Highland Adventure Part IV (journey home)

Coming back through Fort William we took a gondola up to the top of one of the mountains in the Nevis mountain range. Here we had a view of Ben Nevis (the largest mountain in Britain) as well as the beautiful surrounding scenery.


At the top of this mountain in the winter is a ski hill, there was no snow yet. Some of the signs here boasted of clothing rentals for those not equipped with proper snow gear.
We hiked up to a viewpoint and I then took out my small bottle of Glenfiddich and had a wee nip to warm up because the wind was quite cold.


The rest of the trip was getting back down in the gondola overlooking crazy mountain bike trails and driving along the winding roads through Glencoe and Loch Lomond,


It was all really just a blur of country roads on the way back home. Below is a few highland cows grazing in a field.

Highland Adventure Part III

Driving back along Lock Ness, we stopped to see the sights of Urquart Castle. Going in to see the ruins was a bit pricey. All we really wanted was a cool picture. So we took this picture from the parking lot and walked around a bit. We didn't get to walk amongst the ruins, but we got to see them. With an entire day of walking around battlefields and standing stones, it was nice to stand back for a little bit.

I stuck my feet in the water as bait for Nessie. Ideally I would have been swimming but I forgot my wetsuit, then again I probably would have still been too frozen to put my face in the water for any length of time. As I waded out into the water I noticed a couple of hungry swans drifting over for a bite to eat. I yelled to Paul to get the bread out of the car so they wouldn't attack me (yes, it is common for a swan to attack). The most aggressive swan we named "Nessie".

Paul kept throwing the bread closer to me and I was afraid the swans would go for my toes. Can you tell I was a bit afraid at the moment my picture was getting taken with "Nessie".

This is how close the swan got to us... eek, it must get people around here to feed them quite often. It stood up and flapped it's wings at us as to indicate that it was hungry.

There's no sand on the banks of Loch Ness, Only various sizes of stones. The stones are slippery with algae which makes it hard to walk around while in the water. Even though it was much different than Okanagan Lake in many ways, I felt at home here. The legend of Nessie and the Legend of Ogopogo brought together as I (a local Okanagan girl) steps foot in Loch Ness. The home of Nessie, visited by someone from the home of Ogopogo.

Trip to the Highlands (part 2, Culloden)

A hop skip and a jump away from Clava Cairns is Culloden Battlefield, the last hand to hand battle that took place on British soil. The battle was between the the Jacobites and the English Government army. The young and inexperienced Bonnie Prince Charlie lead the Jacobites all night through the fog so they could ambush the English while they slept, but they got lost on the fog and ended up in Culloden. That morning the battle began and 700 Jacobites were killed in under the space of an hour. They were up against canons, grapeshot, mortar shells and musket fire as they charged at the government troops with their swords and targes. After the battle the government army killed the jacobite wounded who were hiding in a barn and they also killed some onlookers and curious highlanders who came to the battlefield afterwards because they wore highland clothing, it was hard to tell if they were in the battle or not.


Stone markers mark the places where the clans were buried, identified by their cap badge. Their cap badges didn't look like the kind of cap badges that we wear for pipe bands, etc today. they more looked like a very flattened coin with holes through it to sew it onto clothing. People started to visit Culloden quite soon after the battle and ever since has become a place of pilgrimage. Items that have been found on the battlefield are displayed in the visitor centre. There was everything from bayonets and various musket balls to lost buttons, coins and a small key to wind a watch.
The victorians loved coming to Culloden, they would pay their penny to enter the field and then maybe pay a little more so they could take something back with them (like a bone fragment, musket ball, or anything they could find).... "ugh, victorians" Culzean had to restore the ceiling from where they bored a hole straight through the neoclassical artwork painted on it to put up a gasolier.... and now I hear that they took bone fragments away from war graves.... It makes me cringe to think of how naive they were that they didn't think to preserve places for future generations. Which brings me to the topic of us and how much garbage we produce and how we should start being more "green" but I digress....
Here are some more photos of Culloden, a solemn place that marks the end of the clan system in Scotland, the battle that lasted under one hour and shook Scotland forever. I'll end my writing here so you can tour through my photos.

Trip up to the Highlands

So my parents have come out to Scotland and we've been taking them all sorts of places. I have always wanted to go to Inverness, so we planned out a few places to go to and brought ourselves a picnic. All of us woke up bright and early at 4:30 AM so we could fit everything we wanted to do into our schedule.
We arrived at Clava Cairns for the sunrise and walked among the cairns and standing stones in the beautiful little wooded area just off a country road close to Inverness. It was quite secluded, we had the area to ourselves for awhile and saw nobody but a man walking his dog as we were leaving. Many of the stones aligned with the rising sun like the one in the picture above and below.

