We slept a little longer than our usual 8am start but once we shook off our night out we started the unfortunate return south from once we came. Of course we were not following the same route back to London and this part of the journey was relatively unplanned except a few vital stops, the first of which was the Clava Cairns.
These ancient rock formations built some 4,000 years ago look almost alien like with their shape and accuracy of the stacked stones. The Cairns themselves then had standing stones placed around the edges adding to the mystical feel of the place. It is easy to imagine some ancient pagan ceremony taking place and it was all rather peaceful with only a few other visitors on site.
A very short drive from the Clava Cairns is the Culloden Battlefield which was a much busier spot to visit. Tour buses, motorhomes by the dozen and many day trippers out in cars had the car park pretty full. It was £5 to park and exploring the field itself was free. You could pay to see an exhibition inside, but we didn’t having felt the walk around the site of such a significant battle in Scottish history was enough. It was a humbling walk to imagine the scene of death that occurred here. The battle is known as the end if the Scottish clans having lost so terribly to the English. Of course fellow Outlander fans will remember the scene well and having watched the show certainly added to the ability to picture what happened. The Fraser Clan stone is chained off and if I was going to guess, it would have something to do with the show and what some stupid fans may have done to that particular stone because it was the only one like that.
Having ticked those two historic sites off we then had to decide what route we would take back to England. Wayne’s Robertson ancestor immigrated from Aberdeen and so that was on the table but he decided her would rather see where the Robertson clan house and stongholds were situated. This just happened to line up with his other goal of finding the Bon Scott Statue so we headed in the direction of the Cairngorms National Park in search of Dunalastair Castle which unfortunately we missed a turn and got side tracked and didn’t make it back. The history of the clan is all through the central area of Scotland and driving through the area of leading up to Perthshire, the National Park and Piltrochy soon gave him enough of a feel where his ancestors hailed from, Wayne was happy.
Tip #16 when things don’t go to plan, be like Wayne, be happy with close enough is good enough. Much better than the other way.
The rugged mountainous area landed us in Aviemore for lunch. The Winky Owl just sounded interesting and luckily the parking was ample for Big Bertha and Co. The food was yum, our bellies were full and we drove on getting ever closer to finding that statue but the drivers decided it was time to find somewhere to park up for the day.
We ended up in a pull over in the Piltrochy hinterland which was quite a spot. Apart from the odd car through the night and a little more activity in the morning, not another human in side. The views around us were of heather covered hills which would be even more stunning when the heather is in full bloom. A couple of shots with the drone before the lack of sleep the night before caught up with us and it was bed time!
My Happy Travels 