3rd Half-Term Break--Drumnadrochit, Scotland 24 May - 28 May 2013

The kids are currently in their third term of the school year.  J has one week off, and W/N have six days off of school for half term break.  Their break coincides with the bank holiday at the end of May, May 27, Memorial Day.  G also took off Tuesday, so this gave us a long weekend off.  We decided to go to the land of tartan, Scotland.
Scotland is quite a bit north of us, and is a fairly large area.  We ended up going to Drumnadrochit (drum-na-drock-it), which is roughly 15-20 miles southwest of Inverness, along the Great Glen.  MapQuest said it'd take us 7 hours to get there, and we wanted to be there, ready to go on Saturday morning, so we opted to leave Friday evening.  We picked J up from the bus stop at 5pm, and headed North.  We only made one stop the entire ride up, and arrived ~0115.  It was good driving, as it didn't start getting dark until about 1130, and it was completely moonlit by 1145.  According to our tour guide who showed us around Monday, they are on the same lat/long as Alaska.  At any rate, things were pretty well lit, which is good, as the roads here are not straight--lots of curves.

Loch Ness with the moon reflected upon its surface.

Is that Nessie??

We rented a three bedrm house.  It looked like it was recently reno-ed inside, and was fab.  Everything was new.

Name of the house we stayed at.  Name means "Hill of the Oaks".

House we rented for our stay.



Part of the front garden-they had tables and chairs in the front and back, as well as a seating area on a patio-which was nice, as we ate outside two nights.

Kitchen

Lounge

J's bedroom-was a crib in the corner (not visible)

W/N's room

View of L Ness from kitchen

 

Not sure what kind of trees these are, but they had this loose, mossy substance on it.

Part of the back of our rear garden, and W taking a break from exploring.

Drumnadrochit is THE Loch Ness city/village.  Saturday morning, after settling in little, we headed 5 minutes from our cottage to the city center, where we caught a Loch Ness boat tour.  It was not a full tour of the lake, as the lake is 24 miles long by 1.5 mile wide, but we did get a good tour.  Boat was equipped with sonar, and we did not catch a glimpse of Nessie.   They did tell us lots of Nessie lore.

Pic taken on our Loch Ness cruise out the back of the boat.

Another pic taken looking toward Ft Augustus (city at the southern end of Loch Ness) from the boat.

View of the sprawling Urquhart Castle from the boat.  Many of the photos/sightings of Nessie have been from here.

Close up of the ruins of Urquhart Castle

Urquhart Castle-St Columba was here in the 6th century.  There are reports that St Columba was one of the first to sight Nessie.

Pic of W driving the boat....

And of J driving the boat

N woke up in time to drive the boat into shore.

After our boat ride, we went to the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition to find out more.  It was very interesting, but still no Nessie sighting. 

View of the countryside from the Loch Ness Exhibit car park, in Drumnadrochit.

Is that......?

 

.....Yep!  It's Nessie!

We stopped at a shop for fixings for our evening meal, then headed home for the day.  "Our" house was in the woods, and on at least two acres, with trails running adjacent.  The kids ran around and had fun until supper.  Our owners were kind enough to get us a barbecue and tank so we could grill out.  (I told you it was brand new-they hadn't even had time to kit it out with a grill, although they meant to.  There were also brand new toys in the shed for the kids, although they didn't play with them.  They had more fun "exploring".

Sunday was a beautiful day.  We went east of Inverness to the Culloden Battlefield, where we all learned a lot of Scottish history.  You can read about it here.  Lots of history.  I was glad we were members of the Nat'l Trust, as admission was 10 pound/person (even kids).  Saved us 50 pound right there.  Considering the card was roughly 100, we've definitely gotten our money's worth this year.  Now, got to work on next year.

Thought this was a pretty pic w the mountains in the distance.  Taken at Culloden.

Brief explanation of the Battle, which took place in 1746.  Essentially, it was the turning point in Scottish history. 



Where various clans fell to the Brits, on the moor.



On the battlefield, there were many stones, such as this, where each clan fell to the Brits.



The battlefield was quite large, as you can imagine.  There was a very interesting museum that accompanied the battlefield, that was presented very well, both from the Brit side, as well as from the clans side.

