Our Scotland 2005 Trip

Scotland Trip 2005
September 12th - September 26th

Visit this Scottish Girl's Blog at http://www.stormskies.com/OpenDoor/
or her Storm Chasing Homepage of www.stormskies.com!!!

This page is primarily for all our friends and family who have been asking to see pictures from our trip to Scotland, which we concluded on the 26th September, 2005. This is really just a summary page - nothing very eloquent - just so that I don't have to lose my voice telling everybody about our stories and the general gist of what we did while on our trip. We hope you enjoy the images and stories of what we got up to across the pond.....

If you wish to follow our travels in detail, go here: Ordnance Survey, and click on "Get-a-Map". It will provide you with an interactive overview of any area of the UK that you wish to see. Ordnance Survey maps are renowned for their accuracy and detail.

(I may update and fill this page in with some more of the details of our trip - but it's mainly a short résumé for those who we wish to tell what we got up to over in Scotland!!)

As of October 26th, 2005, I have added a small selection of some of our best images from our trip to Scotland! Please scroll down and look for text of this color to find hyperlinks to our images!

Karen

All photographs contained herein are ©/All Rights Reserved Karen E. Leszke. Any unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited without prior written consent. For information, please contact via email - karen@stormskies.com to discuss.
Thank you.

Day 1: Monday, September 12th, 2005. Day of travel. Continental Flight 2557 from OKC Will Rogers left at 9.40am. Aircraft was an Embraer RJ145 - with a limited seating plan of 2 seat, an aisle, and one seat. This was my first flight in almost 3 years - I was nervous. We flew over Lake Thunderbird and Norman on the way out.

6-hour layover in Newark. We caught a private bus service called the Newark Liberty Express from Newark Liberty Airport to Grand Central Station, and exhausted ourselves walking around Manhattan for a few hours. The bus ride back to the airport at rush hour was......interesting. We got photos of ourselves standing near the Empire State Building!

(Our photos - Karen in NYC!!)

Flight CO36 from Newark left for Edinburgh at 7.55pm. It was a 757-200ER, and too small of a plane for an Atlantic crossing. It should have been at least a 767. The flight was overnight in darkness, and very boring. I did not sleep a bit. Fortunately, unlike the return-flight, it only lasted all of 6 hours.

Day 2: Tuesday, September 13th, 2005. Arrived at Edinburgh airport at 7.40am after a bumpy and queasy landing. We seemed to hover over the Firth of Forth for the longest time and descended really quickly with our wheels down while still over water!! As the water fast approached, we simply assumed the pilot could see land - because we sure couldn't! Strangely enough, he could. Met up shortly thereafter with dad - so great to see him after almost 2.5 years!

Drove home in the morning - the traffic was fairly busy and the weather wasn't very flattering for my husband's first glimpse of my homecountry!! Low stratus and the odd rain shower too. We stopped off in Perth on the way up to Aberfeldy to pop into Struans and sign my name for the hire car insurance. They were really nice and knew exactly who I was. I felt like a gooseberry with my Americanized accent talking to Scottish people in my homecountry - but I couldn't help it. We then went across the road and into Tesco's for a drink and some munchies.

We arrived, via the hill road (A822/A826), into Aberfeldy around 11.00am, and went straight to dad's house to unload our suitcases and freshen up. It was really nice getting home and also getting to know dad's house a bit better! After that it was a trip round to my aunt Margaret's and uncle Alistair's place to see them for the first time in almost 3 years - and for them to meet my husband for the first time ever! My aunt and uncle, Vanda and Bob, were also there for our arrival. After a lunch of soup and bacon rolls, I started to zone out from the travel and lack of sleep, so we left them and went to visit my mum before I collapsed completely. Then it was home to dad's again to relax a bit. I fell asleep on the sofa.

(Our photos - Welcome to Aberfeldy Sign, Wade's Bridge, The Square with one of the old churches and the Royal Bank building in the background, Dad's House, The Black Watch Monument. another of The Square showing the co-operative building on the right (local grocery store) and the white building of The Birks movie theater just above-center, a shot taken from Bank Street in town showing some of the older buildings that are now hotels (The Crown) and grocery stores (Doigs/Mace).)

