Photos here
Day 1 (Sunday, September 19): We woke up bright and early to get the bus & train to Gatwick. Coming into Inverness we could see oil rigs in the firth. Turns out that is where they store the unused rigs. We picked up a small car (Vauxhall Astra) at the airport and drove to Culloden Battlefield.
The battlefield is was the site of the final defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s bid to get the crown back. It was also the last battle to be fought on British soil. It is a pretty bleak, boggy spot where “The Young Pretender” got a rough lesson in military tactics. After retreating from Northern England for several weeks, Charlie picked a bog for his last stand. What had allowed the Highlanders to win their previous battles with the English was a fierce charge with a two-handed sword. The swampy ground precluded that tactic, and the Scots were slaughtered. Even though the Bonnie Prince was born in Rome, was an idiot who got most of his supporters killed in a selfish pursuit of the crown, and then ran away back to Italy where he died as a drunk, he is a popular figure among the Scots, and the battle of Culloden Moor is still a symbol of Scottish nationalism. It was sad to see mass graves with nothing but a family name to mark them.
From there we drove to the Clava Cairns, which were Neolithic burial mounds. They are considered a “thin place”, or a place where the veil between this world and the eternal world is especially transparent. Next to Cawdor Castle, which was the setting for Macbeth. It was closed, but I dodged some shaggy cows to get a picture. A quick drive to the beach at Nairn, then to Fort George (quite an impressive fort at the mouth of the Moray Forth) , onto the Black Isle, then into Inverness. The B&B there was awesome. Had a nice pub dinner, and an early night.
Day 2: After a HUGE fry-up for breakfast, we hopped in the car for a long day of driving. The first stop was the mountains of the Cairngorms (the UK’s largest park). Though sunny, it was cold and windy. Need a quick way to blow £15million of public money? Maybe you too would like to build your very own funicular railway. Basically it is a chairlift…on rails…at an isolated park in Scotland. When we arrived, it closed due to wind.
From there we had a lovely drive in the country (past Craigellachie, towards Banff) to the Glenlivet distillery where we had a nice tour and a dram of 21 year old Scotch. It still tastes like rubbing alcohol, as far as I am concerned. Out of politeness I didn’t ask for some Coke to mix it with.
By mid-afternoon we were driving alongside Loch Ness. It was big, rough, cold, monster-free, and beautiful (particularly Urquhart Castle). Not far past there, however, we got caught driving in a crazy storm. It was bad enough that we had to pull off at a roadside pub until it settled down. While we were there a motorcyclist came in to patch himself up after the wind blew him off his bike. A quick stop at Eilean Donan castle at twilight, and then back on the flooded road to Skye. The driving experience continued to be exciting: Pitch black, narrow roads, sheep everywhere, occasional pounding rain, and no idea where we were. Eventually we found the place, pried Jon’s fingers off the steering wheel, and collapsed into bed