This entry covers the trip from the highlands back south through Perthshire and Fife.
After two days in an unfortunately completely off-grid (so completely unproductive) camp site we headed south. Unfortunately we didn't journey into the highlands proper as we have many dates with the Edinburgh festival and need to get there at some point this month!
After my first haggis experience for breakfast (not bad!) we hit the road. Just south of our location was Dalwhinnie and the Dalwhinnie Whiskey Distillery. We popped in since we were missing all the distilleries up north. It was a bit crammed with tourists, but pretty reasonably for £8 you get a distillery tour, a wee branded dram glass and a tiny piece of the most obscenely delicious melt-in-your-mouth chocolate.
During the tour I got really excited about brewing again, seeing the similarity in the basic process of making whiskey and beer. I thought
'yea I could do this, why not'. Then the whole 'age it for at least three years before you can call it whiskey' thing put me off - I think I'll stick to my beer.
The tour's cunningly priced just right so as to encourage one to purchase, and purchase we did. Why, I'm enjoying a wee dram right now!
 |
| Dalwhinnie Whiskey Distillery |
A few interesting things I learnt about whiskey on this tour - it's taxed at 75% by the Government and is the fifth highest earner for Scotland. You add 20% VAT on that and it's quite a mark up! (But since it's just distilled basic wort aged in barrels forever I imagine the actual brew cost of a bottle is about 1p!)
We had a quick lunch in the car park, noticing the snow in the surrounding mountains, and headed back south and down in elevation. With a wind behind us and a downhill gradient, Dorothy even made it to the speed limit! Oh we were proud!
 |
| If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 58 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit. |
 |
| Some lovely driving outside Dalwhinnie. |
On we went, arriving at Blair Castle. Now, with all Tony jokes aside this is a fine last name and I pretty much had to go here.
 |
| Blair Castle |
Blair Castle is nestled upon the coach tourist trail apparently, and swarms of coach-borne locusts were descending every 10 minutes. With super tourist sites comes the super tourist restrictions - NO PHOTOS INSIDE. I snuck a few photos anyway, but I must say - not the most plush we've seen, and we were a little sour about the lack lustre spectacle for our £10 (when all the gorgeous National Trust estates are
free!)
As we poked along, an alarm sounded. With all the tourists taking flash photography and generally being clowns we figured someone had just stepped out and set off an alarm, but eventually we got shepherded out as it was a fire alarm.
Loitering about outside I was just thinking 'oh god we have to go around again with four coach loads of folks' but as soon as we were let on to the circuit again, Kate tore off ahead. Running through this grand mansion declaring
'Done this room already!' at the top of her lungs, I was mortified! The horror ended with me however, as the room guides started cheering us on as if winning the tourist re-entry race. One later said Kate made their day - it really is wonderful to travel with Kate!
 |
| Blairgnificent entrance room |
 |
| A British sky cannot be beaten |
I'm not giving Blair Castle a fair deal, we were still a little estate-fatigued. The entrance hall is pretty jaw dropping - muskets, bayonets, pistols and shields cover all the walls in elaborate and neat patterns. The halls are crammed with hundreds of stags heads, and the ball room is unique and quite fascinating!
 |
| The ball room |
In the evening we headed to a park on the river Tummel, but found it unsuitable for an overnight stop. So I headed off toward a
really gorgeous spot on Loch Tummel instead, but spotted a proper car park on the way. Since I was worried about being stuck in the mud (I'm a bit shy on that after my tractor-tow requirement in March) we stayed there, and I did my pick up rubbish thing again. Some teens came by but gave us no grief. Kate spewed rice
EVERYWHERE.
 |
| Those aren't maggots on the floor there. Yikes. |
Kate was a bit under the weather, and in the morning we decided we had best get her to a doctor post-haste. So we put our tourism aside and hooned down to Perth to the A&E there. Finding a park at a hospital is annoying enough - try finding one with a motorhome! We eventually found something in a neighbouring suburb, then after two hours of waiting at A&E we were sent to the GP around the corner - who couldn't see us for another three hours. We used the three hours getting groceries, so not a total loss - but we did dream of better triage efforts at the A&E to send us on our way without making us wait hours first!
 |
| Our days work! |
Late in the afternoon, prescription finally in hand, we salvaged a tourist item - the nearby Huntingtower Castle. This castle was originally known as the House of Ruthven and is comprised of two Scottish tower-houses. It has quite a history (monarch kidnapping) and I now read is said to be haunted! Which is spooky now, as Kate said she felt it was haunted! Anyhow, it was pretty fascinating, mostly for the history - and medieval painted ceiling- preserved by being plastered over in the 17th century. Cool!
 |
| Huntingtower Castle (and its awesome parking setup). |
 |
| Whoa it's the ghost! I swear no-one was there when I took the photo! |
 |
| Medieval decoration on the ceiling |
We had an ice-cream and then headed off to a nice wee park on the Lomond Hills for the night.
 |
| Lovely rural backdrop - Lomond hills. |
In the morning we headed off to Falkland Palace. The Falkland town is rather lovely in itself, but the palace has quite a history too and the volunteer guides were extremely enthusiastic and helpful in explaining the history and context to us. It was really rather neat!
 |
| A cool factory in Falkland. |
 |
| Falkland Palace |
 |
| So much life in the gardens too |
Five miles away was another National Trust estate - the Hill of Tarvitt.
 |
| The Hill of Tarvitt. |
Again we had fantastic volunteers telling us about the place - and this one was unique in that the whole front wing was made early last century, specifically around various items the owner had. We thought the grandfather clock fitted uncannily well into this wee space, and matched the wall panelling really well - when really the wall and the space were designed specifically to fit the grandfather clock! Fun. There was a billiards table set up, free to play - so Kate and I showed each other how poor we are at billiards, in a grand estate in Fife. It was a hell of a lot of fun!
Across the road from the Hill of Tarvitt was the Scotstarvitt Tower - a six storey Scottish tower house. Completely empty, the sign in front says 'if it's locked, knock on that cottage door over there for the keys'. Fortunately it wasn't locked, but it was raining and Kate sat it out while I explored - bloody spooky place. I was not bummed to get out of there!
 |
| Scotstarvit tower. |
After this we went to another camp site for two nights, to help Kate recover from her bug. So that's where we are now.
In other news, with increasing midge volumes we have been encouraging our resident spider-bros in the van, and placing additional spider-bros when we spot them. I now have two spider-bros hanging out on the right of the windscreen near me, catching mosquitos and the like. I put another spider-bro on the rear view mirror but he doesn't seem to have set up shop yet.
 |
| Get him spider-bro! |
No comments:
Post a Comment