Janet and Marie Morrison's
1999 Trip to Scotland

by Janet Morrison of North Carolina

Part Three

    Along the way, we stopped in Fort William to make reservations for the Ben Nevis Guest House for August 14 and 15, to buy our tickets for “The Jacobite” steam train for August 15, and to make reservations at the Tom An T’Silidh B&B in Newtonmore for that evening.  Fort William was very crowded with tourists, but we had no trouble getting where we needed to go to take care of our business.  After we left Fort William, we drove up to the Spean Bridge Commandos Monument.  We’d seen it in 1993, but it is such an impressive monument, we wanted to see it again.  We then took the A86 to Newtonmore.  It was a somewhat narrow road and was tiring driving at the end of a long day.  I drove 206 miles that day. The morning was overcast, but the sun eventually came out that afternoon.

     We were fortunate to have another warm, sunny day on Sunday, August 1, as we had several outdoor activities on our itinerary for the day.  That morning we visited Leault Farm at Kincraig and were entertained and educated by the sheep dog demonstration.  It is a 2,500-head sheep farm.

     Our next stop was The Osprey Centre at The Abernethy Forest Reserve at Loch Garten near Boat of Garten.  We did not get to see any osprey but it was a very interesting place.  After not being seen in Scotland for almost 40 years, a pair of osprey came to Loch Garten in 1954.  There are now more than 100 pairs breeding in Scotland.  The nesting pair at Loch Garten there this year had three fledglings.  They were already away from the nest learning how to fish when we were there.  Around the end of August they will migrate to West Africa (Gambia and Senegal.)  We watched a video that was filmed there over this year’s nesting season.  They also have a live cam focused on the huge nest and it can be viewed on the Internet at www.rspb.org.uk/webcams during the nesting season.  Those who study the osprey have concluded they return to Scotland in the spring due to the long hours of sunlight.  They can fish (which is their only food) from 3:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.  An osprey is 24 inches long and has a wing span of five feet.  The flight back to Africa is 3,000 miles and takes one month.  Loch Garten was beautiful.  We got some good pictures of the clouds reflected in the water.

     The Landmark Forest Heritage Park at Carrbridge was our next destination.  We enjoyed the Tree Top Trail there.  It was an elevated wooden walking trail up above the tree tops.  It gave us a little different perspective on the forest and made the woods accessible to people without the risk of humans damaging the environment too much by their presence.  The Timber Trail was also interesting. An exhibit told the history of the timber industry in Scotland.  There were old pieces of logging machinery on display and there was a Clydesdale demonstrating the pulling of logs from one location to another.  The highlight of the park for us was the steam-powered sawmill demonstration.  The demonstration gave us some insight into how our great-grandfather probably sawmilled in North Carolina.  It was really quite fascinating.

 That night we stayed at Roys Croft B&B, out from Aberlour.  We enjoyed fried haddock that night for supper at The Old Pantry in town.  Haddock is always on the lunch and dinner menu at restaurants in Scotland and it is always good.  We enjoyed the roses and other flowers in the town center and flowers in people’s yards as we walked around town after supper.  We saw beautiful flowers everywhere we went in Scotland.

 Mrs. Mitchell, our hostess at Roys Croft B&B, prepared a delicious breakfast for us the morning of Monday, August 2.  She was a very charming hostess -- interested in where we had been and where we were going. She was also interested in the price of gasoline and cars, etc. in the United States.  She was very easy to talk to and very pleasant.

 Our first stop that morning was the shop at the Walker’s Shortbread factory in Aberlour.  They no longer offer factory tours, but it was a bank holiday and the factory was closed that day anyway.  We bought a bag of round shortbread rejects, which sustained us through the remainder of our trip.  We even had a few left to bring home.

 We toured the Speyside Cooperage Centre at Craigellachie.  That was very interesting!  There were exhibits explaining the step-by-step process of making barrels, exhibits of coopers’ tools, a video, and then time to look down on coopers and their apprentices at work.  They were making new barrels out of old barrels. We learned that before a barrel or hogshead can be used in Scotland for the storage of whisky, it must first be used for storing sherry in Spain or bourbon in the United States.

