July 7th                                                         Culloden

Robyn writes: I was hauled out by the alarm at 8 this morning (body clock is still firmly refusing to accept daylight saving, let alone the whole 'it gets light at 3am' thing!), so I was actually up in plenty of time to get myself organised for my 9.30 hair appointment in town. Lex came along too, as he was contemplating hiring a bike, and going for a cycle out to the loch. We got a bit of a shock when we walked out - it was 14 degrees, cloudy, and a cool wind blowing! I was very thankful for my warm coat and scarf as we walked into town. When we got there, we got some money out and I headed off for my hair appointment at "Leslie's" in the main street.

The haircut cost me 35 pounds (ouch!) but I must say they gave good value - I had a massaging chair, a cup of tea delivered in a teapot on a tray, and while my hair was being cut, I had a complementary hand massage! My hairdresser was just lovely and, like most Britons we've met, very interested in going to Australia. I was really pleased with my haircut and I can actually see again, which is a bonus. I got her to chop quite a lot off, so it feels much lighter.

After my haircut, I had a lovely few hours wandering around the Inverness CBD shops - it has a great shopping area there. I did some souvenir shopping and tried on some clothes but didn't end up with much; it was just nice to look! Then I got bread at the local award-winning bakery (there are a lot of these in Scotland, I've noticed) and a few groceries at Tesco, and headed home a bit after one. Lex arrived a few minutes later, he hadn't hired a bike but had gone for a long walk out to the Beauly Firth and the canal then back into town - several miles. We had lovely fresh chicken and salad sandwiches for lunch.

 Lex's panoramic shot of the bridge to the Black Isle at the beginning of Beauly Firth

 Scotland's national floral symbol!

 In Beauly Firth

Four level staircase lock on the Caledonian Canal. This is enough to give you the shudders if you've been on a canal holiday!

After lunch, we headed out to the site of the Culloden battlefield. This was where the Duke of Cumberland ("The Butcher") annihilated the Jacobite forces in 1746 and pretty much wiped out the highland clan way of life for ever. It's now under the care of the National Trust so we got free parking and admission (saved us 24 pounds, so well worth having!) There's a big display hall there as you go into the field - we saw a very entertaining and informative weapons talk, then went into the movie. This is amazing - it's in a room where all 4 walls have film projecting onto them, and you stand in the middle. On two sides you have the highlanders; on the other the Redcoats. It's really quite scary and violent as it goes and leaves you quite breathless. I admit I had tears in my eyes as it ended and I noticed several big, brawny Scotsmen blowing their noses as we went out. Then we went out on a guided tour which was also really good - our guide took us right around the site and explained what happened on the day of the battle, which lasted less than a hour. At the end of it, 1500 highlanders were dead (or wounded, then slaughtered on Cumberland's orders), and a few days later the locals were brought in to bury them. You can still clearly see the burial mounds and the markers where the different clans are buried. After the tour, we walked back out around the field and right to the blue flags where the highlanders were ranged, and you can still see how horribly boggy the whole area is - they really didn't have a chance trying to charge through it.

 Lex with a musket - very, very heavy guns

 Looking back from the battlefield to the new visitor centre

 Me at the cairn erected to the highlanders in the 1800s

 The ground was so boggy, the highlanders didn't stand a chance to get through it

I bought myself a porridge spurtle! 

We had a nice cup of tea to thaw out (the cold wind was still blowing madly) and a look around the shop before heading back to town. We realised we hadn't yet gone over the huge bridge across to the Black Isle, so drove across it just to enjoy the experience, then back home. We've since had a lovely Dopiaza beef curry, and Lex is happily watching the Tour de France while I finish off two days' blogs! Quite typically, it's gone from being cloudy and cool all day to lovely and sunny at 8pm. They say heavy rain is forecast but there's no sign of it yet...

July 6th

Inverness - Elgin - Lossiemouth - Keith - Grantown-on-Spey - Fort Augustus - Loch Ness - Inverness!

