Road Trip in the Highlands Part One: Wildlife spotting in Rothiemurchus

Friday, May 23 to Wednesday, May 28

Don’t you just love when spur of the moment ideas work; ideas that have essentially come from thin air and work out to be a fantastic idea, like our trip up to the Highlands with our lovely flatmates Trav and Dweebs. We basically hijacked their trip they had been planning to celebrate Dweebs’ 30^th birthday. After tossing up whether we were going to attempt the West Highland Way or not, it didn’t take much twisting of the arm to take up the off-the-cuff suggestion that we join them on their road trip instead. 

And we got tick another thing off the 'things-to-do-before-we-leave-Scotland-list.'

"Rothiemurchus is one of the glories of wild Scotland" 

- Sir David Attenborough

Day One

After going halves in the cost of petrol, picking up Dweebs on the way and with Carhouse* packed to the brim with food and camping essentials we were off. As Carhouse doesn’t have car seats we had to set-up camper chairs in the back behind the front seats so we were facing the sliding door, as to not look too suspicious to the authorities.

After a lovely three-hour drive through the Scottish countryside we arrived at the Rothiemurchus Camp and Caravan Park just before 8pm and just in time to check-in. J and I were quite lucky because Trav had called the campsite to try and book on our behalf and had a left a message, but didn’t quite chase it up, so when we actually talked to the site manager, we were almost told we were not going to be able to stay.

We were quite surprised that we were almost told there was no room, because it seemed to us that there were plenty of empty tent spaces on the grounds.

J and I set our tent up beneath the trees, and then went over to Dweebs and Trav’s site to have two-minute noodles for dinner and to drink some of the home brew. We then stayed up till the wee’ hours playing Carcassonne and games of Bulls*** that our flatmates lovingly nicknamed ‘s*** bomb*.’

We even managed to stay awake till midnight to ring in Dweeb’s 30^th Birthday.

Our wee tent in the background at Rothiemurchus Camp and Caravan Park.

Day Two

Today was Dweebs' 30^th birthday and we celebrated by all of us having a bit of sleep in and then having a bacon and egg fry-up for breakfast.

Carhouse with birthday balloons to celebrate Dweebs' birthday.

While we were eating our delicious breakky we noticed that Carhouse was parked next to a birds nest – a dug out cavern in the ground – where a bird quickly darted to and from carrying food into.

Attempt number 20 of trying to take a photo of the bird.

After breakfast, on our way to the toilet block Dweebs spotted a Red Squirrel* running quickly across the path and up the tree. She hurriedly told us all, and we were standing underneath the trees, craning our necks, trying to catch a glimpse for a while. 

Just after midday we finally left the campsite to walk to the town of Rothiemurchus and into Aviemore.

Dweebs decided that for her birthday she wanted to do an activity at the Rothiemurchus Centre and we all chose to play a couple of rounds of tennis; which was £10 per a court for an hour, including racquet and ball hire. Which we felt was a bargain!

During our game of doubles, which I believe Trav and Dweebs won, we walked on towards Aviemore, the most well know town in the Cairngorms National Park.

The snow capped Cairngorms.

It was such a scenic walk too from Rothiemurchus, with the sun coming out and highlighting the magnificent mountains in the backdrop and crossing over River Druie on an old bridge and heaps and heaps of golden yellow bushes (known as Whin).

Our tour of Aviemore included seeing heaps of bunnies hopping about in the park in the middle of town and going to Tesco for BBQ supplies for Dweebs’ birthday dinner.

After getting back to camp, enjoying a late lunch and rest in the tent, the boys got some information from the site manager on where to spot some wildlife and suggested we follow around the Glen Einich walking trail that ran off the campsite through the Wildlife Reserve.

It was great for wildlife spotting – we saw herds of Roe Deer, black slugs* and some type of toad frog. Though we didn’t see any Pine Marten*, apparently quite the sleuth, but our inside informant* said one had been sighted lurking around the campsite, like quite the Pink Panther.

