Scotland Day #9 - Aberdeen to Loch Ness

08, July 2009 Writing at 21:35 from Drumbuie Farm B&B South of Loch Ness
Posted on 10, July 2009 at 17:08 from Portree, Scotland

Today was good day, but not quite as good as others. I attribute it to trying to do much and not eating enough. We left Abderdeen and headed north to Fraserburgh (pronounced Fraserborough). We visited Scotland's Lighthouse Museum and the Fraserburgh Heritage Center.

Scotland's first lighthouse was built on top of Kainnaird Head Castle in what is Fraserburgh. We enjoy visiting lighthouses and learning about their history, but a lighthouse in the U.S.is very similar to a lighthouse in the U.K. We went because the Kainnaird Castle was home to some of the Fraser family. We had a very good guide, but didn't learn much more about the Fraser family. The Fraserburgh Heritage Center was essentially a small, well cared for museum about the town of Fraserburgh, which has a rich heritage of herring fishing. Beth did some reading in their library, but didn't come way with a much more than she already knew (or will know when she reads the Fraser Clan books). The other plan we discussed was giving all of the books to the newly appointed Frazier history buff and asking Luke to read them and report back!

We left Fraserburgh around 12:30, discussed stopping for lunch, but decided to get snacks when we got fuel. This was a mistake, but is also a change as the first two B&Bs fed us so well that we didn't need to eat lunch; water with a granola bar or a bag of cashews was fine. The Aldersyde Guest House in Aberdeen offered a continental breakfast, we both had cereal and fruit, but no protein, and that was enough to carry us through mid-day. We had some ground to cover, Inverness is about 2 hours West from Abderdeen and Fraserburgh was another hour north from Aberdeen so it was three hours. Road construction was one factor that made this tough and Beth's continued dislike for the narrow roads and fast traffic make it tough for her to ride and can make it tough for me to drive when she keeps flinching! We keep talking about it and it is a little like driver's ed with mom all over again as Beth lets me know about things that are coming up. I view this like hanging wall paper and paddling a tandem kayak, events that made us stronger and pulled us together.

We wanted to visit the Culloden Battlefield before finding our B&B. I was a little unsure of Roger's (the GPS) directions as there were no signs for Culloden on the roads he took us along. We stopped along the way to take photos and got off the beaten path again. In doing so we stumbled on to the Clava Cairns site; which was also on our list of sites to see; however, we might have missed it since we were getting fatigued en route to Culloden. These are series of burial chambers made 3-4000 years ago with some ingenious construction ideas. The cairns are large rocks circles that were originally domes with covered tunnels into the center. One of the cairns was constructed with chunks of quartz and it's location was such that the interior was fully illuminated during the winter solstice.

We got back on the road towards Culloden, but it was barely a road. Instead of backtracking we followed Roger and got to see lots of farms and cross some very cool old bridges on a small single car track that took us on a giant loop around our destination. We made it into Culloden around 4, which was not enough time to do this site justice (they closed at 6), but we did the best we could. The Culloden Battlefield is the site of the last battle that took place on Scottish soil between the English and the Scottish. The Highlanders,led by Prince Charlie were crushed by the English soldiers in less than an hour. The field is open, much as it would have been, but has colored flags that mark the English and Scottish (Jacobite) lines, markers and memorial stones throughout the field. Each visitor is given a PDA with an earpiece, the PDA has a satellite connection which triggers different audio blurbs based on your location on the field. This was very interesting, but we had problems with both satellite units, I suspect due to the heavy cloud cover. We learned that the Highland clans had traditionally overwhelmed English troops by intimidation, the highlanders used the muskets to fire and create large clouds of smoke, they then discarded the musket, charged the English soldiers, broke the front line and used their targe (shield), dirks (12 -14 inch knives that are held in the same had as the shield) and the broad sword to engage in hand to hand combat. In previous battles this strategy worked very well and the English were either killed or in many cases became scared and fled. At the battle of Culloden, the English had two lines of troops and each line was two soldiers deep. The Highlanders tactic worked well one the first line, but the second line of English soldiers stayed in formation and was successfully firing volleys of musket balls into the oncoming highlanders. The Scots were also coming across muddy, broken ground that was full of vegetation and the English were staying in place and firing canister rounds (essentially tin cans filled with musket balls) from their artillery (a.k.a. cannons). Over 1500 highlanders were dead at the end and the wounded were bayoneted by the English. My understanding is that this was the beginning of the end of clans, tartans were oulawed and Englsih laws were forced onto the Scots.

We left Culloden and headed for Drumbuie Farm. It started to rain and we had some gorgeous twisty, turning roads along Loch Ness. Our B&B is a farm with Scottish Highland cattle (see photo) a great dog named Willow and a wonderful view of Loch Ness (see photo for view from our bedroom). Tomorrow we're headed out to explore two castles on the the loch, possibly take a boat ride and learn a little more about Nessie. We did discover a single engine fire station next door to a great pub that served a wonderful venison casserole and a beer that is made in old whisky kegs - consequently it has 10% alcohol and is very tasty! I hope to go back to both - the fire station when someone is there (I think it is volunteer) and the pub for either more whiskybeer (that is what it is called!) or a couple of their long list of whiskies.