More Peckish Pedestrian Perusals– Scottish Style

Dumfries is the closest larger town to Thornhill, so we have visited this town a few times on this trip as well as during last year’s visit. However, we had not made it to the Dumfries Museum nor the Gracefield Arts Centre, so we decided to combine a visit to those sites with a stop at the recently reopened Annandale Distillery. We had a lovely day out.

View of Dumfries across the River Nith on our way to the museum

The old windmill portion of the Dumfries Museum which contains the Camera Obscura

Bob and I paid the 3.5 pounds to see a 360 degree view of Dumfries via the camera obscura. This may be the oldest camera obscura still working anywhere. It was installed and has been in continuous operation since 1836! Neither Bob nor I could imagine what the individuals in that time must have thought of such a thing. While some neighbors worried about being spied on, a current day visitor (not really getting what he was looking at apparently) wondered how it could be in color and not black and white.

The stairs up to the camera — the center pole is not straight so the stairs up get progressively narrower as you ascend

One of the exhibits at the museum and something we had also learned about during our visit to Sanquhar — traditional 2-color patterns

Greyfriars Kirk on our walk to the Arts Centre

The first exhibit inside the Arts Centre — who is that attractive woman looking back at me?

The Annandale Distillery marks the rebirth of a distillery on a site that had been dormant for almost a century. The historic distillery has been through 3 whiskey making eras and a period when it was used for farming. It was formerly a Johnnie Walker distillery which closed in 1918. After a 10.5 million pound restoration (beautiful — especially the woodwork!), it reopened in November of 2014. Since Scotch Whisky must be aged for 3 years, the distillery will release its first whisky this November — one smoky (peated) and one smooth (unpeated). In the meantime, they are giving tours, operating a beautiful tea room, and selling liqueur that doesn’t have to be aged as well as other gift items.

The end of the distillery nearest the parking lot

The renovated distillery (tea room and shop on left)

Parts of the original distillery uncovered by archeology students

Along with exploring the larger Dumfries and Galloway region, we also like to have our non-car days where we get to know different areas around Thornhill and get out and about with Bruce. The following is the latest installment in “Hiking with Robert and Bruce” (as opposed to Hiking with Robert the Bruce — which would be nasty since he’s long dead). This time we did a Thornhill-Closeburn-Cample-Thornhill loop that we had learned about from staff at The Trigony Hotel when we stopped there for a look around.

The lovely backyard of a home on the walk out of Thornhill

Last week as Bob and I left the Grey Mare (waterfall) to drive to Locherbie, we passed the town of Moffat. We went back yesterday for a visit. We were charmed! It is apparently a tourist town that is also a Dark Sky Community (promotes stargazing) and the first Walkers are Welcome town (walker-friendly) in Scotland. It has a number of walking trails, hotels, a lovely park, and a nice retail area. We loved it despite having an up and down weather day that included a bit of hail during our hike!