Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The day dawned bright and beautiful (in Scotland, that’s around 4 a.m.) as we got rolling around 8 with breakfast, where Farley tried an Arbroath Smokie, or a Scottish dish of haddock mostly filleted and smoked. The fish covered the plate, so it’s maybe a better choice as a lunch item.

We then headed for Aberdeen and the Scottish Maritime Museum. Aberdeen is headquarters for lots of North Sea drilling after building a long resume’ with seafaring forays starting in the 1700s. The museum shared lots of pictures and postcards and even a model size derrick and platform, but did not inspire us.

We then headed west toward the Cairghorn mountains (like the Appalachians, if that tall) and the Speyside distilleries. We enjoyed having our car today most of all, as our journey took us along the back roads and along the rivers Don and Dee and a few other streams for which we have no names. We saw deer, pheasant, grouse, rabbit, highland cattle, sheep and more sheep, and lambs, too.

Non-living sights along the way included more ruins, beautiful stone bridges, ski lifts, churches and castles. The streams and rivers reminded us of the cascades in the western part of Virginia, and several fly fishers were trying their luck. The mountains at times looked like jigsaw puzzles as various plant life from brown to green to yellow to white battled for space on the hillsides. There are many fields of rapeseed flowers, blooming with eye-popping yellow flowers. Apparently the rapeseed is harvesting into some sort of high end cooking oil. All in all, very beautiful.

After lunching in Huntly around the corner from one of many castles in the area, we headed to Cardhu distillery passing Glenfiddich, Balvenie and Glenlivet. Not a household name before we had researched a bit, we found that Cardhu is the heart and soul of Johnnie Walker scotches since being bought by JW’s family over a century ago. Cardhu’s single malt is also one of the top ten selling worldwide. Having tasted a wee dram or two, we can understand why.

We finished our day in Ballater, as we walked the streets of this ski town before checking in for the night and preparing to head off to Balmoral on Thursday morning. Once that journey begins, we have only 48 hours left in Bonnie Scotland. Aye, lads and lassies, ‘tis a bit sad.