It was almost time to say goodbye to Scotland, but we made sure to save a few highlights, and a few favorites for the last week. We visited our last Scottish castle and garden for awhile, a globally renown whiskey distillery, and a loch known for its special inhabitant.
One Last Castle
We had a much smoother ferry on our way back to the mainland from Ornkey. We couldn’t check into our campground for the night quite yet so we decided to stop at the Castle of Mey. We have had good luck picking castles belonging to some of the bigger names throughout the history of Scotland, including the Duke of Argyll at Inveraray, Chief of MacLeod Clan at Dunvegan, and now Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother to the late Queen Elizabeth II here at the Castle of Mey. We honestly didn’t know who the owners were for any of these three castles and just picked spots on the map or saw it as we were driving. The Queen Mother purchased this castle in 1953 when it was in pretty bad shape, but she had the vision of what it could be. After just 3 years it was ready for her as her summer home.
The castle was built in 1500s by the 4th Earl of Caithness, but the 15th Earl never married and had no children by the time he died at age 30 and left it to his friend. They lived there for a time but eventually with advancing age it became too much to keep up with maintenance. After being sold a few times and being used by the army it was looking really rough. Some of the ceiling was missing causing mold damage so it was quite an undertaking to fix it up! We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but my favorite decoration was a mounted buck that wasn’t real, it was like kids toy stuffed animal! Apparently it was a gift and The Queen Mother loved a good joke.
We explored the gardens a bit, which I really loved. I realized in this one area I liked the colors so well, then I realized those were the colors from our wedding! I had everyone wear jewel tones and between the different flowers and the emerald greenery it would have matched perfectly!
We had used up enough time so we decided to drive to our campsite before making some lunch. I had tried to use the internet to get another post uploaded but it was running much slower than before. We spent the next two nights catching up on sleep where it was finally warmer, getting showered, washing dishes, writing posts, calling family, and just not being tourists. Mr. Wander did do a 5 mile hike on his own while I was writing. We also had to make another visit to the distillery and picked up some post cards, stamps, fish and chips and a burger for dinner. I look excited in the distillery because I spotted a puffin (painted on the glass).
A Wee Bit More Whiskey
Our original plan was to do the NC500 and we were originally going to go back down the west side after returning from Orkney. I had been getting tired of the smaller roads, and I had just loved the scenery when we were in Speyside before, so instead we went back to visit a few distilleries.
We booked a cheap place for the night that was only 17 pounds and it had a neat system where it would recognize your license plate by video and open the gate automatically. Super awesome! They had bathrooms and even a chemical dump spot and the lot was only half full. The beach was nice, we did a walk during low tide with a little loop by the marina, then came back to the van to book our distilleries and park-up spot for the next day.
The first stop in the morning was The Glenlivet. It was a spectacular estate and we didn’t realize until we got there that they are celebrating their 200th year anniversary! They were the first scotch distillery officially licensed back in 1824, otherwise there were brothy’s all over the Livet valley making whiskey illegally. The reason they are called “The Glenlivet” is because as they started to get recognized due to their high quality whiskey, others tried to use the name Glenlivet for the area, the Glen (aka valley) of the river Livet, even though some were up to 100 miles away.
The founder also worked to establish the legal designation of a single malt scotch, and the standards such as being aged for at least 3 years (plus one day), aged in oak, and only made from water, barley, and yeast. This tour felt the complete opposite of the one in Benriach because that was a medium size so they could do whatever they wanted. The Glenlivet is much larger and internationally known so they need to maintain the consistency of their signature brand, although they do have some experiments and limited runs.
For their signature 12 year they have half in American oak bourbon barrels for 12 years, and half in European oak sherry casks for 12 years and bring them together for their flagship style. They had an area with several different barrels of aging whiskey that we could smell: sherry, bourbon, rum, and my favorite was cognac. It was like inhaling dessert!
The tour ended with a tasting, but since I was driving I followed along with just my nose and then poured them into the drivers bottles with the little funnel they gave me.
