Edinburgh, stop number one. A small town really, only about 400,000, so not much larger than Canberra and much more closely built. With castles built at each end of it's main 'old' street (Hollyrood House Castle, the royal families hangout and perched high atop the hill built on the cliff at the opposite end Edinburgh Castle now a tourist beehive best remembered for the Military Tattoo) it's no surprise it's known as the Royal Mile.
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| Holyrood Castle |
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| Edinburgh Castle |
Some lovely shops, pubs, restaurants and hotels along here scattered with super tacky Scottish souvenir shops account for the bulk of the shops but at this time of year the spectacle is more the Fringe Festival with it's 1000's of street performers and purported millions of spectators who flock in over its few week duration. The Camera Obscura also lives on the Royal mile near Edinburgh Castle and has an ecliptic and somewhat quirky collection of interesting visual and interactive displays.
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| Camera Obscura funny mirror |
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| Another funny photo from Camera Obscura |
These displays include a vortex you walk through which makes the level floor feel like you're going to topple over, a heat sensing camera like they use to find crooks at night or in the dark, a photo morphing gadget, soccer field with light projectors and sensors that allow you to kick a projected ball and a few others odds and sods with the jewel in the crown on the top floor being their camera gadget which I liken to a periscope. This gadget reflects great views over Edinburgh from the distant mountains on the horizon to the little people milling around below on the Royal Mile, with amazing clarity onto a huge round disc. Good fun watching the people below and a great view 360 degree view over town!
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| View over town |
The Mound Museum with £1 million on display (cancelled of course) and a fun safe cracking game was also good fun even if I didn't crack the safe and get the 4 chocolate pennies (questions to give you the safe code were all Scottish so we never stood a chance!). Sadly we missed the Rosslyn Chappell where The Da Vinci Code ended which we would have enjoyed and just as sadly we couldn't find the headstones/graveyard JK Rowling used for Harry Potter inspiration. We did manage to find the grave site and statue of Greyfriars Bobby where it is said John Gray's widowed Skye Terrier puppy Bobby stood watch over his grave for 14 years until he too passed on in 1872. It's quite a memorial and testament to mans best friend's loyalty I guess which people still flock to today!
Despite missing the odd attraction as mentioned above, with the bagpipes blasting, kilts flying like kites, copper knobs (as Win calls then) everywhere and a hint of whiskey on the breeze there was never a doubt this was Scotland!
Camping in Edinburgh was costly (£25, but cheap compared to youth hostels, hotels or b&bs which all had well inflated prices for the fringe and the international festivals it hosts over August), overrun (place was chock a block!) and pretty much a quagmire; this made it incredibly difficult to find our allocated pitch spot! Eventually we got the tent up on some spare soft muddy grass, concluding that this was as good as we were going to get (it was so close to the next tent I could have reached out my door and pulled his tent pegs out!). Remembering the state of the ground, I shouldn't have been surprised to find that my bed that night was soft like a water mattress and freezing cold so around 3am I went to seek refuge in the car with Manda who'd had the good sense to move their earlier. Alas the car was locked and Manda was in a surprisingly deep sleep so I returned to the tent to see the night through. Had I been able to wake her I'm sure she'd have almost died of fright; I was wearing her fluorescent pink jumper and probably looked like some kind of camp ground killer or at least pervert tapping on car windows! Hahaha! Even when I woke her in the morning I think she got a fright!
A quick trip through the interior via Perth (and past signs to Armadale!) up to the Queen's summer holiday house Balmoral which she visits every August was next on the agenda. Her visit meant it was closed! We should have realised! A real disappointment given we'd driven many miles out of the way to see it. I did feel it was made up for by the friendly Bobby on duty at the palace gate who told us all about the palace, a 2 minute history lesson on it and its acquisition by Queen Victoria (as it was supposed to be in the driest place in the UK - she got this wrong I'd say!), how she had it moved 200 yards, and what activities the current Queen gets up to here - no, not arts, crafts or even knitting but horse riding and walking the dogs!!! Not bad for an 80 odd year old! Also noteworthy was when a fairly normal looking station wagon with kids approached the closed gates and was granted entry, Manda quite predictably asked why they could go through and not us?! They were staff. Then, with just as much predictability, she asked what if she were to follow them through? You could guess the guards response! The drive was also made up for by the amazing and rugged alpine like scenery; we had a lovely day with mainly clear skies. Then the clouds came across in large fronts during the late afternoon which made for quite a sight. Fortunately our "miles out of the way" I mentioned before also meant we were now close enough to get to the whiskey country! More good luck than good management!
Dufftown; the home of Scottish Whiskey, the most widely recognised of which I guess would have to be Glenfiddith.
We arrived late at Glenfiddith to find there was a fire alarm going off and a large exclusion area meaning no decent photos! Later on we passed them again so had a sticky and got the photos! It's amazing at the distilleries, you can smell the malted barley a mile away!
Aberlour distillery was next on the hit list mainly for the fact that the lonely planet recommended it above all others... Not always a good idea to do as they suggest but Aberlour was perfect for us (whiskey virgins as the guide called us).