 On our way to Peterhead, we went by Old Deer to see the ruins of Deer Abbey.  It was an interesting place with neat grounds.  From there we headed for Peterhead, hoping to tour Ugie Fish House, but we haven’t found it yet.  Our next destination was Rattray Head.  Along the way, we passed a big oil refinery at St. Fergus.  The huge gas flame there could be seen and heard for several miles.  As we drove down a single-track road to Rattray Head, we came upon the ruins of St. Mary’s Chapel.  There was a sign on the church which read, “AD 911.”  A Scotland guidebook indicates that it was possibly founded in the tenth century, but structurally it is more like a thirteenth century building.  Continuing on that road, we came to Rattray Head’s 70-foot sand dunes.  We enjoyed the sand dunes and the view of the lighthouse which is in the North Sea there.

 We started looking for a B&B for the night in Fraserburgh, but found none.  We just kept going west along the coast, thinking sooner or later we would find accommodations for the night.  Later that afternoon, as we made our way along the coast east of Fraserburgh, we stopped to see the Sandhaven Meal Mill at Sandhaven.  It was closed, but a kind older gentleman, a Mr. Campbell who lives next to the mill, was out in his yard  and asked if he could help us.  He was quite a talker and very interesting.  He said there’s no one to operate the mill now, so it is only open on weekends.  He explained that barley is cheaper to grow and there is a better market for barley than for oats, so oats is not a big crop now in Scotland as it was in earlier years.  He also said that anthracite is needed for milling oats and no anthracite is being mined in Scotland today.  Mr. Campbell lamented the fact that there is no shipbuilding or coal or other mining being done in Scotland anymore.  It seems that tourism is the main industry now and many young people continue to leave Scotland in order to find good-paying jobs and opportunities.  It’s an old story in Scotland, but it’s still true.

 We stopped for petrol when we reached Macduff.  I mentioned our plight to the woman working at the filling station/convenience store and learned from her that we had every right to be concerned that it was 7:00 p.m. and we had not found a room for the night.  It was a big golf week and also the week of the largest agricultural show in Scotland at Turriff.  The woman sensed my concern and called a friend of hers in town who just happened to have room for us.  Joan and Jerry were our hosts the next two nights at the Brittain B&B on Duff Street.  They were very friendly and helpful.  On Jerry’s recommendation we walked to The Knowes Hotel for dinner and enjoyed cullen skink, haddock and sole that evening.  There was a lovely view of the sunset from the dining room.  It was the end of another beautiful and interesting day in Scotland.

 The morning of Tuesday, August 3, we drove several miles to the Visitors Information Centre to book the wildlife cruise in Macduff, only to find out that the cruise is no longer offered.  (Several such things I had read about on the Internet had been discontinued this summer, so it is best to always check with the vendor.)  I had also read that the Seaway Net Company in Macduff offered tours of its fishing net operation, but that didn’t pan out either.  We watched a wooden fishing boat being built down by the harbor area.  The huge door at the end of the building is open when the weather permits, so the public can stand and watch the progress being made on the boat.  Jerry at the B&B said the entire town keeps up with the construction of every boat and everyone turns out to see each one launched.  After lunch in a tearoom, we toured the Macduff Marine Aquarium.  Jerry had told us what time to be there in order to see a diver go into the tank to feed the fish.  We enjoyed the aquarium and learned about some of the sea life of Moray Firth.

 Later that afternoon we drove back to Fraserburgh, since it was a town of some size, and looked in vain for a laundromat.  We decided not to dwell on the fact that we were going to very soon run out of clean clothes, and went on to tour the National Lighthouse Museum in Fraserburgh as we had planned.  Our visit there included a delightful and very informative tour of the old Kinnaird Head Lighthouse.  It was the first lighthouse built by the Northern Lighthouse Board in 1787.  Our guide at the lighthouse was very knowledgeable about the many lighthouses in Scotland.

