Invergordon

I met Dawn through my newsletter. Last fall, we exchanged emails about historic cemeteries. Today we met in person, and she took us for a unique whirlwind tour of the Scottish Highlands.

What a special day!

For those who don’t know, every Sunday, I send an email with news and tidbits about historic cemeteries, and Dawn is a subscriber. (If you’re interested in receiving it, drop by my website TuiSnider.com and click on “free book.)

When Dawn saw on FindPenguins that Larry and I were visiting her neck of the woods, she offered to show us around! She met us at the cruise port in Invergordon and gave us a wonderfully unique whirlwind tour.

First, she whisked us to the picturesque Urquhart Castle ruins on Loch Ness. As you can see, it was quite a sunny day which prompted her to warn, “Don’t get the wrong idea about Scottish weather. We never have days like this.”

Our next stop was Culloden Battlefield, where a bloody battle on April 16, 1746 put an end to the Jacobite uprising which sought to restore the Stuart monarchy to the royal throne.

In less than an hour, 1600 men were slain at Culloden, and 1500 of them were Jacobites. Afterwards, the Highland clans were persecuted. Even their tartans and pipes were banned.

After that solemn slice of history, we dropped by Cawdor Castle, which looks like something out of a fairytale and is mentioned in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

I don’t know the story behind the cute red “gypsy wagon,” but it reminds me of the one I used to live in many years ago.

I’ll also have to ask Dawn the name of that distant castle in these photos. Sinclair? Andrews? She will know.

Before she dropped us off at the end of our busy day, Dawn remarked that we really had taken both the high and the low road that day adding, “That is, if you’re familiar with the song,” to which I began singing, “You take the high road and I’ll take the low.” (My dad used to sing that song when we’d go hiking.)

I’ll share more about our fun day with Dawn in upcoming posts! (As you can imagine, we also visited a couple of historic cemeteries along the way, of course.)Read more