Day 6 - The Great Scottish Tour

Inverness: John O’Groats and Culloden

Many of the Inns we stay at offer breakfast as part of the package. If we were people who got up leisurely sat over coffee then got going, this would be great. Usually we just politely decline the evening before as we would be up and going very early.

Our hostess at Dionard was having none of that – instead of giving us breakfast, she packed an incredible lunch for each of us to take on the road. Sandwiches and scones, potato chips and fruit. Since we usually live off of convenience store food for lunch, this was a gift.

This morning took us north.

As far North as you can go and still be on Great Britain’s mainland.

We managed the morning fog much better this time...

...(probably since we were on a main road and not a cow path with cars coming straight at us) and headed to John O’Groats, a fishing village on the north coast.

It was a nice ride and a very pretty little town.

It’s also part of the North Coast 500 – 500 miles of road on, you guessed it, the North Coast. We rode up to the east

and then came back on the western route.

The wind was ferocious and there were several times we felt like we were actually going to get blown off the road. So when we saw a drive that said “Public Entrance”...

 ...we decided to get out of the wind and see what we were publicly entering.

This was a wonderful surprise – Castle Mey, the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth’s Scottish estate which is now a public trust and open to tourists. The green houses were amazing with every kind of flower imaginable.

Side note: if you watch The Crown television series, Castle Mey was featured predominately in the second season when the Queen Mother went for a walk and ended up having tea with the owner of the castle, and then buying the estate.

Back on the road, we finished the North Coast 500 and headed back to Inverness.

Full disclosure. I am a closet Jacobite nerd. Have been since college and my earlier trips to Scotland. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to that time in history, but probably most of us experience this type of fascination about one thing or another.

So. If you aren’t familiar with the Jacobite Uprising read about it here – or in short, the Scots (and some Irish and English) wanted to re-instate a Catholic king in Scotland (and really all of Great Britain). In 1745/1746 they almost succeeded, but Prince Charles Stuart got greedy and moved farther south than he should have. The British government pushed the Jacobites back north, and in the final battle at Culloden Moor in April 1746, decimated an entire culture.

We were in Scotland. We had to visit Culloden.

Luckily, Culloden sits right outside of Inverness, so it was easy for us to stop there and spend half a day at the museum. The exhibit itself was really well done and fascinating, making it seem like the uprising happened not 250 years ago, but just yesterday. The tour of the battlefield itself was…gut-wrenching. 

Most of the Scottish clans were exterminated that day, any remaining clans were outlawed, as was the wearing of clan tartan. The clans and their fellow soldiers, were memorialized in this field.

On our adventures, we often talk about those who came before us, or who stood in the exact spot we were standing and saw, for the first time, what we were seeing.

We didn’t have to imagine. Like many battlefields (like Gettysburg or Vicksburg) the moor has been kept very much like it was in 1746 (upgraded with some walking paths, but still awfully close).

The fighting still hung heavily in the air and I could see and smell the battle.

We left and enjoyed a relaxing dinner and drinks, still surrounded by Jacobite ghosts.

Day 5 - The Great Scottish Tour

Isle of Skye to Inverness

As with all our trip we wanted to pack as much in the day as we possibly could, which is part of the reason we start our days as soon as the sun comes up (and as we’ve mentioned before, to avoid large crowds of tourists).

This day, maybe we should have waited an hour or two.

Let’s put the pieces of the puzzle together: Scottish Highlands, Scottish mist, narrow roads, 

 people driving white vehicles that seemingly popped out of nowhere.

Looking back it was a great adventure, but at the time…it wasn’t the most pleasant ride we’ve ever had. Actually it was so unpleasant that it warranted its own rest break.

 Eventually the fog lifted and the morning turned bright and sunny and we were back on the road.

This morning took us to Tornapress and along the Bealach na Ba pass (Path of the Cows, in case your Gaelic fails you), toward Applecross. Several months earlier we’d run into a Scottish couple at our go-to bar before a Wild hockey game and they insisted we had to go to Applecross. The drive (ride, in our case) they said, was quintessential Highlands.

