Happy Birthday! It’s the 4th of July and our very own Francis is celebrating his birthday. I offered to pay for his dinner (of course tonight we are having a group dinner at Cawdor Castle Tavern).
Back on the bus, for a quick jaunt over to Blair Castle. Blair Castle is actually owned and run by a trust formed by the 9th Duke of Atholl. Many of the Dukes of Atholl, had no children or the children didn’t marry or have children. The 11th Duke is currently living and was born in South Africa. The ceilings and crown molding is mostly original to all the rooms. They mixed horse hair into the plaster to make it stronger, keeping it intact and secure for all these years. Most of the rooms are decorated to the period, but no one has lived in those rooms since 1932 or so, having moved to a wing of the house. The gardens would be quite lovely in the height of bloomage, but alas, most flowers have seen better days. The gardeners have trained some of the apple trees to grow on the wall. Jim and I walked down to the pond, not sure where the geese were, but guano reminded me of the little house in Sackets Harbor when we first moved to Fort Drum. There was goose guarno everywhere!Mind your step! One of the dukes placed a statue of Hercules, hence the name Hercules Gardens, outside the garden walls at the highest point. He had a Scottish sculptor copy the Hercules statue from a picture and only paid 25 pounds. Caitlin and Jesse walked up a different path and got close up to the precious Highland coo!
Leaving Blair Castle we headed to Culloden Battlefield. We had time to walk through the museum and have a snacky before heading out onto the site of the Jacobite battle. Jim and I have been eating sandwiches from the food we bought at the Tesco Express in Edinburgh. The day was cold and windy, and the museum/gift shop/snack shop had soup-butternut squash and carrot maybe? I disremember. It was also serving 3 bean chili. The Scots’ chili is a little different than ours. The tomato sauce is thicker and truth be told a little sweeter, the beans were al dente, just like at home.
The Battle at Culloden field saw 1550 deaths for the Jacobite, while the King’s army only lost about 50. For those that don’t know, the Jacobites were people who wanted the Stewart line to rule Scotland, not the Hanoverians. Bonnie Prince Charlie, who had grown up in France came back and with the help of some friends mounted an insurrection to overthrow King George. The result, the Battle at Culloden. Bonnie Prince had a great thought, King George’s son, the Duke of Cumberland’s birthday was approaching, so why not march the Jacobites to the camp of the Duke of Cumberland at night and surprise them after the Duke’s men had been celebrating all night? Great idea, didn’t come to fruition. The Jacobites never made it that far in the dark, foggy, rainy night. They were tired and outgunned, and the results were bad. Wendy explained this in great detail, walked us past the grave markers of all the clans, showed us where the flags that represented the Jacobite army were.
Now comes the surprise! We had a little extra time, did I mention it was a bit chilly and windy? No one really felt the need to spend a great deal of time wandering the battlefield. The fact that our bus is not huge (albeit bigger than a sprinter van) we were able to go over the “weak” bridge to visit Clava Cairns. This was a trip I was trying to figure out how to get to from Nairn. For Outlander fans, Clava Cairns is a destination not to be missed. I however, have not seen Outlander and therefore did not realize that significance, but apparently many in our group were fans and had asked if we might make the trip. The Clava Cairns are a “Bronze Age cemetery complex of passage graves; ring cairns, kerb cairns and standing stones in a beautiful setting.” In Outlander, the Clava Cairns were used as a passage back to Jacobite times.
After about 15 minutes we were back on the bus and headed towards Nairn. Our stay tonight is at The Clubhouse-a short walk to the water. This hotel, run by Simon and Jennifer or Jen as she called herself. Simon and Jen had just completed the sale of this hotel in April and they have done a lovely job of fixing it up. When we showed up, our rooms were ready and Simon offered to carry up our luggage. I am not sure about the other rooms, but ours was huge. The water pressure was a welcome change from other stays.. The hot water stayed hot and did not go in and out and the Wifi? It was lightning fast.
We were blessed with a rainbow on our way to dinner!
Dinner was being hosted by Cawdor Castle Tavern. We didn’t ever see the Cawdor Castle, however the tavern part was hopping with locals. We had pre ordered our dinner and the service flowed pretty well with all the people visiting the establishment.
Back to the Clubhouse. Some of our group decided to stay up to celebrate Francis’ birthday. Simon took some breakfast orders but no worries, we were able to place our order when we came down. Jim ordered a cheese omelet and I had 2 poached eggs on toast with avocado. The eggs were from a local farm and they were the prettiest color I have ever seen. Not to mention Simon and Jen understand the way to cook a soft poached egg!
Driving to Fort William after breakfast, but as a group we decided to leave earlier than our 11 am departure, to be able to spend time in Inverness.
#HowFortunateWeAre #RetiredAndLovingIt #MakingOurOwnSunshine