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| Cute Aberlour Distillery |
For £12 each we got a 2 hour tour of the distillery and 6 tutored tastings with Boa, a Swedish gentleman and clearly a whiskey connoisseur. Each tasting was a full sized english dram (English dram is 25ml, Scotish dram better value at 35ml!) and cask strength (meaning it was 40-50%) this equated to approximately 8 standard drinks so driving was off the agenda afterwards! We had everything from the raw new spirit at 70% (rub it on your hands for a germ killing experience and interestingly a good new spirit will leave a raw ingredient smell: in this case barley!) to their 16 year old and A'bunadh drops. Still wouldn't call myself a Whiskey fan let alone enthusiast. Smelling the vats with 1st and 2nd wash in them was interesting with the 2nd wash vat nearly suffocating us! All the carbon dioxide gas from fermentation collects with very little oxygen. A big sniff over the vat's man hole felt like a whack in the face with a tennis racket and a splash of acid to follow. Not the sort of experience you'd go back twice for but one you would pay to watch! The drinking of the wort from the 1st wash was also interesting and not surprisingly tasted like flat un hopped beer; pretty foul to be honest! Thankfully they work a little more on it and after a double distillation and minimum 3 years in the barrel its able to be more happily consumed. Interesting fact: only 3% of the world barley is made into whiskey, the best part of the remainder is brewed into beer! The other optional extra at a mear £65 was to fill your own bottle of single malt cask strength whiskey straight from the barrel (at about 58%) and do your own label. Didn't have the funds left after the £12 admission sadly so couldn't participate.
Walkers shortbread factory also in Aberlour where we picked up buttered shortbread in all it's forms; round, triangle, fingers and the unmissable fruit mince tarts and treacle biscuits. Each packet weighing in at 400g and going for the bargain price of between £1.50-£2! Score! The cheap stuff is the first run for the day or week packaged in a no frills packet. Perfect! And so good. 9 fruit mince tarts devoured in less than 24 hours and let's not forget Manda isn't their greatest fan!
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| Walkers |
Speyside, near Aberlour, completed the whiskey experience with it's coopering factory, no beer here sadly! They make the odd new oak barrel but the majority of their work today involves reassembling flat packed pre loved American white oak barrels used in the states for the maturation of bourbon (legally only allowed to be matured in a new barrel each time so they have loads to get rid of). Still a very intricate and skillful job for the coopers who are paid by the barrel not an hourly rate. The guide wouldn't tell us what the rate was for a barrel but we did find out at Abelour they pay £20 each. Each Cooper makes about 20 barrels a day.... They had massive stacks of barrels outside which can number 150,000 at times! Impressive!
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| Coopers at work |
Sheep Shagers Ale whilst not tried was a good laugh! The bloke at the B&B thought us Aussies should drink it: but don't worry, I set the record straight pretty quickly that he was thinking of our cheeky kiwi neighbours. He then proceeded to call Aussies wallaby rooters - there was no winning with this nessy rooter...!
Our Scottish fish and chips and chip butty (chips in a bread roll?!) were quite nice, as was the fast flowing and somewhat dangerous looking Spey River. The other danger was midges! Little cootes have eaten me so badly I now look like I've got scabies! Grrrrrgh! Forgot to take the aeroguard with us! Manda also thought a Vienetta for dinner might be nice as they were on special for £1 however after nibbling away at about a third of it we had to dispose of it... It ended up in the dunny as we could hardly bin it in our B&B! Tough to flush!
I then did a brief spot of unsuccessful dolphin hunting at Fort George just north of Inverness on the inlet in the torrential rain. The military fortress was quite however impressive and even today still houses their army people who I managed to get a film of in kilts marching around the square in the wettest of weather!
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| Fort George |
Inverness was more a point of reference on the trip onward to Loch Ness's western side so we didn't bother to stop in. With the skies still chucking the stuff down the loch was a little misty but i guess it added to the mystery of the place. No nessy sighting sadly as it was our one chance to become famous but I get the feeling you could spend your life here and still not spot her so we weren't too disheartened! Urquart Castle on the loch towards the southern end was pretty. Pretty derelict I mean. Made for a pretty photo with the loch behind it but that was about it. Still the rain poured so again it was very mystical and foggy!
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| Castle on Loch Ness western side |
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| Pretty cemetery |
Finally late in the afternoon after many more miles of slow wet driving with loads of cloud obscuring the normally dramatic landscape we arrived on the Isle of Skye. The rainbow bridge wasnt it's usual spectacle as it was cloudy too so the effect of driving up it and into the sky was lost a little! It was then we started to notice no vacancies signs... Even the big hotels had permanent looking booked out signs. Not a good sign as our little leaky tent was also out with the wet weather (as it still leaks) so after much driving and many knockbacks for accommodation we gave into sleeping in the Golf. We found a pretty spot out of Broadford on an inlet and away from the road and set up! With the exception of more midges that ate me while I ate ritz with 3 day old cheese and tomato in the rain it was a great spot to stay. So we slept in the car by the inlet for Manda's birthday eve. Not quite what she'd hoped for I'm sure but as good as we could do given the lack of accommodation and miserable wet weather! Fingers were crossed for better weather and fortune come morning and the birthday!
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| Haggis before being sick! |