The 'common' Black Slug with it's feather-like back. 

Spot the heard of Roe Deer.

We finished the night with a BBQ next to Carhouse and drinking beer and wine whilst playing more hands of s*** bomb and even getting in trouble by the campsite manager for causing 'too much' disturbance. 

It was a great ending to the first part of our Carhouse adventure, the next day we were off to Orkney. Too be continued…

*They had bought Carhouse three years ago, when they first left London for their road trip around Europe. He is an old ambulance that had been kitted out by his previous owner as a campervan and they nicknamed it Carhouse, because it’s a car and its house and that particular name was only meant to be temporary until they could think of a better name, but it stuck.

*Whoever loses gets lovingly sung to, “S*** bomb, s*** bomb, you’re the s*** bomb” by the rest of the group, who have kindly borrowed the tune of Sex Bomb by Tom Jones.  

*Red Squirrels have received endangered status in the UK and we so happened to have one running around the campsite we were camped at.

*Apparently quite common after telling a friend how weird and wonderful us four found these critters.

*After finding out that these animals actually hunt and eat Red Squirrels we had changed our minds about how much we actually wanted to spot one.

*Also known as the campsite manager.

Folklore and fantasies on the Isle of Skye

Monday, May 19 – Wednesday, May 21

The Isle of Skye was not a place that has always been on my ‘places to go list,’ in fact I didn’t even know about it until J and I made the move to Scotland, and I was constantly told by friends, customers at work and sometimes strangers about this wonderful place. That’s why it ended up going on the ‘list’.

And we finally decided to go during our May holidays.

After doing a bit of research, we were shocked at how expensive a trip up to Skye could be, especially travelling there by bus or train and because we were doing a bit of a scatter-brain style trip. We originally were planning to travel from Loch Lommond (to go wild camping), then to Skye and then on to Aviemore (to meet up with our flatmates). Which would definitely have been quite pricey and instead we opted to do a three-day tour with Macbackpackers, a small Scottish tourism company who own hostels all over the country and tours around the highlands and Skye. And it was the latter that came highly recommended by our flat mates who used to live with a couple who worked for them.

So that’s how we saw Skye.

Day One

Our day started by walking from our flat in Marchmont to the Old Town of Edinburgh, to Castle Rock Hostel, bypassing some cute bunnies on a patch of grass*. We waited in the reception area and till it was time to board the bus.

After hopping on, the bus driver and our tour guide for the next three days, Niall introduced himself, making it noticeable that he was in fact Scottish as he was wearing a kilt. He went through the safety features of the bus and then we were on our way.

We drove past beautiful scenery while Niall told us stories; he even did a run through of who had come on the tour, tempting everyone out of their shells with the question, “do you have a fantasy about Scotland that you want to come true?”

Someone said they wanted to swim in Loch Ness, but I told him I wanted to see the Fairy Pools on Skye.

Our pit stop was at Dunkeld, a picturesque town in Perthshire with the River Tay passing right through. Niall told us about the fascinating battles this township once saw with Vikings and pointed us towards the Dunkeld Church. A place that had been partially destroyed during the Reformation, once upon a time, but is now a beautiful ruin. The church grounds are probably one of the finest I’ve scene with the Tay flowing right next to it.

Dunkeld Church

Back on the bus again, we were entertained by even more of Niall’s quips and facts. One of the best things I heard all weekend, was using the example of ‘getting back with your ex-sex’ as a metaphor to explain continental drift.

After a bit more driving, our next stop was at the Culloden Battlefield outside Inverness. A place J and I wanted to visit when we stayed in Inverness. We were very happy we got to see it and to make it better, we received 50 per cent off the entry into the museum with our Macbackpackers wristbands that we were given.

By far one of the best museums I’ve been to, where it is easy to have a self-guided tour by following the signs and the multimedia-lead story boards, they split the Jacobite descriptions to the right-hand side and the Government descriptions to the left, making it very easy to gather enough information and not to overload on it.

