Scotland - Coast to Coast.
We left Skye on Sunday, with a three hour drive to the next stop at a pub/hotel near Inverness, called The Grouse and Trout. We didn't take the obvious route along the north shore of Loch Ness, as we wanted to do that on the way back towards Oban. So we took a more northerly route, which although was pretty at times didn't have much in the way of drama.
Some of the roads had suffered badly over the winter. Here's another road trip video, but I've now learned about transitions between the clips, and how to stabilise and clean them up a bit.
Our route into Inverness was therefore from the north, over the Moray Firth Bridge, and passed the football stadium of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, known locally as Caley. They had a few overachieving seasons in the early Naughties, including a famous cup match where they destroyed the mighty Celtic. The newspaper headline the next day read:
"Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious"
The Grouse and Trout had set itself up with five pitches, offering electricity and basic waste disposal. What they didn't make clear was that there was absolutely no phone signal. We ate there, and the food was excellent - venison steak and game casserole. Mind you, the bill was eye watering!
The next stop wasn't very far away just below Inverness at Auchnahillin Holiday park. It's very pleasant, with full facilities, and we'll be here for two nights.
On the way we called in at the Culloden Battle Site. This is a big Centre set up by the Scottish National Trust, and very impressive it was too with an immersive cinema that put you in the middle of the battle, and some good lectures about some of the personalities involved. It also took you through the rise and fall of the Jacobite Rebellion. There were good paths laid out around the actual battle site, with flags showing where the various battle lines were, and gravestones where the mass graves of the clans were. The MacLeans did not come out well from it, and lost about 200 men.
Culloden, in 1746, was the last pitched battle to take place on British soil, and the Jacobites were routed losing 1500 men in less than an hour. The Duke of Cumberland lost only 100 men. Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped, and dressing himself up as a maid to Flora MacDonald, escaped by boat to Skye - and hence to exile in France.
Some of the roads had suffered badly over the winter. Here's another road trip video, but I've now learned about transitions between the clips, and how to stabilise and clean them up a bit.
Our route into Inverness was therefore from the north, over the Moray Firth Bridge, and passed the football stadium of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, known locally as Caley. They had a few overachieving seasons in the early Naughties, including a famous cup match where they destroyed the mighty Celtic. The newspaper headline the next day read:
"Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious"
The Grouse and Trout had set itself up with five pitches, offering electricity and basic waste disposal. What they didn't make clear was that there was absolutely no phone signal. We ate there, and the food was excellent - venison steak and game casserole. Mind you, the bill was eye watering!
The next stop wasn't very far away just below Inverness at Auchnahillin Holiday park. It's very pleasant, with full facilities, and we'll be here for two nights.
On the way we called in at the Culloden Battle Site. This is a big Centre set up by the Scottish National Trust, and very impressive it was too with an immersive cinema that put you in the middle of the battle, and some good lectures about some of the personalities involved. It also took you through the rise and fall of the Jacobite Rebellion. There were good paths laid out around the actual battle site, with flags showing where the various battle lines were, and gravestones where the mass graves of the clans were. The MacLeans did not come out well from it, and lost about 200 men.
Culloden, in 1746, was the last pitched battle to take place on British soil, and the Jacobites were routed losing 1500 men in less than an hour. The Duke of Cumberland lost only 100 men. Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped, and dressing himself up as a maid to Flora MacDonald, escaped by boat to Skye - and hence to exile in France.
Not only are you getting quite proficient at your video editing, you're starting to show off a bit, good for you; I shall re-iterate, travel show producer?
ReplyDeleteOn our first and only visit to Scotland, our route (Mother, Father, myself and Father's Aunt & Uncle) took us from London to Perth (Motorail) then Kinross, Dundee, Blair Gowrie, Braemar, Grantown-on-Spey, Aberlour, Aviemore, Culloden, Inverness, Garve, Ullapool, Lochinver, Durness, Ullapool, Gairloch, Kyle of Lochalsh (toured Skye, Dunvegan, Portree), Invergarry, Blair Atholl, Pitlochry, Loch Tummel, Loch Tay, Callander and finally Stirling before returning, again, by Motorail, all this in eight days back in 1971.