Totally worth going in the morning, I was so excited! However, the stones are aligned to the setting sun as well. The cairns especially are lit up on the inside when the sun sets during the winter solstice.

This stone was my favorite..... or "stones" as it seems like it's two stones put together. We could get some really interesting pictures and I think that Clava Cairns deserves a blog of it's own and I'll blog about the rest of the adventure later.

You can see the large burial cairn in the background, there are three of them, two you can walk into because they have openings. The cairn in the middle doesn't have an entrance even though it has an open space in the middle (kind of like a doughnut)

Here's the first one showing the entrance.

This one was incorporated into the fence and another stone from this same circle is on the other side of the road.

How many times do you get the chance to take a picture of your own shadow this clear? I thought it was pretty darn cool.

This is going to be the front half of the sweater that I am currently knitting for my father-in-law. It's my first sweater and I'm not sure how it is going to turn out. Hopefully I have the gauge right. I think it might be a little bit too small, but that may just be because I am worrying about it. The front is going to have a zipper and it is also getting a garter stitch collar. There's three different fish on the back piece of the sweater, that should be interesting. Anyway, I will have it done for Christmas and if all goes well it will be a Christmas gift.
I have just completed a pattern for the kilt socks that I'm going to be making, I just have to knit one and see if it looks like what I want it to. I should have my mittens from the Llama wool I spun last year ready for winter. I'm using the Bella Mittens Twilight pattern from ravelry. I really need to catch up with the times and read that book or watch the movie. At least I finally read Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. That book was a bit depressing but I still liked it because I liked the movie so much (how can't you not like a movie with Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.... oh and..... not to mention the young Kirsten Dunst, I remember watching this movie again after watching Spiderman and I couldn't believe it was her).

In the Band

First of all I'd like to point out that my daughter took this picture. She loves taking pictures, in fact, she fought over it so she could take my picture, it's a good picture and her finger isn't even in the way.
Anyway, the pipe band I've just joined had a gig at Culzean, this was my first time playing in the band as well as the first time for a couple other tenor drummers. The day started off with a picnic in the park with another pipe band from the Isle of Arran. The kids enjoyed running around and playing with the other kids that were there.

We marched and played through the castle's ruined archway (which actually isn't a real ruined arch, it was built to be symbolic of the Kennedy family's long lineage when the castle itself was built) and walked along to the front doors of the castle where we played and waited for the other pipe band to get there. We took turns playing different tunes and then did some mass band playing in the fountain courtyard. There was quite a good turn out of spectators which was great. It was meant to rain today but thankfully it held off while we were there.





The above two pictures are taken from the fountain courtyard and the video is from right in front of the castle. I'm the tenor drummer in the green jacket, in fact, I am the only tenor drummer in the green jacket so it is hard to miss me.


And if anyone was wondering how Paul did in his race the other day I am glad to inform you that he did not push himself to the point of exhaustion and injury, he stopped when he realized that "nutrition stations" meant water, redbull type energy drinks and chocolate bars. When all he brought with him was a camelback full of water, he was going nowhere fast. Quick tip if your racing in Scotland.... bring your own electrolyte supplements, powerbars and gels.... relying on "supplied nutrition" is too risky. Paul didn't give up quickly though, he did run 22 miles, he said at some points it was so steep he was crawling up the hill in cow patties and sheep manure. He would also like to add that he slipped in a cow patty and that it was "good fun" he also fell into a number of puddles and sunk an unstable stepping stone thus soaking himself up to his ankles. Some of the course was through a thick overgrown forest full of nettles and thistles which "whipped him in the legs" as he ran through them.... oh but did I mention that he said it was "good fun".

Long Weekend

So it is the long weekend here in Ayrshire, it's only a local holiday and the horse races are on so it is quite busy in town. We can barely get into the Tesco parking lot due to all the traffic going to the races. Anyway, up top is a picture of Burns Square. The statue is of Robert Burns, it's right outside Blockbuster.
Paul is running his 44 mile race as I type this and I wish him all the best. I'll be sure to update on how he did, it rained a little yesterday so I assume that the running trail is a bit muddy.
Tomorrow I play in the pipe band here for the first time, we're having a picnic before we play so I hope the weather holds up.