After dinner, after I had slept a bit and eaten roast chicken, I went out walking for the first time in Scotland in many years. I went down by the river and I enjoyed once again the delight of wild Brambles!! This autumn seemed to have produced a VERY healthy crop of them - everywhere! I walked round by the golf course along the river some more and then home as it was drizzling heavily and getting dark. By 9pm we were in bed.

Day 3: Wednesday, September 14th, 2005. We had arranged with my mum to spend the first week during the day with her, and today we thought we'd do something gentle like go over to Pitlochry. My Great Aunt Kate lives in Pitlochry, and we planned to visit her, too. There was plenty of sunshine interspersed with the odd cloud, and it was fairly windy and mild. We stopped at a cafe at Loch Faskally and had some over-salted soup.

Visiting with Auntie Kate was wonderful and we chatted with her for quite a while. She is doing very well for her age (almost 90). After we left her house, we went over to the Hydro Electric station and fish dam at Loch Faskally. It was quite cold and windy by now, and we walked quickly across the top of the dam. We didn't go inside for the exhibition as they charged you for it.

Decided to drive home via Queen's View and the Loch Tummel area. Unfortunately by the time we got up to Queen's View the sky has almost completely milked over - so the scene was somewhat flat.

(Our photos - Loch Faskally in Pitlochry with wind-ripples on the water, a somewhat flatter-looking Queen's View than I would have liked.)

Drove home around 4.30pm and mum dropped us off at dad's house for the evening. We were still very tired, but the evening was bright and dry, so I took Gene for a little dusk drive out west and we visited Bolfracks Gardens (a must-see, the owners are very kind and the gardener is VERY professional!!). After our whistle-stop tour of Bolfracks, we shot out to Kenmore to grab a romantic moment on the beach before it got dark completely.

(Our photos - Kenmore beach as the sun sets on a serene Highland Perthshire evening, some boats float on the tranquil Loch Tay.)

Day 4: Thursday, September 15th, 2005. Glamis day!!!! Today had been touted by the crappy weather forecasts in the UK as a bad day. So, of course, upon wakening it was clearly evident to us that today was turning out to be full of sunshine and the odd dramatic shower passing - so we made our own forecast and decided that today was a day for a bigger outing. I chose Glamis Castle - the castle I loved to visit so much as a child. We left around 11.00am, and drove to Glamis via Dunkeld, Coupar Angus and Meigle. Down in the flatter valleys of Angus, we were pleased to see that the weather was just as nice, with warm sunshine, a breeze, and the odd shower highlighting the sky. We arrived at Glamis around 12.15pm, and drove down the long, tree-lined driveway with the castle looming at the end for us.

Glamis was every bit as magical as I remembered it- and it was fittingly Gene's first introduction to the world of Scottish castles!!! We enjoyed "The Crypt" (and guessing where therein lay the bricked-up room), the sitting room with a huge fireplace which has small little wooden benches built into the fireplace recess, many of the other rooms including the last one which was a form of dungeon which featured as a murder room in Shakespeare's Macbeth.
After the tour we had a drink and a cake in the tearoom, and then went to explore the grounds. The wind outside was cold but it really was a lovely day with plenty of sunshine. Gene got some wonderful shots of the castle and grounds from many different aspects.

(Our photos - Glamis Castle & flowers, Glamis Castle & Scottish thistle, Glamis Castle & old sundial which is all that remains of the old fortified walls of the grounds, Karen at Glamis, the awe-inspiring central tower of Glamis, Glamis Castle sits regally at the end of its mile-long tree-lined driveway.)

Day 5: Friday, September 16th, 2005. Today we had the hire car on our own. We took ourselves through the town in the morning and I showed Gene a few antique shops that Aberfeldy had. It was such a nice day again that we decided to make today a day for just driving round Loch Tay and visiting the Killin at the head of the Loch. We drove up the south side of the Loch on the tiny, narrow, one-lane paved road which runs from Kenmore to Killin itself. We stopped at numerous points along the way and took shots of the Loch, old moss-covered walls and the mountains surrounding us.

(Our photos - an old moss covered dry stane dyke along the side of the south shore road of Loch Tay, a classic and beautiful image of my home loch, Loch Tay.)