The memorial on the Culloden Battlefield

Shamefully we only got an hour there, but we managed to walk through most of the museum and have a look at a fair bit of the displays, allowing us enough time to watch the re-enactment on big screens and to walk around the actual battleground.

We then took a few photos of some hairy highland coos that were next to the carpark, there was even a very cute calf with the shaggy ginger-coloured coat.

A Highland Coo

Once we were back on the bus it was a quick drive around some old country roads to the Balnuaran of Clava where we could walk around three quite large mounds of stones, and not just any old piles of stones, but structurally and architecturally sound, they were prehistoric burial cairns that were built about 4000 years ago.

Walking into the centre of one of the burial cairns

Back on the bus and it was onwards to Loch Ness, where we stopped by the side of the road and where Niall asked, “does anyone want to go for a swim?”

Well, J and I didn’t pack our togs so we were not prepared to go swimming at all, we didn’t even bring a towel. It wasn’t anywhere near warm enough for us either. But one brave Queenslander did, a guy who we learnt from all the earlier ‘getting to know each other introduction stuff’ was from Ipswich, decided he was going to brave the frosty temperatures and go for a dip.

Mysterious Loch Ness

The last stop on the drive was at Eilean Donan Castle – a castle that was used in the movie Entrapment with Sean Connery and that sits in between three lochs. We didn’t go right up to the castle, but instead at a little parking spot so we could get some photos. After the photo opportunity, it was back on the bus and onwards to Skye.

Once we arrived at the hostel in Kyleakin, that we had all too ourselves (Macbakpackers own two on the island but keep one just for the bus tours) we dropped our stuff on our bunks and freshened up before we headed to one of three local pubs, we decided to head to where everyone else from the tour was heading...to King Haakon Bar.

J and I both had fish and chips for dinner and a pint of the local brew, Skye Ale, which was all very tasty and hearty.

After chatting to our fellow tour goers for a little while, we headed down to the beach for a night stroll to see if we could spot any sea otters under Skye Bridge. Instead we saw a seal casually swimming just a short distance off shore by itself. We thought the tide of the mighty Atlantic was coming in quite quickly and decided not to chance getting stranded in the rocky cove that the otters apparently usually hang about in and went back to the hostel for some much needed sleep.

The town of Kyleakin on the Isle of Skye

Day Two

We left the hostel at about 8:30am so we could make a break before the weather turned bad. The first place we went to was called Sligachan Glen, made up of two mountains, the Red Cuillin and the Black Cuillin and Niall had been telling us about the local folklore, how one  (Black Cuillin) was a giant from Ireland and one was a warrior princess (Red Cuillin) – they fought until they decided to call a truce and fall in love* - I thought it was a great story, however it actually went.

The Black Cuillin

We were then told about the ‘fairy’ magic that hangs around in the area, even flowing into the streams of water running down from the Sligachan Glen and how if you dunked your head in for seven seconds or alternatively in and out three times – you would be eternally youthful, or something like that.

Me ruining my make-up to become eternally youthful

J and I both decided to take the plunge (pun intended), though I really regretted putting on mascara that morning, as it ran down my face, in front of complete strangers (oh the horror).

We were then back on the bus to drive towards the fairy pools for a wee hike. My fantasy* came true, after a mere 20-minute walk I got to see the pools and they were magnificent, especially since the sun decided to come out. We all relaxed midway and some of us even dangled our feet in the (freezing) turquoise rock pools. We did spot some brave guys who were giving swimming in them a go.

The fairy pools












We eventually wandered back towards the parking spot where Niall was picking us all up from, where we relaxed a little more and I even had time to change into a pair of shorts.

Once we were picked up and a 30-point-turn six-point-turn was achieved to turn the bus around we headed to Portree, the main town on the island for a bit of lunch. Niall pointed out the local bakery to everyone and low and behold that is where J and I headed (we love our pastries). But we were ultra excited for this bakery, because we discovered beef sausage rolls for the first time since arriving in the UK. Though one of our fellow travel buddies (a fellow Queenslander) was upset that there were no sachets of tomato sauce to go with the sausage roll.

