Category Archives: Scotland

Darlston Hall Holiday Park, Golf Club and campsite

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Leaving Inverness at 9.50 we headed off south to stay at a campsite near Carlisle, the Darlston Hall Holiday Park and Golf Club. A five-hour drive with 42 minute stop near Stirling.  Average speed 53.2. The road from the motorway to Darlston Hall competed with Milton Keynes on roundabouts, coming a very credible second.

Darlston Hall has many permanent holiday homes. The campsite does also have touring caravans with many obviously parked over the week for weekend use.  Not many people in residence today.  We took a walk into the village to buy some food, 1.5 mile walk mainly along road.  The village has a butchers and a well stocked CO-OP. The walk back was different, through the church cemetery, around the playing fields and past the Nestle factory. The path continued along the river, until we took a left and headed into the holiday park. The holiday park has a golf course, and the camping fees include use of course.

We ate our meal and went to bed.  The wind was rising and at midnight I closed the pop up roof, good decision as it was raining and very windy in the morning.

11th October

Final drive back home, where we met horrendous rain and wind over the lake district. Windscreen wipers working at maximum. Van battered by winds. The BBC news in the evening, picked out the lake district as having over 20 cms of rain that day.  Further South it all dried out for the rest of the journey home.  Being skin flints, we drove the M6 through Birmingham, not a bad choice, very free flowing traffic, and saved us £11, almost missed the M42 junction.

Inverness at the Hossack institute

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We had arrived in Inverness, parked the van in the hotel carpark, and so went to check in.  Ravi was there with his American friend Roberta and they waited for us to dump our stuff in the room. We were going over to the Hossack institute for a hog roast, by way of the Nip Inn for a quick pint of beer. The pub was so chosen as a favourite of Hughie’s (Maggie’s dad).

The Hossack Institute, is near to Madras Road and India Road.  Maggie was there, and so were the rest of her family.  We were shown around the renovated building and the additional land surrounding the building.  There had been much work renovating the building.  Hog roast was served with salads, beer and wine & rounded off with cheesecake.. There was a rehearsal of bagpipe playing in the garden.  This was played by a Dutch man, a friend of Gordon Hossack, brother of Maggie who was going to have his ashes scattered on Monday

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and rested until dinner at 7.00 where we sat at a table with Ravi and Roberta.

 

9th October

After breakfast, we were ferried (by taxi) down to the end of Kessock Road where Gordon’s ashes and flowers had been placed awaiting the tide to wash them away to Holland.  Bagpipes were played and Tomatin single malt whisky was drunk from a quaich and thrown to the wind.

We walked back to the institute for lunch, by way of Carnac Point.  The afternoon was our own where we visited shops and Inverness Castle.

The evening was a Ceilidh and buffet.  Lots of photographs and videos taken of the event.  Pipe music and speeches made, the dancing started. Beer and several whiskies were drunk. True to Blasdale tradition we were one of the last to leave.

 

 

Scotland and Culzean Castle

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We set off for Scotland on a Friday morning, the intention was to meet friends for a party in Inverness. Our plan was to drive around 6 hours and then stay two nights somewhere and then continue for another 4 hours to arrive in Inverness.  Our planned stopping place was Culzean Castle near to Ayr, a Camping and Caravan site in the Castle grounds.

Off we set, no weekend drivers around and we made very good progress.  Alas we took the expensive decision and went via the M6 Toll road.  How flipping expensive is that, £11, could have done over 100 miles on French toll roads for that price. In France we were treated as a car, in the UK as a van. On we drove continuing at maximum speed until we reached the motorway upgrade.  A few years ago roadworks were kept to no more than 3 miles. This so called intelligent motorway upgrade went on for 10+ miles with average speed cameras, and hardly a person to be seen working.  Oh well, at least we made a reasonable 50mph on that section, and of course Google Navigation knew about this and had already factored it in for our estimated arrival time. 

We stopped off for our own home-made sandwiches (we have to make some savings after the M6 toll fiasco) at the Westmorland Services which has the famous farm shop.  We did buy a Cappuccino, and some posh bread, which turned out to have raisins in it.  (This bread turned out fine as a complement to are pre-prepared evening vegie stews over the next two nights.) Google had not factored in this stop, so we were now behind her schedule.

We continued on our way crossing into Scotland and turned off at J12 towards Ayr. Rather worryingly there were road closed signs on the way we were going. We continued, then more signs with some mentioning the village of Douglas, but we continued. There was hope, vehicles were still coming the other way. Suddenly we saw there was a recovery operation in progress where some vehicle had gone over the edge of the road on a bridge and down into a small valley.  There were a couple of marooned trucks on either side of the recovery. No problem Google sorted us out with a short detour down some single-track roads. We were soon at Culzean Castle after travelling 376 miles at 53mph.