We spent several hours in Killin once getting there doing all sorts of enjoyable things. We got the key for the Clan MacNab Burial Grounds from the Tourist Information office, and were able to go and walk out to the island in the river where the burial grounds and crypts actually are. We also got a great view from this island of the old disused viaduct over the water. After returning the key, we went down to the Falls of Dochart and basked in the warm September sun for quite a while while Gene took video and shots of the (fairly quiescent) falls.

(Our photos - The Falls of Dochart, the River Dochart and hills, the old viaduct over the River Dochart with a rainbow.)

On the way home we acquired a puncture from an oncoming vehicle which was in the middle of the road - forcing us onto the verge and to hit a drain cover that was sticking up. It took us quite a while to figure out how to change the tire on the hire car - they had a lot of security mechanisms.

Day 6: Saturday, September 17th, 2005. Spent part of this morning trying to get the tire fixed but the local garage had ran out of the right size of tire - so we just left it on there for the hire place when it went back on Monday. Today we spent the day with mum again and didn't feel too much like doing anything too far afield - so we decided to go out to Castle Menzies - an old 17th Century Z-shaped castle and the seat of the Chiefs of the Clan Menzies. I was ashamed to say that I had never been in the castle before - and so I was also excited to go somewhere that I hadn't been before. We turned out to be very surprised and pleased with this gem of a little castle - as it is not ruinous but also not as pampered as Glamis. "In the rough" so to speak, Castle Menzies had a very old-feeling ground floor with thick, cold stone walls and lots of spider webs. We got some great shots outside of the castle from one of the nearby fields.

(Our photos - the road or driveway leading towards Castle Menzies, Castle Menzies lit by atmospheric sunlight amidst a dark sky, the imposing facade of Castle Menzies, detail of the front facing wall of the Castle under the entryway)

After Castle Menzies it began to rain, and so we took a drive up to St. Mary's Church near Grandtully. This church dates back to 1636 and has one of the finest painted heraldic murals on the ceiling I have ever seen. If you could smell history - it would be in here.

(Our photos - Karen admires the ancient painted ceiling in St. Mary's Church.)

In the evening, we returned home to dad's and prepared to go out for dinner. We ate at Farleyer House Hotel - a place I had once worked at when just out of school. I had a lot of fond memories of this place - and the food was as spectacularly good as ever. The menu, however, was a bit overrun by typographical errors. Better luck next time. We both had the venison and it was beautiful. For dessert I had a dark chocolate mousse-cake-type-thing (can't remember the technical name for it). It was good, but I expected it to taste more of chocolate than it actually did.

Day 7: Sunday, September 18th, 2005. A quiet day. Went to church in the morning (mostly to parade my husband in public - by others' request - not by my request!), and walked along the side of the river in the fields near Weem and Castle Menzies in the afternoon. The weather was beautiful - warm sunshine. Had a drink and sat outside at the Weem Hotel where I used to work on the way to my mum's house for dinner.

(Our photos - the Tay Valley with hay bales, the Tay Valley from a farm road on a different day at sunset, another looking west from Aberfeldy towards the Drummond Hill/Glen Lyon area.)

Day 8: Monday, September 19th, 2005. The start of our week spent with my dad.

Day 9: Tuesday, September 20th, 2005. Today the weather wasn't so great - dull and showery. We decided to spend today looking round one or two distilleries. Initially we took him to the Aberfeldy Distillery and Dewar's World of Whisky. They have a great place and a wonderful exhibition area - although the tour of the actual distillery is very limited and fairly inanimate. Halfway through we got a wee dram of Aberfeldy. I don't think I like the taste of it compared to some.

(Our photos - One of the huge stills in Aberfeldy Distillery, the "spirit safe" in Aberfeldy Distillery used to measure and check the purity of the water and spirit, some of the old casks in storage.)

Then after noon it was onwards over to the Pitlochry area again - we were aiming for Edradour Distillery in Moulin - the smallest distillery in Scotland. It was raining and dull as we pulled into Edradour Distillery. The tour was free, and one of dad's friends Colin ("Shortbread") took us around to show us this small, intimate, personal distillery. We enjoyed this tour the most out of all the tours we were on in distilleries. Edradour Distillery is comprised of several whitewashed stone buildings all set on the banks of their small burn which runs through the grounds. Halfway through the tour we again got offered a wee dram, and this time had a choice of whisky or their award-winning whisky cream liqueur. No need to guess which one we took!!! The Edradour Whisky Cream Liqueur is truly deserving of its awards - buy it. After this we completed the tour of the distillery and then spend ten minutes or so talking to two of the workers who we passed on the way out.