J and I then headed to another bakery (where our Macbackpacker wristband also gave us discount) and bought homemade banana bread and a Cream Egg brownie.

Then it was back on to the bus, for what was quite a drive to the Quiraing where we were starting a three-hour hike. The weather had fogged up a great deal, but it didn’t matter there as it only added to the prehistoric-like atmosphere and once we were up to the top, the fog started blowing in between the pinnacles, creating even better photography opportunities.

Sticking together in our big group, no one seemed to struggle until we all came to this downwards slope, with a lot of loose rocks and basically all of us slid down.

The misty Quiraing

I was definitely knackered by the end of our second night on the Isle of Skye, on a quick stop back through Portree we picked up pasta to cook for dinner that night in the hostel kitchen and then we went back to the King Haakon Bar for a pint.

After one beer with the three travellers from Ipswich we decided to give the other pub, the Kings Arms a try and head there. I have always agreed with the notion of six-degrees of separation. Though I had earlier asked these fellow Queenslanders if they knew one of my best friends who I went to university with that is from there, which I was met with a shake of the head. In the end it turned out that they knew of a girl I went to primary school with, whose brother was engaged to their sister.

After a few beers it was definitely time for some sleep.

Day Three

The day before Niall gave us the option of catching the ferry back to the mainland, so that it would give us some time to see other things and so that we could go on a ferry ride, but only if we were able to sort it out amongst ourselves and put in a share each for the ticket. I don’t remember the exact amount, but it was over the £100 line for the whole bus, but it would come to about £6 per person. Of course you are on a bus with complete strangers, it is a strange situation to decide whether everyone could afford it, I mean most of them were like J and I and were on pretty tight budgets.

But thanks to the generosity of one Bulgarian/American and some other Macbackpackers* folk we hit the jackpot and were able to get the ferry. Once on mainland we went passed the train tracks at the most northerly point the train tracks go to in the UK, which lead us to the Glenfinnan Viaduct, the famous rail bridge that the Hogwarts train passes over during some of the Harry Potter movie series. We climbed up a hill to get a good glimpse of it.

The Glenfinnan Viaduct from the Harry Potter movies

Then it was a bit more driving down through the Highlands, passing through Fort William and the tallest mountain in the UK; Ben Nevis and a lot of the trails that make up the West Highland Way before we stopped again, this time at Glencoe. One of the most picturesque sceneries in all of the UK, and one that J and I had seen on a tour that we had done in our first year in Scotland.

Glencoe

Then next stop was a truck stop within the Trossachs National Park for some lunch and a toilet break, then there was some more driving before we arrived at our final stop on the tour; Doune Castle. This was also one of Niall’s ‘pick your own adventure’ type things and majority voted for Doune over the Wallace Monument in Stirling. And J and I were definitely excited by this, as it was the site of where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed.

Niall even told us that if you asked the person at the ticket office, you could borrow coconut shells to re-enact that infamous scene. And that is exactly what J and I did and an American girl that was on the tour with us.

Back on the bus and onwards towards Edinburgh, passing by the incredible Falkirk Kelpies before we arrived back at Castle Rock and parted ways with the rest of the tour goers.

*Who were mating! It was the end of Spring…C’mon bunnies get a room!

*Obviously missing out on a huge chunk of that story, but you get the gist of it.

*Not my “fantasy” but the one Niall (the bus driver) asked of what we wanted to see/do on the Isle of Skye.

*I won’t name names, but thanks to those generous people for chipping in.

Have you been to the Isle of Skye? Did you enjoy it? Let us know by commenting below. Still catching up on some writing, but my pieces on Aviemore and Orkney will be up soon, so watch this space! Until next time! x

A list of things to do before we (J & I) leave Edinburgh and Scotland

We have started planning our travels that will take us away from this lovely city we have called home for the past year and a bit - to places yet visited in Europe, leading us right back home to Brisbane. The flight is booked for August 7, at 7:15am. A time and date that is ‘set in stone,’ unless we had endless streams of money at our disposal to change that date (which we do not) that is when we will be saying ‘see ya later’ to Edinburgh.

