In the morning we went down to our lovely full Scottish breakfast and mapped out our day. Of the whole trip I was most excited for this day. We were heading into the highlands and planned on checking out Cairngorms National Park. The park is home to one of the last old-growth forests in Britain, as well as abundant and rare wild life. We also planned on taking the funicular to the top of one of the highest peaks in the park, which is also home to the Reindeer Center where they have, ya know, reindeer. The area in and around the Cairngorms is also littered with whisky distilleries, which seemed like a great way to plan to wind down the evening before heading a little farther north to Inverness, where we had booked a room for the night.
All of this was so up my alley that I had really focused a lot of my attention and excitement on what we'd be doing that day. Expecting it to be a bit muddy as it was spring, I had even bought a great pair of hiking boots. Well, I'd need them. But not for mud.
At the breakfast table Adam pulled up the funicular live feed and saw that the weather was not great. In fact, it was snowed in. Ok, I said, so maybe we won't do the funicular. But we could still do the rest of it... right? At that moment, our host came over and Adam asked him his opinion - could we still see some of the rest of the park even if the peaks were snowed in?
He didn't recommend it. Apparently most of the area is a little peaky, and if it's snowing bad enough to shut down the funicular, the rest of the area won't be much more passable.
Totally bummed I picked up the pieces of my heart and the two guide books I had and we started re-routing. From Edinburgh to Inverness there aren't really that many routes. One was already dismissed as it went straight through the Cairngorms, another was dismissed as it didn't have much interesting to see or do along the way. The final answer seemed to be a route that kind of skirted around the exterior part of the Cairngorms. Our host informed us that there were a lot of famous and historical castles to see on that route, and that pretty much sealed the deal.
Leaving Edinburgh, the weather was fine. Overcast, but not too cold, not too rainy (although I do remember we got a few drops on the car). And then, suddenly...
You can kind of tell by the picture, too, that the wind was really blowing all of that snow around. It was cold.
After a while we came to Braemar Castle. We parked and Adam got out to read a sign about the castle and area while I stayed in the car to change into warmer clothes. In just the few minutes it had taken me to put on a warmer sweater Adam was nearly frozen solid. He announced that the first thing he'd learned from the sign is that Braemar is one of Britain's coldest settlements. Good to know.
A second sign on the gateway to the castle grounds informed us of something else that would have been good to know: the castle was not open to the public that day. Okeedoke. Frankly we weren't even disappointed. We were too busy being cold. I snapped a pic from the gate and we raced back to the car, which was still warm. Or at least warmer than it had been outside.
We drove our way over increasingly treacherous roads towards Balmoral. If you don't know, Balmoral is the private residence of the Royal Family. This is not where they go for their state visits in Scotland (that's Holyrood, back in Edinburgh), but rather where they go for their private retreats and vacations.
The weather had let up a little bit as we approached the castle and grounds. Still, we realized pretty quickly that this would be a better visit in the summer or fall. Since the castle is private, the only room open to the public is the ballroom. The grounds are supposed to be lovely, but probably not in the middle of a spring snowstorm. We had planned to have lunch here, but even the cafe is beyond the gate and the tickets were fairly pricey. In the end, we decided to just poke around the public areas and move on. There were some very lovely pictures to be had anyway!
We saw a sign pointing away from the main road down a smaller looking lane that declared this was the way to the Royal Lochnagar Distillery. Well, distilleries had been on the to-do list for the day, might as well check it out. The weather had turned fairly nasty again and we were just happy to get indoors.
What an unexpected and fun time we had here! Since the weather was so bad and the road conditions were poor, we were the only people in the place. Well, us and some Italian tourists who quickly left once they realized the only tours were available in English. We got our very own private tour of the distillery from one of the guides, Gordon, who also happened to be a noted whisky connoisseur. Since it was just us, he was informal and funny. We learned that formal distilleries were a relatively new concept in Scottish history - before the 19th century most highland whisky was bootleg. We also learned that Lochnagar earned it's "Royal" title through an act that can only be described as ballsy. The distillery's originator, upon hearing that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had purchased Balmoral next door, sent them a note inviting them for a tour. To his astonishment, they showed up the next day. He gave them the tour as promised and allowed them to sample several of his products. Queen Victoria issued a Royal Warrant for him to create whiskys just for the Royal Family and there you have it. They still maintain their Warrant, and make some blends which are provided to the Queen and family annually.
I'll be honest, I'm not a big whisky drinker. Our tour came with a sample of one of their best whiskys and even though I love the way whisky smells and I'm fascinated by its production, nope. I couldn't handle it and gave my dram to Adam who was all too happy to have it.
By the time we left Lochnagar the roads were awful. We started to worry that we'd have to turn back and find an alternate route to Inverness when we were turned away from several roads. In one instance the road we were on went up a pretty steep incline, but was sheltered on either side by the mountain-like terrain. Until it wasn't. Up ahead we could see the road went into a pass that was wide open, but we never got that far. There was a car stopped ahead of us, and in front of him was a snow plow turned so that it blocked the road. The plow driver came down to where we were and said that while we could certainly try to get over the pass, he wouldn't recommend it. He stepped back, looked at our car and tires, came back and said "You'll never make it. The wind is just too strong!"
We found another road we thought might get us where we needed to go without going over any passes, but someone coming in the opposite direction flashed their lights at us, signaling to stop. We rolled down the window and he told us the road ahead was closed with snow. Crap. We stopped to warn the next car that was also trying to get up that road, but they chose not to believe us and kept going. Maybe they made it, who knows. I took a pretty picture of a bridge while we were talking to them.
We drove around aimlessly trying to figure out what to do. An hour or so later things started to clear up again, and we made a break for it - at least the passes wouldn't be gusting as badly.
We did make it to the other side of the mountains and found that once in the Culloden area there was no snow at all! Highland weather is weird. I had hoped we'd make it to Cawdor Castle, but it was closed by the time we got there. Whomp whomp. I managed to take a very vague picture of it through the trees.
There were lots of black sheep in the fields, though! I love black sheep.
If you're a fan of Higlander I'm sure you're wondering if we stopped at Culloden Battlefield. We did, but there's not much to see, really. No pics, sorry.
We came through Inverness and found our lodgings for the night on the edge of town. The day had perhaps not been what I was anticipating, but the weather couldn't take away the fact that I was finally - FINALLY - going to achieve a bucket list item: I was going to spend the night in a castle.
Ok, so Bunchrew House is more of a manor house than a castle, but STILL! The earliest parts of the house go back to the 14th century when there was a modest wooden house built here. As the house grew and expanded, the wooden walls of the main room of that house were incorporated into the new building, and are still within the stone walls of what is now the drawing room (most of which itself goes back to the 16th century). Here's a picture from the coat of arms over the fireplace - in the lower right hand corner is the date this was installed - 1621.
This guy, also in the foyer, was judging me.
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| "OMG could you be more basic?" |
There is also a notable Cedar of Lebanon which was planted by the 5th Lord of Bunchrew in the 18th century.
Bunchrew House has a restaurant within it, but we decided to venture into the city of Inverness for dinner. We were hoping to try a good local pub, but all were full and we ended up at a very nice Italian eatery for the evening. Food was great and atmosphere was nice. It was cold out after, but we took a walk anyway. I don't have any pictures because it was quite dark, but Inverness was a really nice little city. I wouldn't mind getting the chance to go back and explore it more some day.
Back to Bunchrew where we ordered some ciders and settled in for a bit on the cozy sofas in the drawing room, which had a nice warm peat fire going. It was an absolutely perfect way to spend an evening after an imperfect, but still fun, day.