(Our photos - the entrance to Edradour Distillery, the picturesque (despite the rain) Edradour Distillery and its grounds, the two small stills in Edradour, Scotland's smallest distillery!, inside one of the mash tuns at Edradour, both of the mash tuns at Edradour, Edradour's spirit safe.)

After this, we dropped into the Moulin Brewery to see their home-brewed ales, and then sat in the Moulin Hotel for a half pint for the men because they wanted to taste the original ale. The Moulin Hotel struck me as a really good place to stay for hospitality and warm, cozy nights by the fire. It had a rich feel of history in the old building - and the outside was very aesthetically pleasing.

(Our photos - the Moulin Hotel.)

On the way out we took some pictures of this very picturesque Inn, and then we drove up north on the A9 for an hour or so to see some of the more impressive mountainous areas of central Scotland. We didn't get any further than Dalwhinnie - but it was good to go through the Drumochter Pass nonetheless. The weather was characteristically dreich, with rain showers passing - but it did provide us with some dramatic skies and views.

(Our photos - The Drumochter Pass area, one of the hilltops lost in cloud, a horse we met at Dalwhinnie, the outside of Dalwhinnie Distillery.)

Day 10: Wednesday, September 21st, 2005. Another great day for weather after the BBC's pseudo-forecasts had made it out to be the end of the world. The UK desperately needs some slackening of the confidential-data-enforcement that is currently imposed on the country by the Met. Office - they can't even get a REAL radar picture. It's so sad. So - after seeing the great weather yet again (partly cloudy, partly sunny with pretty white clouds), we called today for Fortingall, Glen Lyon and Ben Lawers. This was an area that simply had to be seen by any visitor to the area. Before leaving Aberfeldy, we took a drive up to the corner or Urlar Road - where some of the best views of my hometown and the surrounding valleys can be had. After this brief photo op., we were on our way for the day.

(Our photos - a close-up of Aberfeldy, a wider view of Aberfeldy set in the fertile, idyllic Tay Valley looking northeast with Farragon mountain far left and the Grampian Mountains in the distance.)

We first stopped at the village of Fortingall at the foot of Glen Lyon. Fortingall is home to a number of thatched cottages, and also the famous Yew Tree in the courtyard of Fortingall Church which is reputed to be 5,000 years old (it is AT LEAST 3,000 years old). This would make it the oldest living thing in Europe, if not the world. Fortingall is also legendarily the birthplace of Pontius Pilate. There is also an old Arts & Crafts style hotel in Fortingall - the Fortingall Hotel. I reminisced as we passed this building, as I was friends with the daughter and son of the Schofield family that used to own it - Louise and Richard. I haven't been able to trace them since they moved from the area in around the year 2000. We took plenty of pictures and went on our way up Glen Lyon.

(Our photos - the famous Fortingall Yew Tree sits in the Fortingall Church graveyard, Fortingall thatched cottages.)

Glen Lyon is one of the most - if not THE most - beautiful and as yet undiscovered Glens in Scotland. A narrow, one-lane road leads you up to the head of the Glen, where you come out at Meggernie Castle before the road ends up at two lochs (Loch Lyon and Loch an Daimh) which are part of the Hydro Electric scheme. On the way up we stopped several times for photographs, and to catch a cliché shot of the so-called "Roman Bridge" (also known as the Packhorse Bridge). This bridge is a real curiosity - as it spans not the main river in the Glen, but just a small waterfall tributary to the side. Some suspect the bridge itself was moved in history from its original location. After this, we came to the village of Bridge of Balgie. From this village the road branches two ways - one up to the aforementioned Meggernie Estate and the lochs at the head of the Glen, and one which was our intended route - over the mountains to Ben Lawers, and to bring us down onto the main road out of Killin on the north side of Loch Tay, and home. However, we first had to stop and partake in some tea at the tearoom in Bridge of Balgie. It is well-renowned and a watering hole for tourist travellers who have managed to bushwhack their way up this far into the sticks. I just had a drink of water. This little stop on the single-lane road of Glen Lyon sits in the hamlet of Bridge of Balgie, and at the junction between this road that goes on towards the head of Glen Lyon and Meggernie (before dead-ending at a pair of Lochs used for the Hydro - Loch an Daimh and Loch Lyon), and the other single-track road that goes up and over towards the Ben Lawers area.

