Scotland: Into the Highlands

After a light breakfast and fighting our way through a throng of girls who were getting ready to go for a hike, we piled back into the car and left Pitlochry for the north. It was a couple hour’s drive to Inverness and along the way the highlands became more dramatic. Outside of Inverness we stopped at the Fields of Culloden, the site of one of Scotland’s bloodiest battles where they suffered an abysmal defeat by the English (1746). Next, we visited the nearby Clava Cairns, the rock formations dating to as early as 2000 B.C. and their purpose is still not completely understood. Two of the rock circles are thought to be former burial chambers, with entrances oriented in alignment with the sun at sunrise in midwinter. The neat thing about them is that unlike other famous sites like Stonehenge, you can actually walk up to them and go inside. They’re in between farms, so to get to the other Cairn and the remains of an ancient chapel you have to walk along a narrow farm road for a little bit.

 The Field of Culloden and a memorial cairn

 One of the burial cairns at Clava and the access trail with chapel remains

When we were done with the cairns we proceeded north to the seaside city of Inverness, another touristy place like Pitlochry but larger and more modern. We will be staying for three nights as a base to travel from to other parts of the north. We had a little trouble finding our hostel with our inadequate map but Hans' navigation skills prevailed. We parked in another neighborhood and walked toward the information kiosk downtown. As we approached the River Ness we could hear a woman on a megaphone and saw many people looking down into the water. It turned out we arrived just as a small boat regatta was underway. One of the boats was made to look like the Dr. Who police booth. When we checked into our hostel we were told that because they were so full with school groups the only room they had for us was a small one with one bunk bed. Up until this point we have been staying in single-sex dormitories to save money, and now we were going to have a private room for the cost of a dorm!  Vai-ry nai-ce.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets and I was able to do some shopping at an excellent crafts store. On the way back to the hostel we stopped at a supermarket where I purchased fresh figs! I have always wanted to try them but haven’t been able to find them at the store. After dinner Hans looked at maps of the Isle of Skye, tomorrow’s destination, and pointed out that it was going to take us a while to get anywhere on the island. I had originally planned a whole day of exploring without realizing that many of the roads are single-track and slow. Its looks like we are going to have to cut the day a little shorter than I initially thought tomorrow.

Do you have dolphin sculptures in your church garden? 

 River Ness and pedestrian bridges, local castle in the background

A little UK flavour