Goodbye Scotland...Will Ya Nay Come Back Again..

It is a sad day today as basically it is the last day for Scotland! Tomorrow will be driving back to Edinburgh, turning in the rental car, and settling in our hotel for our early flights home on Tuesday, Oct. 5th. This also will most likely be my last blog. It's been fun and I know that I will enjoy looking at the blog capsule when we are home.

Today we basically decided to tour up the A9 into the West Highland.


We crossed the bridge over the Moray Firth onto the Black Isle. (Now there is a place we still have not explored.) Across the Cromarty Firth through Tain, across the Dornoch Firth with a stop at the Dunrobin Castle. Dunrobin is beautiful and has huge gardens, and is the great house of the earls and dukes of Sutherland.
Dunrobin Castle

From there the next stop was Brora. Oh we have such great memories of our golf at Dornoch and Brora.

I am pleased to report that Brora Golf Club still uses electric fences around it's greens and the weather was almost as bad as when we played before. I wish we would have had time for a quick game.

Further on to Wick where Robert Louis Stevenson spent some of his boyhood. But you can't find a restaurant open in the town on a Sunday noon. We finally gave up and ate at a Tesco (the big grocery store) cafe. Yuck! But I had a Sunday brunch which tasted pretty good since we have been living on peanut butter, jelly and toast most mornings.

From Wick we deviated onto A99 so that we could go to John o' Groats.
All tourists have their picture taken at The Last House in Scotland. Like the southern tip of England 878 miles south is called Land's End, John o' Groat is the northern equivalent.
Here you can catch the ferry to Orkney Islands and the Pentland Firth.

This use to be the grand hotel at the end of Scotland. Several bikers have been riding today and getting group shots here with their bikes, shirts OFF and plaid blankets around the lower body. Crazy Youth!.

Further around A99 is the Castle of Mey across from Island of Stroma. Also great vistas of Dunnet Head the most northern point of Britain. Gorgeous!!

Castle of Mey

We drove on out by Dunnet Head which is the furthest north of Britain.


Dunnet Head Dunnet Bay.
The scenery is incredible the weather could not cooperate for good pictures.

At Thurso we have to make a decision. We park alongside the river and look at the map, the time, and then decide to do the logical thing which is to take A9 south cutting back to the Dunrobin Castle is and then back to Inverness the way we came. WHAT I WANT TO DO is to go onward on A836 to the Kyle of Tongue and then south o a scenic highway which goes past Loch Loyal, Loch Naver, etc. etc. all gorgeous country side through the Kyle of Tongue. BUT sanity pervails dang it!! It is now 2pm and the roads from Tongue onward towards Inverness are SINGLE CARRIAGE. That means very slow driving.

Driving back towards Inverness I feel such sadness. Sadness that we are leaving Scotland, sadness of the things we did not get to do which we had hoped to do and see. It is a difficult point of view to say where the "most" of anything is...but I would venture that my heart says Scotland is one of the most beautiful, friendly, loving, caring, blessed places on the face of this old earth.
Along A9, I pulled the car off to look out and listen. The beautiful Bens are in the distances and I could watch the clouds come in and out and play with the light around them. Only adding to this majesty was the wee stream that ran through the meadow with the most musical sounds of the trip.

Will we nay come back again. I think only God knows. The trip while seeming like a long time in the beginning has proved to be too short. The time together for us has been such a wonderful memory, one that I know we will always look back upon as a forever favorite.

God Bless. The End.

Change of plans today. We had planned to go to Castle Stuart one more time to play. But Dick did not want to play there because he felt his game was not up to the task of Castle Stuart with a caddie and buggy. He was telling me to play and he would just watch television (The Ryder Cup) in the lounge. Well it just did not seem right to me that with only two days left together in Scotland, I go off and play golf without Dick!

So I said to call Castle Stuart and cancel. Then to call Loch Ness Golf Course which is the course that runs outside our flat window and get us a time.

We got a time at 11am and arranged for a buggy. It was great fun!

The Pro Shop, Driving Range, Lounge, and Restaurant.

The course takes off with a dogleg left going up the hill. You continue to climb up the mountain side.
On about four of the holes, the ground had been all chewed up. I wondered what happened. Then we saw the farmer and 5 or 6 of his kids out on the fairways repairing the hoof marks. Several of their horses got out of the fenced pens and ran all over the golf course. The horses must have had a great time frolicking around the golf course with free range.

Here are the kids fixing the fairways. Horses are back inside the fences.

The views from the top were incredible, but the new camera ran out of memory. I had to put in a new SIM card.

This is the hole that runs alongside our flat at Castlefields.

Back to the clubhouse we go to the lounge for snacks and Tenants and watch much of The Ryder Cup.

Fun day!

RETREAT!

This morning was nice and lazy. Got some stuff organized and threw out a bunch of brochures that you seem to collect as you travel along. About 12:30 my tummy was saying lunch time....feed me. We decided to go down toward the shopping center where we had noticed a small restaurant (looked like fast food), Harry Ramsden. Great fish sandwich and an extensive take-out menu.

From there we headed out on A892 towards Beauly.

Tried to get some pictures of the Caledonian Canal which ends here at Beauly Firth. Looking back we could see the Inverness Bridge over the Moray Firth.



The vistas across Beauly Firth towards the Craignorms and Ben Wyvis.

Along the way, we noticed a signage to a Moniack Castle Country Wines. Well I know that the wines of Scotland are not going to be like those of California, but wanted to taste!
The entrance to the Moniack tasting room.


