They served a great hearty lunch and good coffee at a fair price.

Centuries ago a ferry was the only way to cross the Tay river to Dunkeld’s sister village, Little Dunkeld, but it was extremely dangerous when the river was running high and fast. So, with great relief and fanfare, a stone bridge across the river was built in 1809. It’s a simple seven-arch construction that has withstood the test of time. It was designed by Thomas Telford, who is more famously known for engineering the 60-mile long Caledonian Canal which joined Inverness to Fort William, essentially connecting the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Legacy of Beatrice Potter drew us across the bridge. The author and illustrator of the widely loved children’s books, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck and The Tale of Tom Kitten spent many summers of her youth vacationing in Dunkeld and exploring the flora and fauna along the River Tay. A charming park featuring small bronze sculptures of her animal characters along a pathway through the woods is dedicated to her memory.

We abandoned the highways and drove southwest through rolling hills along the famously narrow single-track roads of the highlands. The lanes, often lined with stone walls and fencing, allow two-way traffic, but in order to pass an oncoming car one vehicle has to pullover into a small bump-out called a Passing Place. These are well marked and spaced along the country roads, but you need to be on the lookout for approaching cars, as the protocol is for drivers to pull into the closest Passing Place on their side of the lane and wait for the other vehicles to pass. It took some getting used to. Surprisingly, the speed limit on these single-track roads is 60 mph, but we were only comfortable driving at half that speed. It was also important to be on the lookout for any stray farm animals that might have escaped their pasture, or equestrians, and those adorable tiny hedgehogs that wander across the road. Fortunately, no one was behind us when Donna, my eagle-eyed co-pilot shouted, “STOP!” and was out of the car in a flash to usher a hedgehog across the lane. The one big drawback is that you are not allowed to use the Passing Places to park and take pictures of the beautiful scenery.

Just beyond Crieff we turned off the main road and followed a mile long driveway through a tunnel of ancient trees to Drummond Castle to see its Renaissance style formal gardens. It was still cloudy, but there was a hint of blue sky on the horizon as we stood in the castle’s courtyard above the gardens and readied ourselves for the walk down a long set of wide stairs into the flowering oasis, when suddenly a cloud burst above our heads and drenched us.

We scrambled back to the ticket office and asked for a refund, as we had only been there for a few minutes, but none was offered. That patch of blue above still teased us. We waited, and the sky brightened. The gardens were spectacular, as if the flowers had received a heavenly command to overcompensate for the bleak weather.

The castle’s original 15th century six-story stone keep still stands, but only the lower 2 floors are open to the public. The other chateau-like buildings were added in the 1600’s and are the private rooms of the Drummond family, which remarkably still owns the place after 500 years. In 1842 Queen Victoria is believed to have planted a beech tree in the garden, and understatedly praised the grounds in a letter to a friend, “Prince Albert and I walked in the garden, which is really very fine, with terraces, like an old French garden.”

After climbing back up the stairs we ordered two cappuccinos to ward off the day’s chill from a barista, boredly pacing in a coffee trailer parked in the courtyard. “Do the folks who own this live here?” I asked. “No, they have other castles but visit occasionally.”  We walked away with a new realization about one-percenters.

As we headed to Edinburg the sky finally cleared. Originally, I had planned our route to follow the M90 south and cross the Firth of Forth bridge into the city. But somehow, we ended up much further west, and were totally surprised when the 100ft tall steel Kelpies, shining brilliantly in the afternoon, towered above the tree line along the side of the highway. We had planned to stop there after visiting Edinburgh, but with the afternoon weather now perfect we seized the day and changed our plans. These equestrian statues are located in Helix Park at the confluence of the Clyde Canal and the River Carron. The steel horseheads are the largest in the world, and were created by the internationally acclaimed Scottish sculptor, Andy Scott. They are based on Scottish folklore where a kelpie is a dangerous shape-shifting water spirit that appears on land as a horse, who entices its unsuspecting victim to ride on their backs, only to be sped away to a watery grave. 

It was a great second day in Scotland. On to Edinburgh!

Till next time, Craig & Donna

P.S. Scottish weather is notoriously fickle and changes dramatically throughout the day. Being prepared to layer up or down and having proper waterproof rain gear and footwear was essential. We invested in some Gore-Tex rain jackets and were delighted that they kept us totally dry.