We drove 15 minutes to the next stop, Cragganmore, and had some lunch in the van until it was time for the tour. It was just us so it was nice to be able to ask any questions along the way, especially as by this point we had started to understand the process much better. The founder of Cragganmore had worked at several of the big names around there, including The Glenlivet. That helped him learn what he liked best when developing his whiskey and especially in how the stills were shaped, which has impact on the final flavor. Check out the differences below in the 3 stills we saw from these 3 distilleries, all are their wash stills.
All three of the distilleries mentioned having been purchased by one of the larger alcohol-beverage conglomerates but this time the parent company seemed to take more of an active roll and incorporated several of the distilleries they own in speyside.
This distillery takes the process from malted barley to after the second distilling, then it’s taken to the master distillers at another location where it’s casked. Some are brought back along with some from the other distilleries as an insurance policy in case of fire or other disaster. Those on site don’t even know what barrels contain what as it’s all barcoded except for some of the older barrels from before they were purchased.
We got to pull some whiskey out of a 1986 sherry butt to decant and that became part of our tasting. There was also another we could smell nearby that was a 1999 bourbon cask, it smelled amazing. When we went back to the tasting lounge Mr. Wander received an old fashioned, and they had a mocktail version for me that was very refreshing but not at all like an old fashioned. There were two others in our tasting including their 150th anniversary blend.
We made it to our spot for the night at a community center, and I enjoyed my tastes while Mr. Wander had an apple cider. I’m not the biggest fan of scotch straight, I prefer at least a little water. Any purists out there should know that all three distilleries had a way to incorporate water into your tastings and always said it’s up to you and there’s no shame! However I didn’t like all of them with just water and I ended up pouring most into a big cocktail with a bunch of ginger ale after tasting them.
Ever Elusive Nessy
We left around 9am the next morning and started working our way to Inverness and its many roundabouts. We found a spot to fill up with gas and then headed to Loch Ness. We stopped for awhile at one spot to get a really cool view of the loch, even with all the rain and mist. Then we went to the Loch Ness center to eat some lunch. The cafe next to the center had teased pizza on some signs but they didn’t actually have any so we just made sandwiches in the van until it was time for our cruise on Loch Ness.
Our captain was really entertaining and his commentary made this a highlight for me. Our was called Deepscan, which has scanning equipment that is able to find the bottom and map it even though it’s 227 meters deep. The Loch is a really interesting shape, very steep sides and a flat bottom so nearly the entire lake is exactly 227 meters deep. The sides were so steep that at about 20ft from shore it’s already over 100 feet deep! He said there is as much water in this loch as there is in every lake in Wales and England combined. The loch is over 28 miles long, and some people will swim it in one go, as its length is the same as the English channel’s width.
The lake along with the other two down the same valley were created from a fault that runs through it and they started to move apart about 25 million years ago, on a Tuesday, just after lunch, according to our captain.
Due to the scanning capabilities of the boat they have mapped the loch for different documentaries and scientific studies and they found something peculiar several years ago. Below is a picture of the amazing discovery, they found Nessie at last!
After attempting to pull everyone’s leg for a solid minute, he switched the photo to a prop from a 1969 Sherlock Holmes film. They had a Nessy prop, which had sunk in a storm and they never retrieved it! He did talk about some of the more serious scientific studies, one as taking a 6 meter core sample from the bottom of the mud. It was surprising they could find radiation from the chernobyl disaster, from the nuclear tests in the Pacific in the 1950s, as well as several volcano events from Iceland that usually drop ash over Europe.
He took us over towards Urchart castle and gave us a bit of the history. I was glad to see it from the water as it looked very full of people but as the castle is in pretty rough shape without a roof there wouldn’t have been too much to see. Towards the end of the cruise, one of the women came up and pointed out a few waves, asking the captain and suggesting it was maybe the Nessie! He went with it for awhile but I had seen the boat it came from and he eventually pointed that out as well. He did say that it had been a low year for Nessie sightings, only 1 so far reported. They’ve had over 1000 and the first sighting reported was in the 6th century by Saint Columba who brought Christianity to Scotland. He said he saw some sort of monster, made the sign of the cross, and banished it to Loch Ness. As our captain pointed out, “he’s a saint so you have to trust him!”