The visitor centre had interactive exhibits, with words and sounds of the battles.  There was even a large room (no seats) where you were surrounded by a very realistic "movie" of the battle.  You could see the Jacobites (clans) coming toward you on the one side, and the Brits approaching from the opposite, and see the difference in the number of ranks, style of warfare, weapons, etc, and see men actually go down, etc, as it was as if you were in the center of the battle with the movie on the four walls all around you.  The museum had a lot of special effects.  Great presentation.

 

Another view from the battlefield.  There were flags that laid out the positions of the opposing armies.

A croft remains on the outskirts of the battlefield.  It was inhabited until 1912!

Another view of the croft.

We then went 11/2 mile east to the Clava Cairns.  This site tells the story of this burial ground and chambers from 2000BC, during the Bronze Age.  (Kinda like a mini Stonehenge.) 

Ring cairn

Passage grave.  You can see the entrance in the center if you look carefully.

Better view of the entrance.

Monday, was an overcast, on/off rainy day.  We had a guided tour of the area planned.  Our guide, John, picked us up at 8:45, and we did not return home until 7:30.

Highland cattle

How do they see with all that fur in their eyes?

They kinda remind me of English sheepdogs, with the fur in their eyes.
 

 

One of the first stops we made was in Invermoriston, where St Columba's well is located, and where there's been a well/spring for many years.  Until the 6th century, the water was thought to be poisonous, giving boils and ulcers where it came in contact with one's skin.  In 565 AD, St Columba came and drove out the evil spirits, and blessed the water coming from the well, making it clean and pure and having curative powers.

 

I did not take a photo of the well, as it small, and had all kinds of leaves and debris in it, not looking at all like it had said curative powers.  I did take a photo of Telford's bridge in Invermoriston.  Thomas Telford was a man who built many bridges throughout England, Scotland and Wales in the 1800s.  Everywhere we go, there seems to be another Telford bridge.  This particular bridge was built in 1813, to traverse River Moriston Falls, and rebuilt in the 1930s.

One of Telford's bridges.

River Moriston Falls

New bridge, built in the 1930s

Telling a bit about Telford, and the building of roads.  Looks like the sign's suffered a bit of vandalism, as well!

Loch Ness as we are driving south alongside.

A few facts about the Loch Ness:  24 miles long, 1.5-2 miles wide, 750 feet deep (deeper than most of the North Sea), and another 150 feet of silt, temperature is a constant six degrees Celsius.  It has more fresh water than all of England and Wales combined.  Then there is all of the lore attached to the Loch Ness "monster".  Saint Columba was credited with defeating the monster-it only had to hear his voice and was terrified.  Reportedly Nessie attacked one of Columba's monks.  (This means people have been looking for a monster for 1500 years!)  The last major search for Nessie was in 1995-96ish when 23-25 cabin cruisers methodically cruised the lake looking for her (guess what??  They didn't find her!!)  There are plenty of different theories, but one that is plausible is that it is a large sturgeon that visits from the Baltic.  One of the craziest stories is from the 1930s when a Mr and Mrs Spicer were returning late at night, and saw a sea creature cross the road with a sheep in its mouth. Really???  Then the famous London surgeon's photo from 1934-the one that really became famous.  Then the safari hunter who took a hippopotamus hoof and made a foot print on the shore.  Reportedly, there were two sitings last year from Ft Augustus (southern tip of the Loch Ness).

At Invermoriston, we headed West, and eventually reached Eilean Donan castle.  It's been the setting for a large number of movies.  It was blown up in 1719, sat for almost 200 years, until 1911, when it was purchased, and the owner spent 20 years (until 1932) restoring it.  The owner's grandson opened the castle to the public in 1955.  The castle still belongs to the McRae clan today, and there were MANY pictures of the family up inside.  It was like touring a large mansion.  I don't think they live there, but each year, the McRae clan comes and gets together and celebrates at Eilean Donan.

Approaching Eilean Donan Castle.  It's on an island--this photo is from the bridge as we approached the island.

Views were beautiful in every direction from the island.  Just love the mist hiding the mountains.