They were right. Once the fog lifted, everything around us looked like…Scotland.

We made our way back to the coast and enjoyed the beautiful ride to Kinlochewe through Inverness and on through Cairngorns National Park to Balmoral, the British Royal Family’s summer home.

Most of Balmoral isn’t open to the public, actually only one great hall is, when the Royals aren’t in residence.

We walked the grounds and learned an amazing amount of information about the castle, stables, garden and the Royals in general.

We took our time riding back to Inverness, along the Whiskey Road which goes along the River Spey. Apparently, you are not drinking real Scotch Whiskey unless the water used to make it came from the Spey. 

It makes sense then, that so many distilleries lined the river and we had to chuckle at the amount of tour buses making the Whiskey Pilgrimage. 

Oh, and this is the one time it rained while we were on the road. For about 10 minutes.

 Once we got to Inverness, we found the Dionard Guest House where we were staying.

It’s always interesting to plan a trip and then get to see the real thing, and see how much it matches the image you created in your mind. Inverness was exactly like I imaged it would be.

Our hostess at the Inn had made dinner reservations for us at a local, popular pub so we cleaned up, and walked the few blocks downtown.

Dinner was to be at Johnny Foxes, where Sean was convinced to try haggis for the first time.

Side note: I’ve never understood why people are so weary of haggis: meat and grains and spices encased in sheep stomach or intestines. Yes, it sounds rather disgusting, but it’s really not any different than eating our sausage in ‘natural casing’.

It was Saturday night in Inverness and the locals were out in full force. Apparently there had been several weddings that day, so there were a lot of people dressed in Scottish garb.

These weren’t the first men in kilts that we’d seen, but marveled at the ease in which they moved and how comfortable they were in their native dress (no pun intended).

After dinner, we walked up to Inverness Castle

 to get a view of the city,

then stopped in at a few pubs. It had been an exhausting day and the next day was going to be a long, gut-wrenching one too, so we called it a night and made our way back to the inn.

Day 4 - The Great Scottish Tour

Fort William to Isle of Skye

As usual we got on the road at dawn (mostly to avoid other tourists) and headed to Urquhart Castle on the shores of the famed Loch Ness. 

We arrived before the castle grounds opened, so we went into the nearby village of Drumnadrochit and stopped by the Loch Ness museum, featuring the infamous Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. It wasn’t open yet either, so we went into the gift shop – which featured anything and everything you could imagine with Nessie on it..

Eventually we made it back to Urquhart Castle 

...and had a extremely interesting tour of the ancient grounds and the structures that were build, torn down (by friend or foe) and rebuilt over and over and over again throughout the centuries. 

 The Castle is now considered ‘ruins’, but that didn’t stop the tour guide from weaving all kinds of mystical tales.

 Unfortunately no sign of Nessie, these were the only creatures we saw in the Loch.

It must have been the day for castle hopping. Our next stop was Eilean Donan Castle, which is still occupied, but parts are open to the public.

Like any castle, occupied or not, we are always amazed at how people lived and the ingenious ways they found to make their lives more comfortable.

Our destination for the day was the Isle of Skye, and it’s reported beauty didn’t disappoint.

Once we drove “over the sea to Skye” via the Skye bridge, the landscape changed completely. 

We circled the island stopping at Lealt Falls, Kilt Rock and Mealt Falls.

 We took a not-so-crowded scenic road from Staffin to Uig.

Then down through Portree to Sleat. Uncrowded, except for the sheep...

 ...to the Hotel Eilean Larmain, one of our favorite stops of the trip.

The attached pub had incredible food (yep, fish and chips again)

...and we spent the rest of the night listening to a local band (called Iron Midden) play Scottish folk tunes. 

This was what we were looking for on this trip, and though I couldn’t get them to sing the "Skye Boat Song", they didn’t disappoint.