 We returned to Macduff via the coastal road with it’s lovely views of Moray Firth. We even drove down the cliffside road to the tiny village of Pennan where Burt Lancaster filmed the movie, “Local Hero.”  The old red phone booth is still there.  Fortunately, we did not meet another car going down and only two as we drove back up that cliff.  That was one scary road!  I knew if I did not drive down there, I would regret it later.  On the other hand, after I’d driven down to the village, I became pretty nervous about having to drive back up the same road we’d come down.  I couldn’t enjoy being there for dreading the trip out!  We stopped at the Mounthooley Doocat near Rosehearty on our way back to Macduff.  Jerry at the B&B asked us if liked kippers.  We only had a vague idea what kippers were, but we agreed that we would try them for breakfast the next morning.

 Jerry went to the market at 5:30 on the morning of Wednesday, August 4 and bought smoked herring, so we could have kippers for breakfast.  He said they should always be eaten with eggs, “so they won’t repeat on you.”  With that kind of testimonial, how could we not try them?  We found them to be a bit strong tasting, but okay.  At least now we can say we’ve had kippers!

 Our good fortune with the weather continued that day.  We visited the marble workshop at Portsoy and learned that Portsoy marble was used in the construction of Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles.  We went to see the Joiner’s Workshop at Fordyce, only to find that it is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  It was not a wasted trip, though, as we happened upon a lovely rose garden between the car park and the workshop grounds.  We took the scenic coastal route, stopping to admire the wide beach at Sandend.  We caught glimpses of two dolphins in the water there.  It was at Sandend that we almost had to duck for an RAF jet flyover.

 The town of Cullen made a nice stopover.  The old stone archways there make it a memorable place. As you enter Cullen from the east on the A98, there is a great view of the blue water of Moray Firth framed at the foot of the hill by the large archway over the street.  We stopped at Portknockie to see Bow Fiddle Rock, which turned out to be much bigger than I expected.  It was well worth the effort to see it.  We ate lunch at Findochty, another small coastal village.  There was a lovely white statue of a seated man gazing out over the harbor there.

 That afternoon we toured the Buckie Drifter Museum at Buckie.  It told the interesting history of the herring fishing industry in the area.  The men and women associated with herring fishing surely had a hard life in the old days.  At the restaurant in Findochty we had seen a flyer about a wildlife cruise at Buckie.  Since we had not gotten to take such a cruise at Macduff, we decided to take advantage of the one at Buckie.  The scenery on the 90-minute cruise on “The Benbola” was great, but the only wildlife we saw were sea birds.  Everyone was disappointed that we did not see any porpoises or dolphins.

 Our B&B that night was Castlehill Cottage just outside the village of Mosstodloch.  Our hosts were Mary and George Shand and their Westie Scottie dog named Dusty.  They were very friendly and we were entertained that night by watching Dusty watch his favorite TV show -- a program about a veterinarian.  (I am not making this up.)  Mary recommended the Garmouth Hotel in nearly Garmouth for dinner. Marie and I both enjoyed the salmon there.  After dinner, we drove back to Fochabers to the “Winding Walks” Forest Commission property.  We had enjoyed all the hiking we did while in Kintyre and decided we needed to get some exercise after spending so much time in the car over the last several days.

 Thursday, August 5 was an overcast and cool day -- more the kind of weather we had expected in Scotland.  That morning we drove back to Fordyce to the Joiner’s Workshop.  We toured the little museum there, but were disappointed that there was no joiner working in the workshop while we were there.  Then we went to Spey Bay to see Tugnet Ice House and the Moray Firth Wildlife Centre.  It was foggy, windy and cool there.  We watched for bottlenose dolphins on the shingled beach there, but did not see any. The beach at Spey Bay was interesting.  It is made up of  blue, rose and white smooth stones exactly like the ones we saw at The Gauldrons in Kintyre.  The ones at Spey Bay are said to be left from the last ice age.