In light of that I now have started making a list of all the things we should see, do and try before we leave, in Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland, so we don’t feel like there was much left undone here, to experience new things and to do things that will bring us joy for years to come when we reminisce about the good times we had, so here it is:

- Visit a few different beer gardens in Edinburgh.

- See puffins on a boat trip from the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick.

-   Go on a day trip to St. Andrews.

- Go on a day trip to Peebles and walk in the surrounding forest that inspired J.K Rowling to write about the ‘Forbidden Forest’ in the Harry Potter series.

-  Visit the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

-Visit Jupiter Artland, especially for the chocolate-painted room exhibition on in May.

-  Go up the Scott Monument.

-  Go camping somewhere during May 20 – May 28.

- Go to the Scotch bar at the Balmoral Hotel to taste a few rare drams of whisky.

- Walk all or part of the West Highland Way.

- Visit Dundee.

-  Go see the Falkirk ‘Kelpies’ statues.

- Hire a rowboat on Union Canal.

-Have a White Russian at Lebowskis bar with my Lebowski-obsessed colleagues.

-Drink at the Sky Bar that only opens on the first Thursday night of the month.

-Stay at the Balmoral Hotel (daydreaming about this one).

-Relax at the MacDonald Marine Hotel’s day spa in North Berwick.

-  Have afternoon tea at the Dome.

- Play golf on an actual golf course.

- Ride the tram to the airport.

- Get a “better together” badge.

- Get a “yes Scotland” badge.

-  Go surfing off the Scottish coast.

- Do the gelato tasting evening at Mary’s Milk Bar.

- Walk up Corstorphine Hill.

-See Danny Bhoy live at the Fringe Festival (my fave Scottish comedian).

-  See the fairy pools on the Isle of Skye.

I know it’s a long list, and we only have four months to try and fit everything in, but dammit I’m going to try!

Me and J dressed up for a boat trip from the Scottish Seabird Centre in 2012 where we saw seals.

"Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the Journey." - Pat Conroy

If you have any other ideas of things you’d think I should experience before I leave Edinburgh, then comment below or tweet it to me. If I can do it I’ll post a photo up of my experience. 

Long walks, hearty dinners and whisky in Pitlochry: my Highland home

Saturday, April 5 – Monday, April 7

Our weekend trip to Pitlochry started something like this:

J: “Oh Aviemore is booked out again!”

Me: “Where should we go instead?”

J: “How about Pitlochry?”*

Of course we had left it to the last minute again…so we booked our accommodation on the Wednesday, the buses on Thursday night and we were off on Saturday morning.

Day One

J and I caught a Megabus bus at 9am, again (our second time in two weeks), this time we were heading to Pitlochry, in Perthshire. We passed all of these small towns in Fife and Perthshire, even passed a paddock of Highland Cows (or as I like to say hairy coos*), arriving at 11:45am.

It was a two-minute walk to the Pitlochry Backpackers Hotel – where we were welcomed by a very friendly Scot* who had quite the novelty thick Scottish accent, which you don’t get much of in Edinburgh and his friend, the six-month old black pug Jess – whom he put on the front desk so we could give her a pat.

He also let us check into our twin room straight away, which was nice, as I was a bit sleepy, because of getting up early that morning.

J and I put the suitcase down and we took our reading books and other stuff out of our bags and we went back downstairs.

We talked to the host again, about things to do, there is plenty; the fish ladder, Ben Vrackie, whisky distilleries, see the highland cows up close, go see a show at Pitlochry’s Festival Theatre…plenty to see and do.

We then went to the Tourist Information Centre down the road and got ourselves a map (not that you really need one) and we were told the Bell’s Blair Athol Distillery did a tour at 1pm, so we quickly walked further down the road and bought tickets for the tour (£6.50 for an adult).