That night we drove a wee 4 minutes to our campground that was near the castle. We had enough internet to do a few quick fathers day calls to our and then we headed to a nearby restaurant for dinner. I was excited to get a tasty Yorkshire pudding, I have been wanting to try it. It’s somewhat like a popover but less fluffy. We also enjoyed a few ciders and ports with our dessert.
Countless Canals
The next morning we headed to the southwest end of Loch Ness to look at a few canals and locks which connecting the other lakes in the valley. We ate a few very tasty scones next to the lock and got to watch as 4 boats worked their way through the canals. After walking around a bit we had a quick lunch of a bacon roll and millionaire short bread and then started to make our way South.
Our next stop was a 3 hours away, the Wallace Monument. If you have seen Braveheart you have some ideas of the history. The short version is that after King Edward I of England had conquered Wales, and Scotland’s King Alexander III suddenly died without a successor, he wanted to take advantage of the situation to conquer Scotland as well. He succeeded but the Scots rebelled. William Wallace was considered as the defendant of the Scottish people and helped the Scots beat King Edward’s army at Stirling bridge, which used to cross over the river you can see from the top of the tower below. Several years later the British came back with a vengeance and Wallace had to go into hiding around Scotland and Europe. Eventually he was betrayed, tortured, hung, and quartered.
We had another 45 minutes until we made it to our stop for the night which was the Falkirk wheel. They allow you to park in the lot overnight for a small fee and even had bathrooms, showers, and chemical toilet disposal, plus a discount on breakfast in the morning. The Falkirk wheel is a really cool bit of engineering that brings boats from the lake level up to the aquaducts over 100 feet off the ground. We happened to arrive just in time to watch this one lower a tour boat. From the visitor center you can buy a ticket to ride the wheel and get a little tour up and down the aqueduct.
In the morning we made it to breakfast just in time as 2 different busses had unloaded for breakfast and a ride on the wheel. We each had a scone and tea or coffee. Then we drove to the Kelpies a few miles away which are a really neat metal sculpture of horses.
After our short walk around the sculptures we headed out since we had another 3 hours to get down close to where we’d turn in the campervan. We stopped at a spot to wash the mud off the van, sort of a self wash where you put coins in the machine with a foaming brush and a pressure washer for a rinse.
We wanted to see hadrians wall but the road that would take us there was closed for construction and the signs for detours left something to be desired. We managed a U-turn and took a tiny single track road through a flock of sheep (sometimes following the sheep) and among several windmills. We got back on the main highway near Newcastle, ran into a bit more construction and finally made it to our parkup for the night just off the main motorway, the M1, which runs from London to Edinburgh.
It was at a farm and it was a good spot that we could clean up the inside of the van, do all the dishes, dump all the tanks, and sweep out all the sand and crumbs accumulated voer the last month! We also had to start packing our bags for the first time in awhile! We were rewarded with a lovely sunset.
The next morning we were up early to finish any last minute cleaning, and made our way into the city of Leeds. We had one last stop to fill up the diesel tank before we dropped it off.
We worked on the paperwork and chatted with the owner for a bit and walked to the train station. We managed to get a train right away which was lucky as they were only every hour, and had to make a change at the main station in Leeds to get us to Manchester. After finding the right platform we had about 2 hours to ride to our station. We were a little early before check-in so we found a nearby takeaway spot to get some burgers for lunch and walked to our apartment we had rented, but more about that next time!
Next Time
While I was sad to say goodbye to Scotland I was ready to be done driving the van for awhile. We took most of these next few weeks in Manchester to relax, do laundry, and catch up on the blog and planning now we had solid internet. We spent a few days with a couple we met on our tour through Vietnam and Cambodia and they showed us the town of Chester. I also got to try my first CrossFit drop-in class!