The winery is a family business which was started in 1979 by Phillipa Fraser. But because of government rules, the have to now outsource the making of the wines to other companies. But the recipes are the same. The wines are Silver Birch (from the birch tree), Elderflower, Plum, Cherry and Ginger. The Liquers are Plum Brandy, Cherry Brandy, Apricot Brandy, Moniack Sloe, Whiskey and Ginger. And then there is MONIACK MEAD! We tasted Ginger and Silver Birch. Lovely! Also we tasted the Whisky and Ginger. Then we tasted the Moniack Mead; a Honey Wine!
I hope you can read this history of Mead (honey wine)...it's a lovely story and explains the origins of "Honeymoon".

It was starting to rain pretty hard as we left this beautiful little roadside niche.

On to Beauly where I got a postcard (so silly) for Sonya. Then to the Beauly Priory dating from 1230 and the only remaining one of three priories constructed for the Valliscaulian order.






Back to the car we decide on a loop to take, around to Muir of Ord, Marybank, Dingwall and then back to Inverness.

At Muir of Ord we stop at the Glen Ord Distillery for a wee dram. They are fully booked for tours as they have two bus loads coming. But we are served a Glen Ord single malt 15 yr. You cannot purchase this single malt in the states; only in Scotland, Singapore and some other indonesean place.



It was a good single malt, but I think I prefer the Dalwhinnie better which is in the same family of single malts; Speyside.


On the way out to the parking lot, I saw the perfect photo op with Dick coming out of the tasting room, the fall leaves and the distillery in the background. Fumbling with my umbrella and camera and asking Dick to stop for the picture, I DROP THE CAMERA. In the crash. the camera lens was open and broke away from the camera body.

RETREAT!!! Back to Inverness where I had spotted Curry's, a store rather like Best Buy in the states. They had cameras on sale. We took a good look and went for another Kodak Easy Share M530. Of course the only drawback is that recharger connections are British style prong-outlets; and so when back home we will have to use the converters. Too funny. Life is never dull with Su Stroud around you to cause havoc!

Cheers.

Greetings! A lovely day today. I wore my new Castle Stuart Shirt and Castle Stuart pullover. Very comfy.

We were running a tad late as we pulled into the Nairn Golf Club to play with Bill McEwen and his friend Allister. It was last when we played together in 2006 when granddaughter, Branduin, was with us and walked the course with us all.

Again today, Bill set up the game as a Ryder Cup. Them (the Europeans) against us (the USA).

For those of you who don't know, Nairn Golf Club hosted the 1999 Walker Cup. Dick and I attended that tournament along with Art Dunkley. Today we learned that Nairn Golf Club has been chosen to host the Curtis Cup in 2012! Lovely!

Nairn is considered by some as regular golf until you get to #12! THEN WATCH OUT. Here is where the course takes on it's demonic dimensions.

Bill walking along the sea on one of the front nine holes, maybe #5 or 6.
Still along the sea on #7

Then you turn back to the clubhouse for a 4 par and up the hill to the Icehouse another 4 par for the 9th hole. My score here is 44 and we are 2 up!!


I believe this is Gate #11 with a farmer silhouetted against the sky.

Finally Table #12 and I still am only 2 over par and we are now 4 UP!!!


Then comes #13...Crown up the hill. Very difficult. I got a 9 and we loose the hole; 14 a double; 15 a Bogey; #16 4-par get an 8 and we are now 2 up with 2 to play.
(I am now starting to find bunkers and burns). #17 a par 4 named the Burn which I went into with my 30 yds chip shot to the green. We are now 1 up with 1 to play.

#18 I completely mess up with entry into two huge bunkers. Dick is on in 4 for 3 and Allister is on in 3. Both putt twice with up keeping the 1 up! We won again with the exact same outcome as in 2006! Great fun.

Drinks together after golf. Wonderful gentlemen and great fun today.

Staying in at the Castlefields for some leftover goodies.

On Tuesday, we drove out to Castle Stuart to meet Mark and Dede Parsinen for lunch. It has been ages since we have seen them. We caught up on much of their news. Mark continues to spend about 6 months out of the year at Castle Stuart. They still have the hotel to build and another golf course on the property. He gave us a CD that explains the "journey" in developing the golf course.

About 2pm we left and drove into Inverness. Reminisced about our times in 2006 with Branduin here in Inverness with us. After finally finding a car park, we walked across the River Ness in search of the Abertarff House which is suppose to be the association that preserves the Gaelic language and culture. We found the house next to Hootananny's but it is closed to public. Hootannany's was playing Scottish Music that night but it didn't begin until 9:30 and so we decided to skip it.


I stopped at the Kiltmakers store. They had this lovely design of the scottish thistle which I thought would make a lovely quilt. Also they had some information of the McPhail's for Linda Redman....McPhails are of the Cameron Clan.
The Oak is the symbol for the Cameron Clan.


We stopped for a 1/2 pint and a rest



Then we went back across the river to explore the museum.
They had this tartan on the floor so you could try your hand at putting on the Scottish Cape.

Came back to the flat and I cooked spaghetti and meatballs. Easy.

Wednesday we got up to play golf at Castle Stuart. We received a phone call from Bill MacEwen and because of the bad weather he was not going to play golf.

I thought we had a picture of Dick and I playing the 8th hole in the pouring rain, but apparently the caddie did not get the picture as the battery was again dead.

Castle Stuart is wonderful. Because the conditions were so difficult the scoring and the vistas were not all that they would normally be. I shot a 50 on the front with several 3 putts and a 46 on the back with a couple of pars.

It was great to play the course. We have another time set for Saturday, but the weatherperson tonight said that it would be rain on the weekend. So we shall see.