(Our photos - the popular watering hole that is the Bridge of Balgie Tearoom.)

After this, we got on our way again and made a small detour up through Meggernie Castle Estate. This was party to see the grand home of Meggernie Castle, but mainly to say "hello" to my granddad in the passing. My granddad had his ashes scattered on Meggernie Estate at a point on the road and hillside where you look southeast down the entire Glen. After the war, he spent his time in Aberfeldy raising children and grandchildren, and becoming the local coal delivery man. He used to delivery coal up to Meggernie here, and this was a place he particularly loved.

(Our photos - The Roman Bridge, Highland Cow in Glen Lyon, the beautiful emerald scenery of Glen Lyon, Glen Lyon looking southeast from the top at Meggernie Castle.)

We circled around and came back into Bridge of Balgie, stopped for the toilet in the tearoom again (guilty!) and then took our road up into the treeless hills and mountains of the Meall Luadhe area and towards Lochan na Lairgie where there is a large Hydro dam in force, past the Ben Lawers Visitor Centre, and down to the A827 main road on the side of Loch Tay. It is very beautiful and wild up here - quite unique. While visiting the Ben Lawers Visitor Centre we saw a helicopter rescue take place. The Navy helicopter came off the hills with a patient, and landed on the ground with them briefly. The fact that the patient was not airlifted to a nearby hospital immediately did not bode well. In the end, it was not good news, we gathered from various sources.

(Our photos - the Lochan na Lairgie area, the rescue we saw taking place at the Ben Lawers base camp.)

We made it home, had a coffee with Margaret at her house and then went to mum's house for dinner. After dinner, we finally got around to walking round the Birks - a famous gorge walk just outside Aberfeldy.

(Our photos - one of the small tributary waterfalls in The Birks.)

Day 11: Thursday, September 22nd, 2005. Oban day!!! It had been decided that today was the day to do Oban. Of course, the BBC's weather forecast had long touted today to be glorious, so of course when we woke up and found gray skies and rain showers we were not surprised.......or jaded. It was Oban or bust today - as this was a trip that Dad really wanted us to go on. We left for Oban around 9.00am. We traveled through Killin, Crianlarich, Tyndrum, Dalmally and got to Oban around 12.00noon. We intended to do the Loch Awe power station at Cruachan, but we arrived into their visitor centre to find it COVERED in coach tours. If we weren't with the tours - we would have to wait 70 minutes for the next available public tour. Nice. We went on our way and didn't give them our business.

The weather in Oban was fair. A bright milky sky, dry, with the odd patch of blue sky here and there but not enough to make it sunny. We first toured the Distillery, and visited with the manager in his office as dad knew him. We got a dram of a publicly unavailable 32-year-old Oban - quite literally priceless!! After this is was early afternoon and we were hungry. What better place to pick up a fish supper??? We went round the corner in the charming old town of Oban and found the fish and chip shop we had been recommended. A few minutes later, we were sitting on the walls by the bay in Oban city centre, eating our fish and chips with pickled onions and lashings of vinegar! And also feeding the gregarious seagulls their share as is required........

(Our photos - the outside of Oban Distillery, the two stills of Oban Distillery.)

After lunch we walked around Oban some more, and got some retail therapy! We first visited Thornton's - a famous toffee and chocolateur shop. They were a chain, but their products were consistently of good quality. We bought some goodies for ourselves on the way home, and also picked up a bag of their famous hard toffee and chocolate truffles for folks back in the U.S. After this we did some more shopping, settling on a nice wool tartan throw cover, and then decided after another walk along the bay side that we should leave.

(Our photos - Oban and Oban Bay from the Pulpit Hill overlook (note the red and black chimney stack just left of center belonging to Oban Distillery).)

We took the Glen Coe route back home, which involved taking the A828 and the A82 back in a big loop to Tyndrum and then home the same way. I didn't remember having been this way before and so we all had an interesting time exploring Glencoe once we were there. It is a very claustrophobic and wild place. The weather for our entry into Glencoe was very good - with the odd bit of blue sky and occasional sunlight on the hillsides. Once we opened out onto the infamous Rannoch Moor it was a different story - windy and dark across the desolate area with rain showers coming more frequently and low cloud bases obscuring a lot of the tops of the mountains. In the evening we visited my mum again and chatted for a while.

