2023 Scotland/England Adventure (Part 3)

 

Sheep on the road at Strome Castle.

Strome Castle.

 Sunrise from the ferry on the way to Islay.

Finlaggan, home of the MacDonalds, 

Lord of the Isles during the middle ages.

Isle of Islay.

Inveraray Castle.

  

The rooms inside the castles were so beautiful.

 

Inveraray Castle.

 

Dumbarton Castle. It was quite a hike up there.

Can you see a little bit of our van parked behind the tree?

This is looking up from our van to where we took the last photo.

Glasgow Cathedral taken from the Glasgow Necropolis.

Glasgow Cathedral.

Robert Burns Birthplace Museum

 

The Second Commonplace Book by Robert Burns 

April 1787-1790.

 Culzean Castle.

 We camped at some wonderful places.

This one is Hemplands Farm in Monfries.

Sunset at Hemplands Farm.

2023 Scotland/England Adventure (Part 2)

I have a new love! 

Highland Cattle otherwise known as Hairy Coos!

This one was so smoochy!

Armadale Castle.
The Spiritual Home of Clan Donald.

Sunset at Poolewe.

Sharing the road with Hairy Coos. 

There were also hundreds of sheep along the roads.

Street of the Dead at Iona Abbey,

thought to be over 1000 years old.

Ben Nevis in the background.

Glencoe Folk Museum.

Christening gown used by generations of MacDonalds 

of Glencoe. It was last worn in 1963 at the Christening 

of Graeme MacDonald - the great great great great great 

great great great grandson of Chief Maclain.

Fish and Chips at Oban. 

They were the best ones we had on our trip.

Jacobite Train at Fort William.

The Jacobite train is the one in the Harry Potter movie. 

You could even buy lollies and things from the trolley 

just like Harry, Hermione and Ron!

Going over the viaduct.

Dunrobin Castle.

Dunrobin Castle.

John o-Groats on the northeastern tip of Great Britain.

This is Hector, the Hairy Coo. 

He joined us at John o'Groats.

 

Hector always sat up front!

 

Notice how narrow the road is?

We travelled along a lot of these roads.

Annie's Bakery, about 10 minutes away from John 

o'Groats, was recommended for lunch. 

So glad we went. The food was lovely.

Found a new friend!

This is George, the bakery cat.

George is actually a girl and is 17 years old!

Had a bit of a chuckle with this 

sign in the dining room!

2023 Scotland/England Adventure (Part 1)

 

Finally I can share our two month Scotland adventure. 

After spending hours and hours of sorting my photos, 

one by one going through my phone as all the numbers

 mixed up all the photos. I have managed to cut them down from 

4,342 photos to around 150 or so (maybe more, maybe less!)!

We flew into Edinburgh and picked up our

 "home away from home" van. Can you see the name of the

 company we hired it from? McRent! Noel liked the name of it.

We spent three days in Edinburgh before heading off.

Edinburgh Castle.

We saw the Honours of Scotland which are the oldest 

Crown jewels in Britain. Unfortunately 

you aren't allowed to take photos of them.

Greyfriars Bobby.

The Kelpies, Falkirk.

They are lit up at night and continually change colours.

 Robert the Bruce at the site of the Battle of Bannockburn.

This is "Andy the Highlander" at Bannockburn. 

We follow Andy on Facebook. He is a tour guide and 

posts lots of great videos about Scottish history.

Balmoral Castle. 

We arrived there on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's 

death and missed seeing King Charles and Queen Camilla 

arriving back from a church service by about an hour. 

Dunnottar Castle. 

We saw lots of lovely fishing villages.. This is Findochty.

Enjoying a Guinness at The Admirals pub, Findochty.

 

 Battle of Culloden site.

 

Culloden battlefield.

Clava Cairns near Culloden. 

Going through the stones to find Jamie!

Haha! I found him!

Urquhart Castle.

Eilean Donan Castle.

The Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye.

We did lots of hiking. We hiked to the Fairy Pools 

from the base of those trees way in the distance

 (it's a bit bare where the carpark is) and 

continued even further along than this photo.

  

We also hiked up to the Old Man of Stor, Isle of Skye.

Cooking with a view. An Crubh, Isle of Skye.

I celebrated my 60th birthday at the Tongadale Hotel

 in Portree on the Isle of Skye.

This is the lovely enamel thistle necklace Noel gave me. 

Noel actually ordered this on-line from the Isle of Skye 

and it arrived the week before we left for Scotland. 

He did this as he didn't know where we would be on my birthday. 

The funny thing is we actually drove past the shop on my birthday!

So it's a well travelled necklace having flown from

 Scotland to Melbourne to return Scotland and finally back to Melbourne! LOL