Author: bbpeck

Bob and I left Thornhill on a 6:30 am bus to Cumnock (1 hour commute), switching to a bus to Glasgow (approximately 1.5 hour commute) where we had about an hour wait for our train to Inverness.  We spent about a day and a half in Inverness before continuing on to  Kirkwall, the largest town in the Orkney Islands for a longer holiday.

We had beautiful weather in Inverness and were able to see much of the central city as well as some outlying areas.  Inverness, with a population of about 47,000, is considered the capital of the Scottish Highlands. It is the northernmost city (as opposed to a town, village, etc.) in the UK.  The River (not Loch/Lake) Ness runs through the city and joins up with the Moray Firth (an inlet of a sea).  

We enjoyed walking along the river.

In addition to our walks along the River Ness, we also walked the City Heritage Tour which began at the Inverness Castle.  There are no tours of the Castle since it is being used for other purposes, but you can stroll the grounds and take in some good views of the city

Below are some photos of some of the cool buildings we saw on our walkabouts.  

 

We had a lovely walk out to the Merkinch Nature Reserve which is 54.7 hectares of land and lies on the shore to the west of where the River Ness enters the sea.  it’s southern boundary is the Caledonian Canal (more on that below).

 

The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast near Fort William.  It is 60 miles long, and you can boat, paddle, cycle, or walk/run the length of it.

 

One of our last walks was up the Tomnahurich Cemetary Hill.  This was an interesting cemetary with graves all the way up the hill.



Bob and I welcomed our home owners back to Thornhill from New Zealand and Australia last Wednesday afternoon.  Bruce was thrilled to see them!  We had a lovely catch-up Wednesday evening before we caught the 6:30 am bus on the way to our Inverness/Orkney/Aberdeen adventure.  The following are some of our last photos of our time in Thornhill.

Some final pics of our beloved Bruce.

 

On the final weekend of April, Thornhill held its annual Music Festival.  We were here for it last year as well.  We went to see Redfish at the Farmers Arms Pub.  This was the same band we had seen last year but at a different venue.  We loved it — though the bit where we were having to stand directly in front of the speakers was a bit loud for our aging ears!

 

We got a few final hikes in around Thornhill.  One of the prettiest was around the nearby Dabton Loch.



Do you ever get the urge to leave the country?  Not like a post-election desire to head someplace for at least four years but just a momentary yen to check out what the neighbors on the other side of the border are up to?  Bob and I had a yen to visit Carlisle, England where we had briefly stopped a couple of times but only on train journeys to somewhere else.  Carlisle is about an hour drive from Thornhill, so we decided to check it out.

During our travels between Thornhill and Dumfries, we would pass a sign for the Friars Carse House Hotel.  It sounded nice, and it had a good website, so we decided to check it out one night.  It was lovely — beautiful hotel and grounds.  We got to check it out with a group of motorcyclists who had just ridden in for dinner or a visit or both.

We chose a hike out of a local community called Durisdeer for our last proper hike with Bruce.  I don’t know that it was one of our favorite hikes, as the  ground was fairly boggy and the views were not nearly as impressive as we have seen.  In fact, we didn’t even notice the Roman ruins that we were suppose to see on the way out until we were on the way back.  Still, it’s hard to complain about being out in nature on a nice day and seeing a new area.

 

Our last journey by car had us headed back to the Solway Coast to visit the Mersehead Nature Reserve.  This is a lovely area set aside for the preservation of wildlife with a circular walking trail and is especially favored by birders.


 

From the Mersehead Nature Reserve, we drove to the town of Dalbeattie.  We had driven through it a couple of weeks ago on our way to Rockcliff.  Wikipedia says that it is famed for its granite industry which we had confirmed for us by a stone monument that we saw in the local park.  

On the way back to Thornhill, we finally stopped at Ellisland Farm to at least view the farm where Robert Burns lived during the final years of his life (though he died in a house in the town of Dumfries).



We have had some great hikes recently.  First, we had been wanting to get back to the Grey Mare’s Tail to hike from there to Loch Skeen.  The last time we went we hiked up just far enough to get a good view of the waterfall, but it was too windy for us to go much higher since the path up is fairly close to the edge of the hill.  Luckily, last Sunday was a perfect day for hiking.

 

Since the hike to Loch Skeen was more mentally challenging than physically challenging, we decided to head back to Moffat to do the short Chapel hike that we hadn’t yet walked.  This is a 2 mile loop route that takes you out of town near the gulf course and up a fairly steep hill until you turn into the farmyard that has the ruins of the old chapel before walking back through farm fields and then along the river back into town.

 

On a weird weather Wednesday, Bob, Bruce, and I headed to the highest town in Scotland for a bit of a hike on the Southern Upland Way, Scotland’s coast-to-coast route.  We had walked a portion of this route out of St. John’s Town of Dalry.  On Wednesday we walked about 90 minutes out of Wanlockhead towards Sanquhar before turning around and coming back.  We started in heavy wind, got snowed on a bit, and then saw sun before we were through.

Many of our recent meanderings have seen us returning to places that we have already visited — either this year or last year — but doing different things.  Last Thursday, on Bruce’s 6th birthday, we headed out to Lochmaben where we had done a local walk with Bruce last year. Last year’s Castle Walk took us around the Loch to see ruins of a castle and fun sculptures carved from the trees along the walk.  This year we opted for a longer out-and-back hike along a portion of the Annandale Way that took us from the loch to Joe Graham’s monument outside of the community of Hightae.  (We had also walked a bit of the 55 mile Annandale Way out of the town of Annan a week ago.)  It was a great walk that was well-marked, and Bruce showed off how well he is aging!

