Ancient Start and Modern Ending Today

What a blustery morning!

Stop 1: a visit to Balnuaran of Clava. This pre historic site has four cairns and three stone circles and dates to roughly 4000 years old. The cairns were used as burial sites for the most important members of the community. It is similar to Newgrange, which we visited in Ireland.

Stop 2: Culloden Battlefield. This was the final battle of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion and the effort to return the Stuarts (Catholics) to the throne. Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped from the battle and fled to the Isle of Skye where Flora MacDonald helped him escape from from the British.

Stop 3: Castle Roy or Red Castle is a simple 13th century fortress atop a small hill. It is one of the oldest of its type in Scotland.

Stop 4: Blair Atholl Watermill is a working mill. They make their own flour and oatmeal then use it in their daily baking. The sandwiches were delicious! The man working the mill explained how they have not been able to do anything in weeks due to the drought. He told us he hoped we didn't bring "Dreadful Donald" with us. Told him we were trying to escape him - for a bit at least!

Stop 5: Pitlockry Dam was interesting. This dam and loch series produces 20% of all the hydroelectricity in Scotland.

Stop 6. The Queen's View at Loch Tummel. A lovely view NOT actually named for Queen Victoria but rather Robert the Bruce's wife.

Stop 7. Fortingall Yew Tree - this may be the oldest living thing on 🌎....it is somewhere around 3000 years old (although there are claims it may be even older). The small posts in the ground show what the diameter of the tree was at one time. Eventually, it was closed off because people kept taking parts of the tree!!

Stop 7: Dinner at The Ferryman's Inn. Lovely spot right on Loch Tay.

Stop 8: After dinner, we checked into our room for tonight. Our hosts are wonderful! After hearing we planned to go see Tomnadashan Mine, David offered to be our tour guide and take us.

Stop 9: Fantastic experience seeing what remains of the Tomnadashan Mine and getting there in a fab old Land Rover!
This mine was an economic hope for this area in the late 1800s but it ended up not producing the copper expected and was closed down. It became famous because of Monty Python fans. This is the location of the killer rabbit scene.

David and Joanna have a non profit called Hope Full. They are doing a lot of work in Ukraine currently helping feed people from their pizza trucks and training Ukraine soldiers how to help other Ukraine soldiers with PTSD. Czytaj więcej