Home from the Highlands

Two days ago, I got home from a 15-day self-driving vacation in Scotland. I went with two of my sisters, and a brother-in-law. We started and ended the vacation in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Castle from Princes Garden

We had two nights in Edinburgh before we picked up the rental car. We arrived in Edinburgh while the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo was on; we decided that we couldn't miss that opportunity. It's an hour and half show that only starts at 9:30 pm and we had a rental car to pick up the next morning but it was a once in a lifetime thing.

Massed Pipes and Drums

We picked up the rental car. It was a black Suburu Boxer SUV. It was a nice vehicle with GPS, back up and forward cameras.  The car was also a hybrid so it switched to an electric motor when we were going slow enough.

It was a little difficult to get out of Edinburgh. I took a wrong turn and ended up having to make an illegal right turn to get back on track. We were heading to see  the Falkirk Kelpies, Stirling Castle and  the Wallace Monument. Then it would be off to our first B&B in a little town called Bridge of Cally. 

Falkirk Kelpies

Stirling Castle Great Hall

Wallace Monument

The driving in Scotland was intense to say the least. People drive really fast on little twisty turning roads. I had driven in England and Scotland before but I don't remember the roads being so narrow and, for the most part, without a decent shoulder.  I certainly wasn't driving fast enough for the locals and got honked at quite a few times that first day.  The GPS in the car got us to our destination but it chose a rather strange route going off on the smaller roads rather than staying on one of the more main routes. We did get to our destination eventually but just as we arrived, I hit a traffic cone that was in a pot hole. We had a rubbed spot on the front corner of the car and quite a scratch on the back passenger door. 

Bridge of Cally Hotel

The next day's journey was to Scone Palace about 1/2 hour away and then on to Inverness for a two night stay. This time the GPS did take us to Scone on the road I thought it would the day before. The driving was getting somewhat easier although I still hated seeing large trucks coming around a curve at me. 

Scone Palace

Cavell Guest House

The following day was only a short drive to Culloden and to the Clava Cairns.  The only driving issue on this day was that to get to the Clava Cairns there was about a 500m road that was single lane with only one small pull out. You had to watch for oncoming traffic. 

Culloden

Clava Cairns

The following day was a longer drive along Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle, then past the town where the next B&B was located and onto the Glenfinnian Monument and Glenfinnian Viaduct, made famous by the Harry Potter films. After we saw the Glenfinnian attractions, we back tracked about half an hour to Spean Bridge where the Distant Hills Guest House was located.

Urquhart Castle

Glensfinnian Monument

Glenfinnian Viaduct

I think the Distant Hills Guest House was the nicest of the B&B's that we stayed at. I wished we had at least two nights there as we would have had time to enjoy the hot tub in the back garden. 

Pergola and hot tub

Guest Lounge

The next day was the drive to Glencoe and on down to Glasgow. This is a spectacular drive when the weather is nice but as luck would have it, we had our first really rainy day.  In Glasgow, we were staying two nights at the Holiday Inn.  There was no parking at the hotel but the hotel subsidizes the parking at the car park across the street. We left the car in the parking garage and used the Hop On Hop Off bus. 

Glencoe Visitor Centre

I drove that!

Three Sisters

Holiday Inn bar area

We left Glasgow early so as not to miss the check in time for the ferry to the  Isle of Arran.  Thankfully we had the use of Google maps in addition to the car's GPS. A bridge was closed and, of course, that's the way the GPS directions wanted us to go. Once out of Glasgow the drive was fairly easy and we made it to Ardrossan in plenty of time for our ferry. There was an Asda located close to the ferry terminal and we walked back to see if we could buy some T-Cut to buff out the scratches on the car. 

Ardrossan Ferry Terminal

On the way to the Isle of Arran

Isle of Arran - Scotland in Miniature

We arrived on the Isle of Arran too early to check in to our B&B so we first went to Brodick Castle, home of the Dukes of Hamilton. After visiting the castle, we then went to the Belvedere Guest House to find our host had popped out, he had left us notes with the keys to our rooms but when checking out the place, we set off the security alarm.

Brodick Castle

View of Goat Fell from our room

Belvedere Guest House

The following day was a drive around the island. The principal stop for me was at the Clachaig Farm where my grandmother, one of her brothers and one of her sisters were born.  The current owner invited us to walk around and take pictures and showed us the bothy and the original farm kitchen.  We also visited Lochranza Castle. Little did we know that we would see it again the very next day.

Clachaig Farm

Lochranza Castle

When we went out to dinner at the local pub that night, one of the men at the bar said the ferry had broken down and that the service between Brodick and Ardrossan had been cancelled. Sure enough about 40 minutes later I got an email about the service disruption. We had not been rebooked on the other ferry service from Brodick so the only option left was to book on the ferry that was first come, first serve. We bought a ticket for the Lochranza to Claonaig ferry.  The issue with that route was we would have a four to five hour drive to Edinburgh rather than about a two hour drive.  The next day was a gorgeous sunny day, we headed up to Lochranza, arriving at about 9:20 am and then proceeded to wait, we made it on to the 1:15 pm  ferry crossing. 

