This weekend, the four of us travelled up to the Scottish Highlands to spend the weekend in the Cairngorms National Park and surrounds. Despite the end of our four days away ending in 36 hours of non-stop rain, it was a brilliant trip.
Scone Palace
First stop on Friday was Scone (pronounced Scoon) Palace, originally the capital of the Picts 1500 years ago which later became the seat of parliament and the crowning place for Scottish kings (including Robert the Bruce and Charles II). It is still a residential palace for the Mansfield heirs so only a few rooms are available for visiting, but the rooms we did see were gorgeous - full of ivory statues, amazing porcelain dinner sets, mammoth skulls and tea chests from China. Plus in the grounds they had a white peacock! And 13 normal ones.
And of course there were scones, so we all got one. How could we not??!
Balmoral Castle
This was such a surprisingly wonderful tour - not only were we accommodated despite being 10 minutes late, but the guide was really friendly and knowledgeable, we saw 7 red squirrels within the first 5 minutes AND it was just a lovely castle and grounds.
Our guide was as happy to talk about deer management as he was about the royal family, so we had a well-rounded overview of the estate. He pointed out where the original Balmoral Castle had once stood, told us how Prince Albert used to stand in front of the castle while the gameskeepers would rustle up the deer and make them run across the grass for him to 'hunt', and how he and the other staff have a right laugh at tourists who think the Queen is in residence when this flag is flying:
Then it was on to our extremely cosy and delightful accommodation, complete with wood-burning hot tub.
Saturday we had intended to go to Strathisla and Glenlivet for some tastings, but with the circut breaker in effect, the tastings were cancelled. We instead had a wander around the area we were staying, found an amazing cafe (Goodbrand & Ross Tea Room, cannot recommend enough PLUS they had the loveliest gift store), drove up to the Whiskey Castle (deceptively not a castle), and Glenlivet. We found some gorgeous bridges, saw some lovely countryside, drove past Tamnavulin Distillery, and thoroughly exhausted ourselves in the process. Making a fire was the icing on the cake to a lovely day.
Cairngorms Reindeer Centre
Sunday morning, we left our lovely accommodation to go and see the only wild-but-still-quite-tame reindeer herd in the UK, living in the single sub-arctic region within the country. I never realised that the deer grow their antlers anew each season - they drop off every winter. Nor did we realise that they could live in temperatures as low as -70C.
We walked for 20 minutes from the public car park to reach their enclosure, at which point we were told that they enjoyed using the boardwalks too and if they stopped, we were to hop off and walk around them o.O I was already a little nervy at that, but then when I had one hop on the boardwalk right behind me, I was definitely waiting to get an antler in the back. Turns out I *hugely* underestimated how spatially aware they are of them. Not once did I get an antler nudge.
It was an expensive experience but honestly to be so close to them, to see them in their natural habitat (and not be in Sweden, which is where this particular herd originated back in 1952), and to be able to just watch them interact with one another and the two herders - priceless.
The Jacobite train
Monday we went to Hogwarts! Well. We never got onto the right platform so this train only took us as far as Mallaig and back, BUT it was a joyful trip nonetheless. But just in case Dementors came along, we made sure to have some chocolate frogs to keep our spirits up.
This was one of those bucket list things Sarah and I had been wanting to do from the start of the year and seriously doubted if it would ever happen with Covid. We had rescheduled it three times but this third time was definitely the charm!
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