 Then we drove to Fochabers to tour Baxters Foods.  We had just entered the reception center when a man approached us and asked if we were visitors.  Marie told him that we were and that we were just trying to see where to go to take the 1:00 tour.  He immediately took Marie by the arm and said, “Right this way, Madam.”  He inquired about where we were from (did our Southern accents give us away?) and if we were familiar with Baxters Foods.  He then said, “My name is Baxter.  I’m chairman of this company.”  He was very cordial and commented about one or two supermarket chains in our area.  In watching the video prior to our tour, we discovered that he was indeed Gordon Baxter, chairman of the board and a grandson of the company’s founder.  The tour was interesting.  Soup was, of course, being canned that day and, since strawberries were in season, strawberry jam was being made.  The aroma of the strawberries was heavenly! We returned to our car about 2:45 p.m., hoping to get to Johnston’s Cashmere in Elgin for the last tour of the day.

 Unfortunately, our car would not start, and at that point we began to deviate from our carefully planned itinerary.   The rental car company sent a RAC mechanic to our rescue.  He could not repair the car because it was the immobilizer, which can only be reprogrammed by the car manufacturer’s dealer.  The nearest dealership was in Forres.  It was late afternoon by the time the RAC man was connecting a tow bar to the front bumper of our “poor wee car.”  He wrapped our car with a string of indicator lights and explained to me that I would have to steer without benefit of power steering and that I should keep the tow bar as straight as possible at all times.  He said I could apply the brakes if I really felt I needed to, but he would actually have control of the brakes.  So off we went in the midst of the heaviest traffic time of the day, going through several roundabouts and through the congested streets of Elgin and Forres.  Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a fabulous topiary garden in Forres and Marie and I made mental notes to come back sometime and have a closer look at the animals crafted from bushes and flowers.  The trip took 55 minutes.  We had to go slowly, of course, and from time-to-time we would pull off in a lay-by in order to let the traffic that was piling up behind us go by.  At those times the RAC man would come back and cheer me on and offer encouragement that everything was going to work out.  He said he could tell when someone with confidence was behind the wheel and assured me that I was doing a great job.  He couldn’t have been nicer!  The car dealership was scheduled to close at 5:15, but had agreed to wait for us until 5:25.  After our 5:25 deadline passed, the RAC man said we would soon find out if the dealer had a conscience.  It turned out he did, as he waited for our 5:40 p.m. arrival.  It took him less than one minute to correct the problem.  He said someone using a mobile phone or other electronic device could cause the immobilizer to malfunction and there was nothing I could do to prevent it from happening again.  We were soon on our way back to the B&B at Mosstodloch.  It felt good to be in control of the car again.  Let me tell you, being pulled through Scotland on the end of an eight foot tow bar is not the ideal way to see the country!   We treated ourselves to grilled salmon that night at the Garmouth Hotel.  We deserved it after the day we’d had!  We discovered that the front passenger’s window would not close completely, though, and knew we would have to deal with the rental company again this next morning.

 Friday, August 6 was a stressful and tiring day.  We had to take the car to the rental agency at the Inverness Airport, since they would not allow us to take it to the dealership we had visited the day before in Forres.  That would have been too convenient!  We did take time to stop and admire the topiary garden and the sunken garden in Forres on our way through town.  That turned out to be the highlight of our day.

 We were not pleased with our car rental agency and, hence, will not reveal the name; however, it is a major American car rental agency.  When we got to the Inverness Airport, we were instructed to take the car to the manufacturer’s dealer on the other side of Inverness.  I did not appreciate having to navigate seven roundabouts in busy Inverness, but we finally made it to the dealership.  The problem turned out to be one that was easily corrected and we were again on our way.  Unfortunately, the window problem caused us to miss the morning tour at the cashmere mill in Elgin again.  We did take time to quickly tour the James Pringle Woollen Mill at Inverness, though.  It was interesting to see tartans being made.

 It was a long, hard drive from Inverness to Wick, where we had reservation for that evening at the Quayside B&B. I have never been so sleepy behind the wheel of a car as I was that afternoon.  We had to stop several times for me to take naps.  That was really frightening, but after her experience in Scotland in 1993 Marie was not about to take over the driving.  I did wake up long enough to take a little side trip into a place called Janetstown, which I had seen on an atlas.  It did not appear on the road map we were using.  There was a small harbor there on the very rugged coast near Latheron and Latheronwheel.  I took a picture of “Janetstown 1853” on the side of the hotel.  We finally made it safely to the B&B, where Bob and Brenda Turner were our hosts.   They were very friendly and for a nominal fee, Brenda did our laundry.  She was a lifesaver!  I was asleep before 7:30 that night and slept for twelve hours.