Robyn writes: We've had a big day out today. We decided to go for a drive over to the north-eastern part of Scotland from Inverness. We left a bit after 9.30 and drove along the coast of the Firth of Moray through Nairn and along to Elgin, where we stopped to see if there was any tourist information (there wasn't - being Sunday, it was closed) and a toilet break. Then we went north towards Lossiemouth, where the RAF base (Milltown) has been for 75 years. Lex's dad Poss was based there towards the end of WWII, so he was very interested to see where he used to fly out of. When we got there, they were running a services marathon which ended at the base, so as we drove along we passed lots of runners looking rather weary! The air force base is huge, and a lot of the buildings certainly looked as if they dated back to the war, so Poss would have recognised a lot of what we saw. We also drove into Lossiemouth itself, a lovely little seaside town and rather prosperous from the look of it.

 There's still ice on some of the mountains!

 RAF base at Lossiemouth where Poss was based.

Keith War Memorial

 

After Lossiemouth, we set course for Keith, the little town that Sandy's grandfather came from, and home to lots of Grants! We'd been watching the skies with some trepidation as the clouds got blacker and blacker, and sure enough as we drove in, it started to rain....we found the cemetery easily enough and decided that gravestones in the rain weren't much fun, so went back into town and found a likely looking pub (The Royal) which was actually open (Sundays in some parts of Scotland prove difficult!) We had a lovely, huge lunch there and relaxed until it had stopped raining and we waddled off to the cemetery to photograph all of the Grant graves there. Sadly, we couldn't find Sandy's great-grandma and grandad, but we did find heaps of assorted Grants who are hopefully rellies. We also visited the war memorial (a rather stunning statue of a Scottish Highlander soldier which instantly puts in your head the song "There was a soldier, a Scottish soldier...") and found some family addresses for her. I was hoping to find a cool Keith souvenir for our Keith, but being a Sunday, everywhere was firmly shut. Sad! As we drove out of Keith, it started to rain again.

The Royal Hotel in Keith, where we had a lovely lunch

We came home to Inverness via Grantown-on-Spey, a lovely little town set up by the local lord in the 1800s (there were some nice ones) to stop his people having to emigrate like so many thousands of others. Along the way we passed SO many whiskey distilleries, some of them names we'd all recognise like Chivas Regal and Glenfiddich; this is really the home of the whiskey trail! From Grantown we went up into the mountains (saw lots more snow/ice still on the mountains) and then came back towards Inverness.

We then turned towards Loch Ness and drove all the way down to Fort Augustus, which is at the very bottom of the Loch. This took about an hour as it was a lot of single lane road but heaps of passing areas were provided, thankfully! We passed some deer (I was too slow to whip the camera out) and saw some red squirrels, which were so cute, but my favourite creatures of the day were the highland cattle. They are sooo different from ours and I love the fringe in their eyes! Then we finally came into sight of Loch Ness and it is an impressive body of water. Huge! Unlike our Fairbairn Dam, it's long and thin, and goes for miles. We drove all the way up its east side, but failed to spot any monsters....sad again! It was a lot of driving but we saw so much lovely Scottish countryside; a nice day out.

 I loved the highland cattle!

 Lock Knockie (quite small)

Loch Ness (quite huge - and sadly free of monsters!)

After a big day out, we flopped in a heap, then I started cooking tea, only to find our veges had gone horribly slimy. Bugger! It was ten to eight (appallingly late, I know, that's what daylight saving and northern situation does to your body clock...) so I headed out to the local Tesco while Lex was watching the Tour de France on TV. Unfortunately I wasn't quite quick enough, as I got there to discover it had just closed. Sunday again! So I crossed the bridge into town, crossing my fingers that the Co-op didn't keep such early hours, and luckily they were open, so I got my groceries and returned finally - by this stage of course the Tour had finished and Lex was beginning to wonder where on earth I was! We had a lovely tea (cod for Lex, chicken kebabs courtesy of the Co-op for me) and watched Johnny English 2 on the telly. I set the alarm so I would wake up at 8, knowing I had a hair appointment coming up in the morning.