Loads of beautiful scenery everywhere you looked.  These are the Kintail Mts.

We crossed from the "mainland" Scotland over a huge bridge onto the Isle of Skye.  Skye is the second largest island in the Hebrides at 639 square miles, and is part of the Inner Hebrides.  Its population is 7-8000.  They do a lot of shell fishing, farming, forestry, and tourism.  They have the Cuillins Mountains-the southern Cuillins are red, and are approx. 300 million years old.  We were on the southern portion of Skye.  Here we drove to Broadford to eat lunch, then we headed south down the Sleat peninsula.  At the end of the peninsula, we caught the ferry from Skye to Mallaig.

Again, loads of beautiful scenery.

Again.....

At Mallaig, we headed East to Glenfinnan.  The village is on the Loch Shiel, and is where Bonnie Prince Charlie, head of the Jacobites, raised his flag to signal the start of the Uprising in 1745.  The Uprising (don't call it Rebellion in Scotland!!!) eventually ended in Culloden eight months later, where the Jacobites were defeated.

The Glenfinnan monument/column of a clansman in battle dress-look in the mid to bottom right hand corner.

Again-beautiful scenery.

Also at this stop, we saw a large viaduct, built in 1901 (not by Telford).  It is a portion of the West Highland Railway, and is one of the first ever large constructions made of concrete.  Some of the arches are 100ft high!  AND....it is famed as a Harry Potter film location.  It was featured first in the second HP movie (Chamber of Secrets) as the train crossed the viaduct, and is also in later HP movies.  Also, this is the location where the galleon emerged (computer generated) in Goblet of Fire.  May through October, a Jacobite steam train travels this portion of the journey, I believed dressed up as the Hogwarts Express, but we did not see it.

21-arched Loch nan Uamh viaduct

The Caledonia Canal is a series of canals passing through Scotland, starting at Inverness/Loch Dochfour, travelling through Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and finally Ft William/Loch Lochy, which make up the Great Glen and divides Scotland nearly in two.  The Canal was completed in the early 1800s by (guess who??) our friend, Thomas Telford, to help ships pass from the North Sea to the Atlantic, without having to go around Scotland's north coast, which was risky, mainly due to the many mountains, islands, and the foggy/misty climate.  The canal covers 60 miles, with 2/3 of this being the lakes themselves. It consists of 29 locks (including eight at Neptune's Staircase), four aqueducts and 10 bridges in the course of the canal.  Neptune's Staircase is a series of eight locks that climbs 64 feet in less than half a mile. These days, its mainly pleasure boats that use the canal.

Part of Neptune's Staircase with the Nevis mts.

We then saw the Commando Memorial, a tribute to the elite commando units of the Brit army who trained in this area during WWII.

Commando Memorial

As we continued our way home, we stopped at a memorial to John Cobb.  John Cobb held the land speed record.  He was attempting to break the water speed record on Loch Ness in 1952.  Regulations said you needed to hit the speed twice to qualify.  He hit the mark once (206 mph), turned around, and was to go back and hit it again.  Unfortunately,  his team had not thought about the wake that would be created by going that speed, and when he was making his second pass, he hit the wake, flipping his boat.  Of course, the Nessie enthusiasts say the wake was caused by "a large animal".  Right.

Memorial to John Cobb on shores of Loch Ness, near Glenurquhart.



John the tour guide, w W, N, J

We saw many other things, and learned LOTS of different things about Scotland and the Loch Ness area-too numerous to list here.  We did come away with a much greater knowledge of the type of people the Scotch are, and a sense of their history.  Much more so than what we'd received on our previous two days of touring.  Its nice to get a tour from a "local yoko", who can tell you more than a museum can, and delve a little deeper into things.  On arrival home on Monday evening, we grabbed a bit locally-at a pub that boasts 600 whisky's (of course Scotch).  While we were there, two "creatures" entered the pub, and walked about the dining room.  Kids thought that was neat.  Then it was home to bed.

Tuesday morning, we hit the road about 10 for the ride home.  We got home about 7:30ish.  Home, sweet home.

Our next holiday will be in summer, when we go to.......????

Thanks for reading!!!