 We got back on track on Saturday, August 7.  It was a good day.  It started out overcast, but it never did rain on us.  Our first stop was the shop at Caithness Glass on our way north out of Wick.  Being Saturday, we did not get to see the glass blowers at work, but we had seen them at the Caithness plant in Perthshire in 1993.  When we got to John O’Groats we bought tickets for the afternoon wildlife cruise and Monday’s Orkney Maxi Day Tour.  The sun came out for our entire cruise, but it was windy and very, very cold!  Our faces got wind burned. We enjoyed the 90-minute cruise.  We saw seals and a few puffins.  The puffins were surprisingly small and difficult to see as they were on the water and the boat couldn’t get too close or they would be frightening away.  With binoculars, though, we could see their clown-like faces.  (Incidentally, the anti-smoking campaign in Scotland is taking advantage of the popularity of the puffins.  Everywhere we went we saw the drawings of a puffin smoking a cigarette.  It was drawn inside a circle with a diagonally slash through it and the words, “No Puffin,” which we thought was rather clever.)  The wildlife cruise route is dictated by the weather and the currents in Pentland Firth.  That day we circled the Island of Stroma.  It is an island which is no longer populated by humans -- only sheep and wildlife.  It was eerie to see the croft houses and other buildings which dotted the hillsides of the island, knowing they had all been abandoned in the 1950’s when the mainland had electricity but the island did not.

 After the cruise we checked in at the Bencorragh House B&B at Upper Gills, Canisbay.  Sandra Barton and her husband were our hosts at their farm.  Mrs. Burton welcomed us with hot tea and coffee.  They are animal lovers and have rescued a number of cats and other animals.  We enjoyed talking with three people from Sweden who were also guests there that evening.  It was quite a coincidence that in April the gentleman from Sweden had been to the Charlotte Motor Speedway, which is about eight miles from our home.  As a member of the Ford Mustang Club in Sweden, he had attended the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Mustang automobile. That is part of the joy of staying in B&B’s in Scotland.  There are tourists there from all over the world.

 We learned on the wildlife cruise that although the Queen Mother had just celebrated her 99th birthday earlier that week in London, she had since come to her castle at nearby Mey.  So after settling into our room at Bencorragh House, we went exploring. We saw the Queen Mother’s castle from a distance and then drove on to Dannet’s Head, which is the northernmost point on the mainland of Great Britain.  That night we enjoyed grilled salmon (again!) at the Sea View Hotel in John O’Groats.  We both love grilled salmon and, since it is also a very healthy seafood, we took advantage of it being on many restaurant menus during our vacation.

 According to the itinerary I had laid out for us, Sunday, August 8 was suppose to be a restful day.  We spent the entire cold, windy, overcast day seeing  the remarkably rugged landscape of  northern Caithness and learning about the stone age history of the area.  After a good breakfast at the B&B, we headed for nearby Duncansby Bay.  It was so windy at the car park there near the lighthouse that I could scarcely open the car door.  It was the kind of wind Marie and I remember from our college days in the North Carolina mountains -- the kind of wind where if you face directly into it, you cannot breathe.  We bundled up in all our warm clothes and hiked to where we could see the Stacks of Duncansby.  They are awesome rock stacks that have been sculptured by the relentless sea.
 From there we went a little further south to the Northland Viking Centre.  There we watched an outstanding video about the stone age history of Caithness.  The Centre also exhibits many local archeological artifacts.  Unfortunately, many visitors to the area probably do not notice the Centre.  It is not very clearly marked or well publicized.  The video there is well worth the time.
 
 We then drove down to Wick and from there out to Noss Head.  We bundled up again and hiked out to the ruins of Girnigoe Castle and Sinclair Castle.  The two ruins are adjacent to one another, right on the water.  It was an awesome place!   The waves were crashing into the rocky foundation of the castle ruins.  It was a spectacular sight to see the sea crashing onto the foot of the windswept cliffs!  It was extremely cold and windy there.
 
