Friday: From Kilmartin to Kingussie

Today was to be a pretty leisurely day with about 130 miles up to our next stop. We had a long chat over breakfast with th owner of the hotel, who was also acting as cook/chef for breakfast/lunch/dinner. He provided French press coffee with brown toast n the rack, 2 eggs, 2 sausage, 2 pieces of ham, beans, potato pancake quarter, baked tomato, 3 mushrooms. No haggis today and we declined the black pudding. Way too many calories, but then we have been going without lunch after such a large breakfast with a few cookies to tied us over until dinner.

Place is for sale as he and the wife want to move down country to England/Wales to be closer to the family/grandkids. Historic building in need of a little repair with pub and 4 rooms plus one self catering "stable" unit for 279K pounds sterling, I think. Anyone interested?

We hung around for a while to figure out where we were stayhing next. Last eve, we secured lodging for today and Sunday, but we still needed Saturday. Monday will will be taking the ferry to the Orneys for 3 nights out there, so we will be good for a while. We find that we are rambling based upon where we can get lodging now. Tourist pressure is still quite high. The owner of the Horseshoe Inn says this is the best year since 2009, and they have been full for months. One couple stayed in the lobby trying to find lodging on Isle of Skye hours he said and then finally acceptd something for more than 200 pounds / night! We are hoping things settle down a bit as mid-season starts to wind down after Orkneys.

Turned out to be an absolutely cracking day with lots of sunshine any a bit of shower as we drove

After the hotel we travled back into the Kilmartin glen to stop to see a few sites we missed yesterday. The first site was called Dunadd [ http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/kilmartin…] , a 600-800 Irish-Scott and Pictish fort on top of a knoll overlooking the glen from the South. Beautiful day with goreous views from atop the stoney outcrop. Petroglyph slab on top had a Pictish boar and a footprint. Footprint was supposed to be where the early kings were installed.

We then traveled back up to the top of the glen to the Carnasserie Castle [ http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/kilmartin…]. Quite an impressive househould for someone of the church in the 1500's. Had holes in the side of the building to support guns and muskets firing during battle. But not enough to save the building from being torched in the late 1600's during an uprising.

We then went back to the bottom of the glen (thinking that perhaps we would be leaving from the South) to see the cup/ring petroglyph panel at [Archnabreck https://the-hazel-tree.com/2016/04/05/prehistor…]. Unfortunately with the overgrowth of moss and the lighting, it was difficult to make out.

By 2pm, we were finally off for Kingussie a trip that took 4 hours. We traveled back through Oban, watched the tide rush back in up the loch at Fort William. Unfortunately, there was a "ride across Britian" bike ride going on from about 20 miles South of Ft William, which made driving challenging for Peter trying to get around 2-6 riders at a time in 4pm traffic.

North of Ft William, we traveled off to the Northeast to go up along a loch to get back over the highland to the valley to the East where we had been earlier. As we neared the crest of the drive, traffic was stopped. A motorcylist had just driven off the road into the side of the hill, hopefully, missing a major road sign. We are hoping that he was not badly injured. We ad watched many motorcylist today just screaming down the road with abandon and wondered whether or not he might have been similarly riding.

We were happy to finally make it to the lodging reserved for us in a lovely old house. The owners suggested a pub downt the street for dinner and we decided to try it. Quite the local pub. Locals bellied up to the bar drinking away. One person was ordering a Budwiser every 15-20 minutes the entire 2 hours we were there. I will discuss current alcohol limits in another entry later.

A minor pub altercation as quickly ended with the bartender and several of the patrons who forced the issue outside. Dog friendly bar with at least 4 dogs with masters. I had the local Plaice, the flat fish I had seen swimming at the aquarium last week and Peter had the lamb burger with the ever present "chips".

Tomorrow we will be moving up to the coast and then a bit West of Inverness stopping to see a few sites along the way.Read more