Our tour guide was this German man, who was funny when he tried entertaining the group with his translations of words like, ‘peat,’ ‘barley’ and ‘malt’ into Spanish and especially when he tried to do it for the one Greek girl that was on the tour.

After being shown through the different rooms featuring everything from the mash tun to where the malt is distilled into alcohol, we were shown where they keep the casks including blends for Johnny Walker black label. 

We were finally lead to the gift shop and were given the complimentary ‘wee dram of the Blair Athol twelve year – which was not too bad, a bit too strong on the alcohol front for my tastes (50%ABV).

The Blair Athol Distillery

We wished that the Edradour Distillery was open, but unfortunately it isn’t due to open until April 17. Apparently it’s a bit of sore spot for some locals, due to it being a very popular tourist destination, so it wasn’t just us hoping it was open.

Afterwards J and I walked back up the road a little and headed off to the fish ladder, but first stopping at a park bench near the local football (soccer) grounds, facing the river.

We ate our packed lunch, whilst we watched two fishermen, probably fishing for trout (as its not salmon season just yet). It was a different experience than back home, where one wears pluggers (flip flops), shorts and a singlet; rather than wellies (gumboots) and waders.

There are also a lot more regulations in place; you have to buy fishing permits to legally fish in the waterways in Scotland. Which I wholeheartedly agree with, I wish we had to do it back home, then hopefully it would help end the overfishing of our waterways. And we wouldn’t get idiots like this…

[WARNING: You may find the video featured in the news article disturbing.]

http://www.ntnews.com.au/lifestyle/fishing/angler-taunts-puffer-fish-before-kicking-it-into-ocean-before-shocked-tourists/story-fnkchy3h-1226877010283

We followed the River Tummel upstream (on the town side) to Pitlochry Dam and the fish ladder.

We walked over the huge cement structure that was the dam*, with Loch Faskally on our right and the River Tummel on our left – blasting water from its walls – we came to the ‘fish ladder.’

A structure designed to aid salmon swimming upstream to lay their eggs during spring. It’s a tad hard to explain (especially because I don’t really have a technical-savvy mind), but it is a brilliantly designed piece of engineering.

We managed to see the one lonely salmon in one of the resting pools, just swimming about. The ladder is even complete with a video camera so you can see below the murky water, and a fish counter.

The fish ladder

The first salmon of the season chilling out.

                                      While I was looking at the salmon all I could think about was this song.

We stayed over that side of the river and walked passed the Pitlochry Festival Theatre and stopped in at the Fisherman’s Bar, where we sat out in the beer garden to drink our pints of stout, watching even more of the ‘tweed and welly brigade.’

Shortly after that we were back in town, instead of going straight to the hostel, we went to Hettie’s Tearoom across the road, where were served giant slices of cake, I had a chocolate fudge cake with a pot of Hettie’s Early Grey tea and J had a lemon drizzle cake.

I don’t know how we finished them, but we did.

Then it was back to the hostel for a little reading and a nap, because isn’t that what holidays/weekends away are for.

Once we were up to doing something we headed out of the hostel and across the road to Mckays Hotel for dinner and a drink. I had the steak pie with mash and sautéed vegetables. Which was just what the doctor ordered.

Then we hit the drinks while we watched the awesome cover band, the Ducatos, from Glasgow - do renditions of Johnny Cash and Elvis. It was great to hear a band do this classic rock and the lead singer really had the voice for it.

J had to pop back to the hostel and while he was gone, some guys that were on our distillery tour – also from Glasgow*, came up to me and said hello in the friendliest and drunkest manner yelling, “Aussie” and giving me a big bear hug.

When I went up to the bar to order my G&T, they insisted I have one of their jägarbombs, which was so lovely of them (note the sarcasm).

Then it was home time!

Day Two

We slept in a little bit, had the hostel continental breakfast (£2 each) and we made sure to put on our walking clothes with our light rain jackets, since we were planning on going for a long walk that day. We started off by walking all the way out to the farm near the turn off for the motorway – to see the Highland Coos.