Here is a bit of a meal that I made up for myself last week and decided to take a picture of because it's a couple of my very favorite foods. Local smoked salmon and brie cheese with Jacobs cream crackers. mmmm mmmmm good!

Walking along the river Ayr path I found quite a very confusing sign post. There is an ordinary sign of a bike surrounded by a circle to indicate to me that this is a cycling route. There's no line through it, just an open circle with a bike. Then above that sign is one that says "No Cycling", and I thought,"oh my, that's odd, I should share it on the blog". Imagine if I didn't know how to read English? I mean, I know that the word "no" is quite universal but still, why not put a line going through the bottom bike signpost so it doesn't look like the cycling route signs. I also think that route would actually be very nice for bikes if it were widened and had room for walkers as well, not to mention safe. The roads here are terribly dangerous for cyclists.
This sign also brings me to another realization that I embarrassingly stumbled across at a rest stop along the motorway. We went through the main doors that brought us into a foyer where there were doors to go into bathrooms and around to the left was a Burger King. We ate at the Burger King, sitting near the window facing out toward the parking lot. When we finished I noticed there was a door for the Burger King with the usual green signs of a man running out the door that I had seen at all the exits we used in the airports here as well as many other shopping malls and stores. I thought it impractical to go out of my way to use the main exit so I decided I would use the restaurant exit straight out to the car park that was right next to us. I proceeded to open it and hold it open for everybody else that we were with to walk out with me. They just stood there with shocked expressions on their faces, like "why on earth did you do that"? Paul was with me at the time and he said, "Um... that's a fire exit". I couldn't believe it could possibly be a fire exit, there were no big red words on it to say that it was a fire exit and I said so. Then everyone pointed out that because I had to push a bar to open the door, it was a fire exit and "everybody knows that". Just about every door is like that in Canada so I figured they were joking, then I looked at the boy's face just staring at me from behind the counter with the expression of panic mixed with fear of not knowing what to do on his face. So I exited through that door and everyone else went the long way, who cares if by pushing open a door I apparently automatically triggered a silent alarm that sends a message to the fire department.

I came across this interesting little headstone at a local cemetery we walked through the other day. On it is a ship with the skull and crossbones over it. I've been told that when there's just a skull and crossbones on a headstone, the person died of plague. This one, however, looks different from the other ones. I don't think it could be a pirate's grave because it's in a kirkyard. It could just be a sailor, but why the skull and crossbones? Did the sailor die of a disease acquired while on the sea?


These are quite a few old flags that were in the church that we visited during open doors days about a week ago. This is the church that Robert Burns' family went to at one point in time. Below is where they would have sat. I began wondering if it was in this very church that inspired Robert Burns to write "To a Louse" seeing as it was written after "seeing one on a woman's bonnet at church".
anyway I thought I'd share this picture along with the headstone up top because the very loft that I was standing in was the sailors loft, where all the sailors sat during Sunday service.

Nice Days

Over the past couple weeks we've been getting some really great weather here. So I could say that I haven't been putting on many posts because I've been out in the sunshine(and I have) but that's not all entirely true. The reason I haven't been making too many posts these days is all up to pure laziness (I hope that's spelled right because it looks funny, but my spell check says that's the way it's spelled so I'll move on). Anyway, from now on I'll try and make a conscious effort to write and upload pictures, because pictures are the best part really.

This is our "party bucket", it is an on the go bbq that we use for our picnics. It was an amazingly nice day out so we decided to take the family out to the park and treat ourselves to some Aberdeen Sirloin steaks (I think they were sirloin...oh well they were from Aberdeen anyway) and we also had corn on the cob. It was a great meal, as you can see we have our wind guard up because it had started to get a bit windy out but that was fine. Recently I've been getting bit by all sorts of different bugs and the wind seems to keep them away.

This is a tree that was close by, the kids tried to climb it but it's much too big for them. The park was great for a picnic and we hope to go there again. However, there are no picnic tables so we would have to go at a time when it has not rained for a wee bit, and that barely ever happens here. I suppose if we are desperate, we could take bin bags with us and sit on them.......