Lochranza Ferry

Good Bye to the Isle of Arran

It was beautiful drive and the scenery was wonderful but I didn't have much time to enjoy it as I was focused on driving.  We got back to Edinburgh around 6pm and returned the car without incident.  In a dark car park the Enterprise agent didn't notice the scratches, that really were barely noticeable, as they had been buffed with the T-Cut. I was really mentally exhausted from being so focused on driving that I couldn't back up in the parking garage to park the car into one of the free spaces. 

We now had three more night in Edinburgh before our flights home.  I'll do some other posts on the sites and places we saw on our travels. 

"My heart's in the Highlands

My heart is not here,

my heart's in the Highlands

a chasin the deer.

A chasin the wild deer and following the roe,

my heart's in the Highlands wherever I go."

The Prairies

On 17 June, we finally left Ontario and reached Manitoba. You're not all of a sudden on the Prairies but rather the thick dark forests gradually change to scrub pine forests, then rolling hills and then the flat landscapes we all think of as true Prairie. Once we actually reached the prairie, I was amazed at how big the sky seemed, you were surrounded by it; it was like being inside a snow globe. I checked online to see how far you can see: on a flat surface, a human can see about 5 km (3 mi) but imagine being able to see 5 km in all directions; it seems like you can see so much farther than that.

Our first campground in Manitoba was Birds Hill Provincial Park outside of Winnipeg.  We would stay here for three nights.  Each campsite was pretty private being surrounded by tall bushes. This actually was a bit of a problem with Teddy, who usually barks just at other dogs and some vehicles; in these private sites, he began to bark at anything that moved.

While in Winnipeg we went to the cemetery where our dad's father is buried. We spent over half an hour looking for his grave until we realized we had the cemetery map the wrong way round. We also visited Louis Riel's grave at the St Boniface Cathedral. The second day we were there we went to Assiniboine Park and visited the Leo Mol sculpture garden. We had planned to visit the newly opened Leaf Gardens but it was so hot we ended spending much of the afternoon on a pet friendly patio that was part of a pop up bar in the park. How hot was it, well in Winnipeg that day it was hotter than Phoenix Arizona.

Birds Hill Provincial Park

Grandad Stewart's gravesite

Louis Riel's grave

St Boniface Cathedral

Winnipeg skyline

Assiniboine Park

Leo Mol Sculpture Garden

Our next stop for one night was Grand Valley campground near Brandon Manitoba. This campground was right off of the Trans-Canada highway so it was little noisy but not bad in the  overnight hours. 

There was a bit of a situation going on when we arrived, the owner of the campground was missing and there was a search party working from the campground. We had been assigned different sites than those we booked but were told we could take any site that was open. They closed the campground a day or two after we left and later we heard on the news that a water search had turned up his body.  

Trans-Canada highway in the distance.

Grand Valley Campground

The next stop would see us in Saskatchewan at River Park, the municipal campground in Weyburn, Sk. They had a lot of rain this summer and many campsites were pretty water logged, even the path to the bathrooms was a stream and the sanitation station was flooded. Luckily, our sites were pretty dry.  

This campground is located in a municipal park that has a splash pad, playground, picnic area and trails. There's a road in for the park and another one for the campground but it seemed to be a local past time to drive around and check out the tourists.

In Weyburn, we walked up to the lighthouse water tower.  It's no longer in use but it's one of very few lighthouse water towers still left. 

River Park Campground

Lighthouse Water Tower

Our next stop would be Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park but on the way we stopped at Rouleau, Sask, otherwise know as Dog River of Corner Gas fame. There's not much left of Dog River even the grain elevator is gone so I was glad I had taken a photo of one at a gas stop.

old style Prairie grain elevator

Rouleau Sk, aka Dog River

We stayed two nights at Sask Landing, here we had a tornado alert but still had nice enough weather to get in some hiking on one of the shorter trails. We also found out how small a world it is when it turned out the couple camped in the site next to us were the brother and sister-in-law of a former work colleague of another of my brother-in-laws.  

Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park

Prairie views

Prickly pear

Red River Cart sculpture

Goodwin House

South Saskatchewan River

Buffalo Rubbing Stone

Our next stop would be one night in Tillebrook Provincial Park near Brooks, Alberta. Tillebrook is only about 50 km from Dinosaur Provincial Park which would be our next stop; stopping at Tillebrook gave us the opportunity to go into town for some groceries and a liquor run before heading to Dinosaur. Tillebrook is a small provincial park just a kilometer off of the highway. Most of the sites are pull through, the park is set up in a number of loops each with vault toilets and there's a central shower facility for the whole park.  Since the forecast for the evening was rain; after setting up, we went into Brooks and, for only the second time time, we had our evening meal in a restaurant.  Our sister Annette had also contacted us to let us know that they weren't letting people check in at Dinosaur until check in time so with our errands done we were able to relax the next morning before the short drive to Dinosaur Provincial Park.

Tillebrook Campground

Relaxing Morning

Train on the Prairie

We would meet up at Dinosaur with another of my sisters, her brother-in-law, her daughter and her grandsons, also a friend and her husband would join us there. We would stay at Dinosaur for four nights before heading to Airdrie, which was our final destination on the trip West.  Dinosaur Provincial Park will be the next installment.