North-East Scotland

Continued from Part 2…

Thursday morning, we had a continental breakfast again then set off to the North of Inverness up the A9. We drove over the Kessock bridge, Cromarty bridge, and Dornoch Firth bridge, before reaching our first destination of Skelbo Castle.

Skelbo Castle is in a picturesque setting looking over Loch Fleet, but isn’t very visitor friendly. A walk up a dirt track past a couple of houses, a hop over a stile, a short climb up a pile of rubble, it wasn’t the easiest castle I’ve visited by far.

While it was lovely and picturesque, it wasn’t impressive or interesting enough to warrant the awkward location. Not to mention that while we were there, it felt very creepy. The sort of place people get murdered!

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I climbed back down the hill and met up with Helen again, and we got in the car to head to our next stop: Golspie, where we stopped for some lunch. We sat down at a little pub called the Stag’s Head for some lasagne and scampi, which was delicious! We also chatted to the owner and a local patron about the NC500 and Dunrobin Castle (our next scheduled stop). Lovely people, and they told us to get to Dunrobin for the falconry show at 2:30pm, so we finished up and got back to the car.

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Just five minutes down the road, we turned into Dunrobin Castle, where dozens of camper vans were parked up in the overflow car park. Luckily the castle and grounds were huge, so there was plenty of space for everyone. It was the polar opposite to Skelbo Castle.

We had about 45 minutes before the falconry show, so decided to explore the castle first. It’s privately owned, so no English Heritage discount here unfortunately, but it’s worth the price. Very beautiful and well-kept castle interior.

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The windows at the back also gave a great view of the beautiful gardens below and the North Sea in the distance.

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The most interesting story in the castle was in the seamstress’s room, also known as the haunted room, where the Earl of Sutherland locked up a young girl that he captured after battle. He wanted to marry her, but she refused him. One night he went to visit her, but she was trying to escape, climbing out the window down a rope made of tied sheets. The Earl was enraged and cut the sheets, causing the girl to fall to her death. She’s said to haunt the room now, weeping and wailing, and footsteps have been heard in the room below.

There was also a small bust of the Duke’s wife carved from stone, which had an intricate lace headscarf that was insanely realistic. The artist Matthew Noble was obviously very talented.

Tour of the castle completed, we moved outside to the gardens for the falconry show. The gardens themselves were amazing, and the castle looked even better from behind.

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The falconry show was brilliant, we had a hawk and a falcon flying centimetres from our heads, catching food tossed up by the falconer. I couldn’t get any good photos of them in-flight, the falcon was flying at 200mph! But the falconer gave us a chance to take photos at the end.

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Falconry show done, we walked around the gardens a little, and visited the taxidermists museum to the side. A big warning at the start said all the animals were hunting trophies from the early 1900’s, and some visitors have found them offensive, so there have obviously been a lot of complaints.

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The garden was split up into several sections, each of which was very geometric or symmetrical. Another quick walk around and we’d move onto our next destination.

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Back to the car, and it was another five minutes down the road to the final destination of the day: Carn Liath Broch.

A broch is an iron-age settlement, so there wasn’t much left of it when I arrived. It was awkward to get to again, parking across a busy fast road, jumping a fence, and slipping down a little hill. But again it was sitting in a beautiful surround.

The entrance and plinths over the stairs were very low, and the steps were very shallow, it gave the broch a very hobbit-y feel.

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Shortly after 4pm, we got back into the car once more and set off back towards Inverness.

Because of traffic, we got back to the city around 5:30pm, so bypassed the hotel and went straight into the city for some dinner. We were both feeling very tired though, so decided to just get a takeaway from a small burger restaurant called Coyote.

The restaurant was apparently very highly rated, so we were looking forward to some good burgers when we got back to the hotel room, but unfortunately they weren’t that great. I’d say one step up from a kebab shop burger, but at restaurant prices. Helen said hers was alright, but I was very disappointed. First place we’ve been this holiday that we wouldn’t recommend.

After some food, we had a quick walk down by the canal, then retired to the room for blogging and sleeping.