(Our photos - Loch Leven & the Pap of Glencoe at the entrance to Glencoe, the famous and most dramatic pass in Glencoe (Aonach Eagach), the forbidding and infamous Rannoch Moore around the Black Mount area on the way home.)

Day 12: Friday, September 23rd, 2005. Woke today to a very heavy shower which was convectively-induced. We thought the day was going to be a washout but it quite literally cleared out spectacularly after this one heavy shower. We made an on-the-spot forecast and decided to push for one last big day out before calming down for the weekend before our trip home on Monday. Today was Dunnottar Castle day!!! Dunnottar Castle sits on huge flat-topped rock on the eastern coast of Scotland, south of Aberdeen and just south of the town of Stonehaven. I remembered the castle as a child and was insistent upon visiting it again.

We drove past Glamis Castle again on the way to Dunnottar, and shortly thereafter joined the A90 to Stonehaven on the coast. I was excited to see the vast, imposing North Sea looming at the end of our journey once we got close enough - amazing! We found Dunnottar Castle easily and spent all afternoon here taking in the majesty and rugged, primitive feel of the place. The ruins of Dunnottar sit atop and seem moulded into this huge rock.......and the castle was indeed defended successfully in military senses several times in its rich and colourful history. Dad popped into Stonehaven for some lunch and left us two to explore some more, and we took time to visit each of the two bays that surrounded the Dunnottar outcrop. The tide was coming in on the raging North Sea, and I managed to get my left foot in the water by mistake. The rock pools and crashing waves were a joy to be around - and as we were leaving we waited briefly for a rain shower to clear. hen it did, it provided us with the castle and coastline highlighted in sunlight. Definitely worth the wait!

(Our photos - Dunnottar Castle is bathed in sun as we leave, another of the spectacular Dunnottar Castle outcrop, the northern bay at Dunnottar Castle, northern bay 02, the southern bay (Old Hall Bay) at Dunnottar Castle.)

Day 13: Saturday, September 24th, 2005. Today was a quiet day and we spent it partly with my mum and then walking around town looking at more of the shops. In the evening we all got ready and dressed up and went out for a party that had been arranged by my family at the Black Watch Inn. About 18 members of my family attended and we had a great evening. After the meal and the revelry, we retired home around 11.00pm with Andy and his family and my other stepbrother Stuart and his wife Clodagh. We all had a nice chat before going to bed.

(Our photos - The Black Watch Inn.)

Day 14: Sunday, September 25th, 2005. The day before leaving for home. Spent this morning sleeping in, then went with Dad and Rosy to a coffee shop in town for a bacon roll and a huge scone and hot chocolate! The rest of the day was spent visiting family, saying a lot of goodbyes, and packing. Being a bad flyer, I wasn't feeling particularly great about tomorrow.

Day 15: Monday, September 26th, 2005. Rose at 4.45am for the dark and long drive to Edinburgh airport with dad. Didn't sleep too well. Dawn was just beginning as we got to the airport. We had some breakfast and then said goodbye to dad - it was best to get that over and done with and go through to the gate/shop area to wait until our flight time. Continental flight no. 37 left for Newark at 9.10am. We had a problem with one of the plane's lights which caused us to circle Edinburgh for quite a long time. The captain came over the intercom and told us what we had been doing and why we were now late on our way - and also said that the problem was fixed now. Not very reassuring for someone as nervous about flying as me. The rest of the flight was mind-numbingly boring and I longed for it to be over.

Arrived in Newark and got through Immigration and Customs fine, re-checked our baggage and collapsed in the airport for the remaining couple of hours before our puddle-jumper back to OKC. Landing in OKC was quite nice and the whole flight from Newark to Oklahoma City was fairly enjoyable, with views over cumulus fields to heavy thunderstorms up north. When we came in for landing over central Oklahoma the clouds had almost completely cleared up, and we had a nice view of Oklahoma as we landed. Saw a grassfire with a pyrocumulus cloud over it, too. Finally we got our feet back on terra firma (not a moment too soon!!!) and it felt good to be back home.

Karen