At Culzean Castle campsite, we were greeted by the site manager and were shown various  parking options.  We chose one over-looking the sea and potentially the Isle of Arran.  Yes, it was in view.  Still with some day-light, we took a little walk through the woods and to the National Trust of Scotland road entry to the castle grounds. Back at the campsite we ate our dinner of bread and veggie stew, and took a well-earned drink before going to bed.

7th October

Today we had the entire day to explore the Castle grounds. We walked back to the entry, showed them our NT cards and walked to the castle to get the first tour of the day.  Wow, the flint lock pistol collection was fabulous with more than 750 pistols.  The largest public display of flint lock pistols in the world.  We were explained the history of the place.  Not much sticks in my mind, other than the male line were always called Archibald Kennedy. The top floor of the house was set aside for Eisenhower, who used it during WWII and after when he was president until his death in 1969.  The floor is now set aside as the Roosevelt Hotel.

The park is huge and we spent several hours exploring the lake and various paths through the site.  We ended up for scones, jam and tea at the visitor centre.  Our walk back to the campsite was met by a stream of cars and taxis arriving for a wedding which was due to take place that evening.

Our humble evening meal over, I went out to photograph the entry gates to the park.  There were some nice steel lighted balls which deserved a picture, and a fabulous gateway from the public road which looked good in the dark.

8th October

Up early, packed away, we set off from Culzean at 7:39, stopping at the Electric Brae to try and figure out whether the road sloped one way or the other.  Wasn’t total impressed, but the real slope was in the opposite direction to the perceived eye view of the slope. I think the picture proves this, then I am taking it for granted that the plaque was not misrepresenting the heights.  We arrived at Inverness in a few minutes less than the predicted 4 hours given by Google.  One overriding thought about Scottish roads are the number of average speed cameras on the A9, the number of flashing signs in villages for speed, and the pervasive 20 mph zones in villages and towns.

Trip to the Orkney and Shetland Islands, plus Edinburgh for the fringe

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Rosemary and I have been back from our holiday in the Orkney and Shetland Islands where we were immersed in Archeology for over a week.  Following this week, we spent another week in Edinburgh sampling the Edinburgh fringe.  If you are remotely interested a full write up and immense gallery of pictures are located on the main pages of the website.  Click here to be impressed.

On our way to the Shetland Isles

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We have had hectic days looking at tombs, stone circles and brochs, mixed in with eating and drinking.

The weather has been reasonable,  no rain and lots of sunshine, even getting passably warm. The hotel we stayed at was on the Harbour front, and we did well with a great view of the boats. Only down side were the boy racers who insisted on driving up and down the harbour road at 1am with their tuned exhaust pipes.

So on Wednesday we saw Maes Howe, Stones of Stenness, Ring of Brodgar, Barnhouse and a real live excavation in progress at the Ness of Brodgar. The Ness of Brodgar is so large it dwarves the World Heritage site at Skara Brae.

Thursday had us visiting the Island of Rousay by ferry. Before leaving we saw Betty’s Reading Room at the ferry terminal.

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Betty's Reading Room

Another picture of Betty’s Reading Room. The place is full of books to be borrowed.

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Betty's Reading Room

We circled the island twice because the the coach could not turn around. We saw the Midhowe Chambered Tomb and the Midhowe Broch. After lunch at the Pier we entered the Taversoe Tuick double chambered tomb.

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Ferry terminal on the Island of Rousay.

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Taversoe Tuick. Notice the cloudless blue skies of Scotland and the Orkneys.

Friday is our last day of this section in Orkney, we are back for a couple more after our four days in Shetland. We went off early to Skara Brae, a world heritage site. You cannot walk through the habitations now. Instead you view them from the sides and visit a reconstruction of the best house. This house was remarkable in its size and could easily accommodate the whole group of us. As well as seeing Skara Brae we also walked around the local Laird’s house, Skaill House. On display in the dining room was Captain Cook’s dinner service. This was for payment for lodging of a few officers in the house when the expedition returned, after Cook’s death, and was stuck in the Orkneys for weeks.

After this visit we drove to nearby Marwick Head, a cliff where the Kitchener’s Memorial tower stands over the cliffs. Actually we did not walk to the tower but instead bird watched, seeing a few Puffins fly in, Guillemots, Fulmers, Kittiwakes. Rosemary was shown a rare orchid, a frog orchid. Picture to come.

Lunch next, at the Merkister Hotel, where Jeremy Paxman had very recently stayed while researching Kitchener. We had a  ploughman’s with no bread, but chips and boiled potatoes!!!!! It transpired our leaders had asked for bread and been told they had none. A little while later, however, we were offered rolls. Rolls are not considered bread in Scotland.

Finally a drive to see yet another broch, Gurness Broch; a remarkable multi-storey building with lots of dwellings outside the main broch.

Afterwards we made our way to the airport for the flight to the Shetlands. Predictably the flight was late, something to do with passengers on the incoming flight from Inverness not wanting to fly because of the fog. Anyway we have taken off, but the pilot does not sound confident about us landing. FlyMayBee did land on the Shetlands, and first attempt as well. We made it to the hotel for supper and a nightcap.