Eats plants
Scotland never ceases to surprise me with its landscapes. Decades ago when I came here as a very young adult I can remember driving around with friends and it felt like every mile or so we wanted to stop the car and take photos. It felt a bit like that today. You can drive up… Continue reading Glen Esk and Loch Lee
Glamis Castle is famous for being the ancestral home of the former Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. It has been in the Lyon family since 1372. Princess Margaret was also born in the castle. Perhaps an even bigger claim to fame is as the setting for Shakespeare's Macbeth and also as a film location for some… Continue reading Glamis Castle
We made it to the highlands! I've got holiday cancellation PTSD and before each holiday now I get paranoid that it'll be canceled too. The night before we left I woke up at 2am thinking I'd lost my sense of taste and smell. I went downstairs and tasted some salt, felt reassured that it tasted… Continue reading Gynack Burn, Kingussie
This is going to be a long post with lots of photos so apologies in advance. We've just had a magnificent weekend in Braemar staying at the luxurious Fife Arms hotel. It's quite a contrast to our recent glamping adventures and definitely opulent but worth every penny. I've been longing to spend a night at… Continue reading A night to remember at the Fife Arms Hotel, Braemar
Last time we visited Loch Muick it was so windy we had to shout at one another to talk. We haven't been back until today. We checked the weather forecast first to be sure we wouldn't face another gale but I'm beginning to suspect Loch Muick and wind are two words that always go together… Continue reading Lunch at the Queen’s house
We've had the most relaxing weekend at the Pillars of Hercules Bothy just outside Falkland. The bothy is on the Pillars of Hercules organic farm, the name for which was inspired by a local 19th-century landowner with an interest in classical history, Onesiphorus Tyndall Bruce. There is a statue of him in Falkland: The history… Continue reading Pillars of Hercules Bothy
We visited the Cairngorm reindeer herd near Aviemore today. Reindeer are native to Scotland but were hunted to extinction by humans a long time ago. They were reintroduced in the 1950s to the Cairngorms and there's now a managed herd of 150 of them. They cap the population at 150 because that is all the… Continue reading Scottish reindeer, Cairngorms
We have spent a wonderful few days staying at The Highland Club in Fort Augustus. The Highland Club is a complex of holiday apartments in what was once a Benedictine monastery on the shores of Loch Ness. It was constructed in 1880 and home to monks and a private school for boys right up until… Continue reading The Highland Club, Fort Augustus
Started in 1803 and completed 12 years late in 1822, the Caledonian Canal connects the North Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of 29 locks (not to be confused with lochs), 35km of man-made channel, and four natural lochs. It's a feat of Scottish engineering, designed and built by Thomas Telford from Dumfries. Over… Continue reading Caledonian Canal, Fort Augustus
After the hottest Easter weekend ever a little bit of winter has returned and we saw patches of snow on the ground as we drove to Aberlour yesterday. It made me happy. I love the feeling of cold air against my cheeks and we didn't get a lot of that this past winter. We drove… Continue reading Aberlour
We walked part of the Pap of Glencoe walk which is a hill walk starting from Old Glencoe Road, just a little bit east of Strath Lodge Glencoe. It's a rocky, boggy walk with bits that require scrambling on all fours. There are also streams that you need to cross over although with a bit… Continue reading Pap of Glencoe
We finished our weekend in malt whisky country with a trip to the Glenfiddich distillery in Dufftown. Before leaving Glenlivet this morning - which is where we spent our weekend - I got this nice photo of the Glenlivet distillery from afar. The drive from Glenlivet to Glenfiddich is not very far: about 10 miles… Continue reading Malt whisky country
It's not often we get to see snow and autumn colours simultaneously but that's exactly what we got today. We drove past this next distillery on our way to Grantown on Spey and the building looked particularly striking in the snow. It was one of those, "Wow, look at that!" moments in the car. I… Continue reading Autumnal snow
The Glenlivet Whisky Distillery is about 1.5 hours north-west of Aberdeen in a beautiful, rural pocket of the Cairngorms. It's surrounded by forests, rivers, hills, and farmland. The buildings are black in this next photo because the whisky production process attracts microorganisms causing it to go black. A fungus - Baudoinia compniacensis - feeds on… Continue reading The Glenlivet
We're just back from a fantastic weekend away staying at the Bridge House Stables in Perthshire. It's an old bridge built in 1881 over the River Ardle and now let as two holiday homes. The interior has been tastefully renovated and in keeping with the age of the bridge. Straddling the river means you can… Continue reading The Bridge House Stables
I have had the best four days. I can't even begin to describe how fantastic it has been. Friday was Dunnottar Castle, Saturday was a cycle ride to Newton Dee & Shakespeare at Drum Castle in the evening, Sunday we went to the Moscow State Circus, and today we visited Balmoral Castle. My sister has… Continue reading Balmoral Castle
My sister is visiting us which gave me an excuse to go to Dunnottar Castle. I never tire of the dramatic coastline around the castle with its precipitous cliffs and rocky islands in the sea. The castle itself is a medieval ruined fortress with some exciting history. The Scottish crown jewels were hidden there in… Continue reading A medieval castle
Yesterday we drove over The Bealach na Bà which was terrifying. It's like driving into the jaws of a giant mythical creature. The towering cliffs that rise on either side and seem to engulf you as you get higher are the beast's teeth. I've taken a screenshot of the route on Google Maps. It's only 11… Continue reading The Applecross Pensinsula
I summoned the courage to drive the Bealach na Bà today and it was a hair-raising and buttock-clenching experience. The road rises to 626m in just 5 miles with an almost 20% gradient in parts and is the steepest ascent of any road in the UK. It's a two-way, single-track road with several hair-pin bends. If… Continue reading The Bealach na Bà
I didn't think we could top our day yesterday, in terms of scenery and entertainment but we did. This time we went north to Torridon, a remote village in the Western Highlands. Much of the road there was single track and we saw very few other vehicles. It's hard to believe we are on the… Continue reading Torridon, Scotland
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