Heading across Scotland

Tuesday 19th September

Glorious warm  sunshine all day!!!   Early start (9.00am - almost early) and viewed Eilean Dunan Castle before going across to Plockton of Hamish McBeth TV series fame. Both places just beautiful in the morning light.

More windy roads with passing places, more reflections in the locks, following the train line from Kyle of Lobash to Inverness. Lunch at Beauly and then a side trip To Urquhart Castle ruins, on Loch Ness, to collect our Scottish Heritage Passes and wander through the ruins with their amazing thick walls. The passes are for seven days and we should make good use of them. We found our Inverness accommodation much more easily than expected and had time to walk along the top end of the Caledonian Canal before dinner. Another short walk along the river Ness and then bedtime in another lovely attic room.

Inverness

Wednesday 20th September

Cloudy with soft rain this morning as we headed out to Colloden field. A very sobering place. Spent two hours learning about the Jacobite uprising which was lead by Bonnie Prince Charles with the aim of putting the Stuart King, James V111 who was exiled in France, Prince Charles's father, back on the English throne. The final battle was at Culloden and was a disaster for the Jacobites - about 1500 killed in two hours and only 70 British soldiers. The clan structure of Scotland society was changed forever following the defeat and the reprisals which followed. The British were determined that there would be no more Scottish uprisings and they brutally dealt with any one with Jacobite connections

Colloden

We walked over the battlefield where there were good interpretive signs explaining where the troops had been and what events had taken place on the day.

By afternoon the rain had stopped and we were at Fort George, a very large British Army Base which has a museum dedicated to the Scottish Highlander Regiments. In one room dedicated to the Seaforth Highlanders we were able to learn quite a bit about the regiment to which Merilyn's ancestor, Thomas Murray, had belonged in the early 1800's. He had been Paymaster when they were serving in Capetown, which is where David Wyndham Murray was born. He, David, migrated to Australia in the 1850's, settled in Geelong, and was Dawn Genat's (Merilyn's mum) grand father on her mother's side. Tomorrow we will explore Gamrie, where Thomas Murray was born and New Pitsligo, where he lived following retirement his from the army as a Chelsea Pensioner.

Some of the two hour drive from Fort George to Banff, our destination for the night, was along the coast and by chance we called into a village Port Knockeara which had many old cottages, a quaint port and fascinating rock formations. We had a nice chat with an elderly local who is restoring an old timber pilot boat and patted his old Border Collie, part Kelpie, dog. A lovely peaceful way to end the day.