A post for the sake of a post

My oh my, I haven't made a post here in awhile. Not too much exciting has been happening so I haven't been taking any pictures, it's been really nice out so I'm able to hang the washing outside.... I'm sure nobody wants pictures of that. I've been slowly working away at knitting a sweater so i haven't done much with my hand spun yarn yet. I'm hoping to collect some plants for natural dyes, I read that dandelion roots make magenta, onion skins make brown or yellow and dark green nettles make green. Then again I don't know for sure if I would enjoy collecting stinging nettles. I thought it would be pretty cool to try experimenting anyway, and why not if the stuff I need is readily available from the garden or grocery store already.
So anyway, Paul has been up to quite a lot. He's been building up his fitness by playing hockey and running. He's recently signed up for a 44 mile run along the river Ayr. I think he might be starting up a blog about what he's up to with training, fitness and nutrition to show how one prepares for ultra distance racing. Hopefully we can get a video blog going for him. Go Paul! and good luck, you'll need it.

Camping in the Glen

On Friday we all decided that we were going to go for a big hiking and camping trip on the Isle of Arran. We packed our backpacks full with our tent, sleeping bags, food, clothes (with our waterproof jackets of course), cooking supplies, etc. We even packed the kids their own little backpacks so they wouldn't feel left out.
We took the ferry at 3:15 from Ardrossan to Brodick. These ferry's go to all the different islands in Scotland, so signs inside the boat were labeled in both English and Scottish Gaelic. The ferry only took about fifty five minutes to get across and we were on our way.

The day was absolutely beautiful and surprisingly warm, we just hoped that the wind wouldn't be too threatening but threatening enough to keep the midges away.

It took no time at all to hike up to the start of the Glen Rosa trail. There was a traditional camping area with facilities where people normally went to go camping, but we felt the need to hike the full trail and camp along it during the night so we could finish it in the morning.

The trail kept going and going and we saw some suitable dry flat areas that we could camp at but went by them and thought that we would be able to find some more good areas further up. Unfortunately we didn't find a suitable place, the ground kept getting wetter the further we went into the glen and the trail came to an end where it had been washed out by the river. We had no choice at this moment in time to turn back and head for the places that we had spotted before. It grew darker on our way back, so Paul put on his headlamp and the kids and I had flashlights. The kids loved the full day of hiking, there's something about kids and nature that go together. They were well behaved, started using their imaginations and saw many things they had never seen before.

A three inch long caterpillar we saw along the trail
Hiking with the darkness falling upon us gave the glen a different feel to it. The moon was high in the sky giving us a good amount of light, different bugs began to emerge, as well as a frog which I mistook for a mouse at first that gave me a bit of a fright(it was getting dark, okay). My son was making stories about ghosts even though he could not tell us what a ghost was. We looked behind us at the mountain and noticed a couple of lights far up the mountain which we assumed were campers, how they got there we don't know because it was at least a couple miles past the point that the trail stopped for us.
Trecking along with flashlights actually reminded me a lot of girl guides. The kids enjoyed that part of the journey the most. Soon enough we got to the point to put up our tent, the kids held the flashlights and Paul and I quickly put the tent up. It was really simple to construct and in no time we were all ready for a good night sleep.... however, it didn't quite end up that way. The kids fell asleep before the wind picked up. Our tent held up great, but there was a cover at the top of the tent that would not stop flapping, no matter how much we got out and tried to tie it down. On the bright side, if we didn't get out to deal with the tent we would not have seen all the stars and how amazingly bright they were. With all the opening and closing of the tent, we let a lot of midges in. Midges are as tiny or tinier than a fruit fly but they've got bite! I saw one on my arm and thought it was a fruit fly, then went to flick it away when it bit me and hung on until I had to brush harder at it. They're nasty little things and unlike most mosquitos, they like to go for the mouth, nose and eyes.
Anyway, at some point we finally fell asleep.

The waterfall near our campsite
We woke up and took down the tent, then walked a little way to a bench and cooked our porridge for breakfast. It was nice to sit amongst the scenery like that with our little portable cooking stove. we couldn't see too much of the mountains though, because the clouds had rolled in overnight.

We made our way out and along the shore to a play park for the kids, in which we all dropped our bags and hopped on the seesaw, to the relief of Paul and I's backs and legs. Despite the long hike, the kids were still filled with energy in the play park and even more so when we sat down at a picnic table for an early lunch of steak and guiness stew as well as chicken and dumpling stew.

When we saw the ferry coming in from Ardrossan we got some chocolates from the little shop along the way... I got one that looked like a frog because it reminded me of the one off Harry Potter when his frog chocolate jumps out the window...
Our next camping excursion will most likely be in an area more sheltered from the wind.... that camp site at the beginning of the trail might have been a little more ideal after all, when we went by that area the wind didn't seem so strong... we'll see for next time.