The Highland Coos

It was pouring with rain – but it was worth the 20-minutes to see their cute shaggy-haired faces.

After walking back into town we then stopped off at the local bakery to buy takeaway sandwiches and a stovie (mash potato with corn beef bits mixed in) to share, which we sat and ate the hostel for a quick break - before we started our walk.

We walked through the North part of town, walking passed a lot of people that were sweaty, soaking wet and red in the face – who had all participated in a local orienteering competition.

The Killiecrankie Path, which would ultimately lead us to Killiecrankie, but we were only going so far, took us passed the boat hire place, along Loch Faskally, through Faskally Wood, passed fields and a waterfall - where we came to Garry Bridge.

Boats for hire on Loch Faskally

We stopped to eat our sandwiches and watched a few women bungee jump from underneath the bridge along with their friends and family members and other spectators.

Continuing on we came to Linn of Tummel where the guy from the hostel told us about; there is a huge Osprey nest and apparently this is where you can see deer usually, however we didn’t see either.

Signs pointing us onto the right path

Around Linn of Tummel

Also around Linn of Tummel

This was also a great viewing point of the loch; it was a lovely spot on the walk.

We crossed Coronation Bridge and then followed the road all the way back, passed Clunie Power Station, stopping only when we saw two pheasants run from the bushes. I was only just able to catch them with my camera.

We then made it back to the hostel after five hours and about 14 kilometres of walking. We decided to go back to the hostel and have a rest, or a nap in my case and get changed from our wet clothes.

That night we decided to go to dinner at the Moulin Inn, a historic town situated behind Pitlochry by a 10-minute walk. Amazingly the sun had come out this afternoon and we were finally able to see Ben Vrackie poking its head out from behind Moulin.

J and I wished it had been sunny all day so we could have given climbing the mountain a go.

Anyway, the Moulin Inn was such a lovely old pub, with delicious food; we decided to spoil ourselves and give three courses a go; J had deep-friend haggis fritters and I had grilled goats cheese for entrée. Then I had mustard chicken with mash and veggies and J had a lamb shank with chips and veggies. Then for dessert J had sticky whiskey sponge and I had the highland honey sponge…mmm it was amazing.

We also tried the Moulin Brewery ales (made in their micro brewery just behind the Inn), J had a pint of the Ale of Athol and I had a pint of the Braveheart (apparently named after the movie). They are pretty tasty beers.

Well dessert was followed by a ‘wee dram of whisky in the bar, next to the open fireplace. It was a great nightcap before going back to the hostel and taking full advantage of their free pool table.

Day Three

We woke up early this morning to make the most of the hours we had left in this lovely town; our bus taking us back to Edinburgh was at midday.

After indulging in the continental breakfast again, we decided to head up to the Moulin Brewery; where we got talking to the brewer (part-time guide) about how he makes the beers, which J definitely found interesting, because he is makes home brew with our flat mate. It turns out he used to work at the Blair Athol distillery as well. After buying a bottle of the Remedial ale to take home from the hotel reception, we headed back to town.

On our way to the Moulin Hotel & Brewery

The Moulin Brewery

We decided to go into the bakery for some lunch before we got our bus, and I couldn’t leave without having another stovie again. Especially because the temperature was a lot cooler today, it was the perfect thing to warm you up from the inside out.

We went back to the hostel, played our last game of pool, said goodbye to the hostel guy and grabbed our suitcase.

And then we were waiting at the bus stop to go back to Edinburgh.

Have you ever been to Pitlochry? What did you think? Reply in the comments section below… x

*This conversation may/may not sounded exactly like this, but I’m writing the damn thing, so I’ll tell it how I remember it.

*Mainly to piss-off a certain colleague of mine, she loves it when I play up being a daft tourist.

*We think his name is Ryan, if it is his name; this guy was one of the best hostel hosts ever!

*Quite an interesting structure, as it is a hydroelectric dam.

*When we met them on the tour, J and I thought we recognised them and thought they could have been a band we knew…it turns out they weren’t/aren’t famous (that we know of).