 Our next stop was the Hill O Many Stanes -- a hill covered with small standing stones.  Then we went to see The Grey Cairns of Campster.  There is a round cairn and also a long cairn.  They are among the best preserved chambered cairns in Scotland.  They are of amazing dry stone construction and date from the Neolithic period.  They were used in the third and fourth centuries B.C.  These sites are not very clearly marked and were a bit difficult to locate.

   Monday, August 9 was one of many highlights of our trip to Scotland.  We took a Maxi Day Tour of Orkney which included the ferry between John O’Groats on the mainland and Burwick on Orkney.  Arriving in Burwick, we were taken by coach for the actual tour.  Our coach driver/guide was terrific!  He was very knowledgeable and entertaining.  There is a lot of ancient history and much World War II history in Orkney.  We sort of had a crash course that day.  We were soon crossing the Churchill Barriers, which were constructed with the help of Italian prisoners of war during World War II, after a German submarine successfully  sailed into Scapa Flow from the east.  The Churchill Barriers are made up of five- and ten-ton blocks of concrete.  A road was constructed across them, thereby connecting several of the Orkney islands.  We also saw the rusty hulls of some of the block ships that were used to help protect the area from the German ships and submarines.  Scapa Flow was the British Home Fleet’s main base during both world wars.  Seventy-four ships of the German navy were at Scapa Flow after the Armistice.  Rather than let the ships be confiscated by the Royal Navy, the ships were all scuttled by their crews on June 21, 1919.  Sixty-seven of them were eventually salvaged, but the other seven will forever remain in the waters of Scapa Flow

 We ate lunch in Stromness, where some of the tall ships had berthed overnight on Saturday. (So, once more our timing was off just a tad and we missed the tall ships.)   Our next stop was Skara Brae.  The village of Skara Brae was inhabited from approximately 3100 B.C. until 2500 B.C.  The village was abandoned for an unknown reason and became completely covered in sand.  A severe winter storm in 1850 exposed a section of the village.  The excavated part of the village is truly fascinating.  The houses were purposely constructed  surrounded by midden (what we would today probably call compost.)  It is thought that the midden acted as insulation.  The buildings were of dry stone construction and their remains reveal some surprising things about the village and its inhabitants.  The houses were all constructed using the same floor plan. They included box beds and dressers for storage or the display of prized possessions.  The doors were stone slabs and possibly wood in some cases.  They were not hinged; however, the doors could be held shut by pinning them against  projected stops with a bar that crossed behind the doors and fit in slots in the wall.  There are cells in the houses, which are thought to have served as pantries, storage areas, or even toilets.  Up to one cell in each house has a drain running under it, suggesting that those cells were indoor toilets.  If this is so, it would be one of the world’s earliest indoor sanitation systems.  Since the drains cannot be completely mapped without demolishing the structures over them, this remains somewhat a mystery.  I would like to visit Skara Brae again when it’s not freezing cold, raining, and inundated with tourists.

 We stopped to see the Ring of Brodgar (standing stones) on our way to Kirkwall.  At Kirkwall we marveled at the 862-year-old St. Magnus Cathedral.   Construction began in 1137 and was completed 300 years later.  It is still an active church, today being part of the Church of Scotland.  It is considered that the building itself belongs to the people of Kirkwall, who take very seriously the responsibility of preserving the ancient edifice.  We did some shopping and toured the nearby ruins of Earl’s Castle.  It also dates back to the 12th century.

Return to Page One

Wee Drams

Page  2:    Janet and Marie Morrison's 1999 Trip to Scotland - Part Three

Page  3:    A Series of e-mails from Heather McFarlane

Page  4:    An American Lady in Southend, 1878 - Part Two

Page  5:    The Heather McFarlane Page

Page  6:    The War-Time Record of the Campbeltown Fishermen

Page  7:    The Press Gang

Page  8:    By Hill and Shore - Part Two

The A.I.B. Stewart Page