It feels like I've been typing up this trip forever, so excuse me if it feels like I've glossed over the final leg of our vacation. Here goes.
Sunday morning came with Fortune's smile: Fi & I weren't feeling too 'delicate', as they say in these parts, so we decided to drive up to Urquhart Castle, a ruin on the shore of Loch Ness. I'll admit I was apprehensive about this idea at first; a 4-hour round-trip seemed somewhat ambitious. In retrospect, though, I'm so glad we went. This early in spring, much of the winter snow on the mountains hadn't yet melted, so the drive up to Inverness through the Cairngorms turned out some of the wknd's most picturesque scenery.
Admittedly, I ripped off this pic from Wikipedia. Cut me some slack--I was driving.
This is more or less exactly how it looked out our car windows, though.
You'll be interested to know that it was on this jaunt I had my first legitimate experience behind the wheel of a British car, motoring down the left side of the road! Technically, I tried a bit on the military road below Hadrian's wall, just enough to get my feet wet, but I drove the entire round-trip on Sunday. It was very exciting--scary & very foreign-feeling at first, but I got used to it after awhile. The only times I felt like I was about to screw up were when no other cars were on the road to remind me where I needed to be. MBK +1.
Urquhart (pronounced Urk-at) Castle was very cool. It's a medieval fortress of the first degree, strategically placed so well that pretty much every military mind in the area since 1300 has tried to occupy or destroy it.
Can you find Nessie??
Toward the end of the 17th century, the Williamites finally succeeded in wrecking Urquhart to unibhabitability, so posterity was left with the fortification in its above state, preserved, sort of, for our enjoyment. Situated in the hills on a NW bank of Loch Ness, the castle headland offers a spectacular backdrop, so Fi & I snapped this:
Not bad for a 10-second timer & no tripod!
That afternoon we headed back down to Pitlochry & capped off the day with a curry. As tends to result from a meal of that ilk, Sunday evening found us too fat to get up to much else beyond hotel TV & early bedtimes. Monday morning consisted of packing up the room & bidding goodbye to our giant room & king-size bed. We breakfasted one last time at Craigatin, loaded the car, & started making our way back to England.
In order to break up the drive home, Fi suggested we stop in the Lake District to see an ancient (3200 BC!) stone circle there:
Beware bongo-playing hippies.
Castlerigg Stone Circle proved a beautiful pit-stop. Though the monument itself doesn't consist of much, some 20 or 30 massive boulders arranged in a circle, the surrounding area is extremely impressive. Castlerigg sits atop a plateau surrounded by gorgeous, green valleys & vaulting peaks, one of which, Helvellyn, is the tallest in the Eastern Fells. Great place.
I'm afraid there's not much to narrate beyond that point. Following Castlerigg, daylight was burning fast, so we booked it home post-haste. All told, it was an unforgettable trip, & I'm so glad we went. Special thanks to my special lady for all her preparation & hard work along the way. 108x
That's all, folks!
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