Day 32 Rivers and Valleys

Up early as we have a big day ahead, Paul is the tour guide today. Being our driver and Pauline our tour conductor.... ha ha .....

We spent the day going from one little village to another little village, each one having its own character!

Our first stop was to see an Ospreys nest with baby chicks, mind you the only way I could see them was from a distance with my telephoto lens... but I could see them with that..apparently they return every year....

Then onto our next village Forfar, Glamis which had a massive Castle but as it was so big we didn’t have time to spend there so a look from afar to capture my shot, onto Dunkeld stopping to see a wonderful old bridge....From here to Pitlochry for morning tea, what a gorgeous little town it as.... Had a water wheel going by a running atream through the town, old Inns and of course the Heather gem Factory... How interesting was that see how they were made from the Heather plant stalks, spun in a tumbler to get the leaves and twigs off, then cut into the the same lengths bundled together, dyed then dunked into Resin, compressed into a block, let set then cut into slim slabs, from there into shapes and made into Jewellery.... so, so interesting....A wander around to see sime if the old buildings then back into the car to head to the Fish Ladder and Hydro Power Station....

Sights around the Valleys and Mountains with snow still in deep pockets from winter... Pauline said they wouldn’t totally melt at all...

The views up the river and down the river, seeing the ponds that are in fact the ladder process each one getting a little higher than the last... This is where the Salmon spawn every year.... they are countered as they enter the ladder process so they know how many fish each year make the journey.... it was so interesting and great views up and down the river....

What constantly blows John and I away is the sheer number of people walking, riding push bikes or Motorbikes, Golfers....and now in this area it’s Salmon fishing men.... fascinating to see so many rain, hail they are out there in droves.

Another bit of trivia, regarding golfers, a Golf links has no trees just all open, Golf Course has trees.... there you go bet not many new that... because there are so many golf course about, John asked Paul about it and he is a man who knows his trivia told John all about it...

Back to the Car, travelling along through the Blairgowrie area with snow capped peaks in the mountains surrounding the Village.... onto the back of Pitlochry a small area called Moulin but passing a lovely Whiskey Distillery, but again very expensive to go into it.... Scotland now has a Zero Tolerance on Alcohol whole driving, so you can’t even have a small glass of a drink and drive.... A lot of pubs have shut down, due to the strict laws.... sadly for many small communities it is the case....

Anyway back to our last stop or we though.... This was to be our late lunch... at the 1695 Moulin Inn, meal was ok nothing to rave about but so amazing sitting in these old, old venues still in use.... Across the road what is now a heritage centre but was an old church with a cemetery... it has an old bell sitting on a stand made in 1745 I think it says... but again very old...

I think we had a stop at Kirkton a neat little town... on a Loch again what looks like lots of history and it had a huge Castle in the area we just couldn’t go to with our time limit.

After eating our very late 4pm lunch we set off for home via Kirriemuir to see JM Barrie’s grave site, he wrote Peter Pan... what an interesting Grave yard the trees all neatly trimmed and hedged around so many of the graves...

We finally made it home, all a bit tired from our big day, late dinner of toasted sandwiches and soup for me...

Very grateful for Paul taking us in this big days outing it’s been lovely staying with friends...

The days are flying that’s for sure and finding time to keep up with all my duty’s of pics and blog is getting harder and harder I hope by the time we get to Bavaria I can get everything sorted... 7 months of this daily routine is sure going to keep me on my toes.Read more