16 April 2023
Today Roger got to sit back and relax while we went on a minibus tour. There were only 11 of us on the tour, and we had a very knowledgeable and amusing tour guide in a kilt called Harrison. It turned out that Harrison was from south England and had only been in Inverness for 2 months, but he had lots of interesting stories to tell us. Apparently he reads for an hour every night to increase his knowledge of Scottish history and the local area.
Our first stop was at Loch Ness to take a boat ride over to Urquhart Castle. The lake was very calm and it only took us about 30 minutes to reach the castle. The castle itself is about 800 years old but has been uninhabited since the late 1600s. It consequently fell into ruin and was largely forgotten about until 19th century painters and poets started regarding it as a ‘romantic ruin’, and its popularity increased. Harrison picked us up from the castle (he had driven around) and we headed off to a little village called Beauly for lunch. Beauly had a Valliscaulian order of monks and the ruins of the priory still remain. The church itself has lost its roof, but somehow it made it very atmospheric to explore – all of the trappings were gone and you are left with the shell of the building plus all of the monuments and graves within. The walls still had all of the sinks, shelves, cupboards, and the holy water stoup intact. It was a very interesting place to explore and not somewhere that we would have gone if it wasn’t for the tour.
Much to Roger’s delight, the next stop was The Singleton Distillery at
Glen Ord on The Black Isle. This is the oldest Highland distillery, though it
was closed for many years and has recently gone through an amazing upgrade. Rog
had a flight of three drams; The Singleton of Dufftown produced for the English
market, The Singleton of Glendullan produced for the American market, and The
Singleton of Glen Ord produced for the Asian/Australasian market. Of these
three, Rog preferred the Glen Ord, followed closely by the Dufftown one – the US
version being too sweet. Dogs seem to be welcome everywhere, and even the
distillery had free dog treats available! After the distillery, we ventured
over to the Culloden Battlefield. Today (16th April) marked the 277th
anniversary of the battle, so it was very special to be there on this
particular day. There had been some staff of the visitor centre who had re-enacted
the Jacobite’s 23 mile march last night, so they were very tired! As amazing as
the visitor centre was, Culloden Moor itself was definitely the ‘star of the
show’. We were able to gain a good understanding of why it was such a disaster/massacre
for the Jacobites – they really had no chance of victory in the marshland that
was so ill suited to their fighting style. We found the marker for the Stewarts
of Appin, who Roger’s Badinscallie Stewart family are rumoured to descend from –
more research needed to confirm this! The building that the English army used
for a field hospital still stands and has been preserved. Last stop for the day
was at Clava Cairns. These cairns and stone circles are about 4000 years old,
and Diana Gabaldon used these standing stones as part of her inspiration for
the Outlander series. There were plenty of people, mainly women, touching the
large stone in the hope of finding Jamie! Alas, it seems to be fiction after all.
Again, this is probably another place that we wouldn’t have visited if it wasn’t
for the tour.
After ending the tour back in Inverness, we ventured out to a local
establishment for a pub dinner and some local folk music courtesy of two young guys
with a guitar and an accordion. Very talented and an interesting way to finish
a Sunday evening.
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