 

On Friday, Bob and I went back to Castle Douglas to walk around it’s lake and also to stop by the local brewery for a 5 pound tour and tasting.  We don’t have any photos of the Sulwarth Brewery, but we had a great tour lead by the owner who told us about the history of the brewery (both the beer and the facility), how they had learned to bottle their own beer and how they are doing this for other UK craft brewers as well.  We also enjoyed our tastes of the beer that they are producing. 

 

We also returned to Moffat to do some more hiking. This time we chose the Craigieburn Forest Walk.  We had a lovely hike, but didn’t complete the “official” hike, as we ran out of trail markers and distinguishable path.

The region of Scotland in which we are staying is called Dumfries and Galloway.  It is one of 32 council areas in Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands.  Bob and I have been trying to see those parts of this region closest to Thornhill, where we are staying.

On bank holiday Monday of this week, we headed out with Bruce to do 2 short hikes — one starting in Kirkconnel and one starting in Sanquhar.  The Kirkconnel Village Walk was a 4km walk that started in town before heading out along the river, before bringing us back into town by the miners memorial.

In Sanquhar, we hiked the Euchan Glen walk which is a 5k walk that started in town before heading out of town near a golf course then following the Euchan water before heading back into town.

 

On Tuesday, Bob and I headed to Annan for some hiking and to check out the town a bit. There is a 55 mile Annandale Way walking route that starts near Moffat (see last post) and ends in Annan on the Solway Coast.  We walked just a bit of this route out of Annan north along the River Annan.  While we were out we helped reunite a dog with its owner.

 

On Wednesday we did a bit of a tour, visiting 3 different towns — St John’s Town of Dalry, Kirkcudbright, and Castle Douglas.  The visits were fairly quick but enough to give us a sense of each place.  In St. John’s, we walked part of the Southern Uplands Way which is Scotland’s only official coast-to-coast long distance route.

In Kirkcudbright we visited the Broughton House and Gardens which is the former home of the 19th century artist Edward Atkinson Hornel.  We enjoyed exploring his home and garden as well as viewing some of his paintings.  Afterwards, we walked around the main streets in town.

 

Finally, we did a quick walk-about of Castle Douglas but decided that we’d need to come back.

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.

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 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.

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.

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!



Last Friday, after Bob and I took Bruce to the vet for his allergy shot (no flinching or yelping — such a good boy!), the three of us had a good walkabout to the ruins of Morton Castle.  This castle is located about 2.5 miles from Thornhill.  It was built sometime between 1270 and 1307 on land belonging to Thomas Randolph, the first Earl of Moray.  

 

Sunday was beautiful, so Bob and I headed to Rockcliffe on the Solway Coast for some coastal walking.  It was a scenic 55 minute drive and well worth it.

 

On Monday, we had Bruce walk us to Drumlainrig Castle from Thornhill.  Once there, we did a 2.5 mile walk, called “A Turn along the Marr Burn.”  It was another great day out with lots of sunshine.

Bob and I continue our Scottish adventure by visiting some purpose-built attractions as well as exploring new towns.  We have been having good luck with the weather in terms of minimal rain so have been trying to take advantage while we can.

On Wednesday we headed out of Thornhill for an hour and a half drive to the town of Falkirk.  It is almost halfway between (though a bit north of) Glasgow and Edinburgh.  To help capture some of the tourists visiting the two larger cities, Falkirk has created some of its own attractions.  One attraction also helps to reconnect Glasgow and Edinburgh for boat travelers.  The other attraction is a pair of large horse-head sculptures, called the Kelpies, as part of the Helix project to create a local green space for the community.  They are located about 15 minutes apart by car.

The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift (only one in the world) that raises boats by 79 feet, limiting the need for a series of locks to link the two canals.  It opened in 2002.  At the Wheel, you can pay to take a boat ride which takes you up and down in the wheel, but you can also walk or bike on some path, climb on a climbing wall, or do some other water activities.  We rode the boat but decided you could experience it just as well by watching.

Kelpies are a mythological creature that are usually in horse form but can take human form as well.  They are said to have the strength and endurance of 100 horses.

Thursday we drove a much shorter distance (a little over 20 minutes) to the village of Sanquhar.  We planned to do 2 hikes —  1 that would take us out of town and around the nearby community of Crawick and 1 that was around the village itself.  Based on something we had seen in the paper that day and what we found when we got to Sanquhar, we ended up doing a little more.

The following few photos are from the Crawick Multiverse which is a reclaimed former cast coal mine that has been transformed into a landscape art venue.  It was created using materials found on site, including thousands of boulders half-buried below ground.  It represents various cosmic patterns.  The site was on our route anyway but had been coincidentally featured in the newspaper that morning.



Last Friday, Bob and I took a train from Newcastle, England to Dumfries, Scotland where we were met by our homeowner.  It was the first time that we have been met by someone we know, as we sat for these same homeowners last year.  It was great to get reacquainted and hear about their trip to New Zealand and Australia.  We had a great afternoon tea and lovely home-cooked meal with them as well as a couple of walks with Bruce, our favorite border terrier, before they headed off on April 1.

Bruce is as adorable and energetic as ever.

Sunday, April 2, was sunny so we headed to the local castle for a walk in the woods that had been highlighted in the paper the prior day.  There was no charge to hike on the grounds.  We chose the 5 mile Castle route.  

Today (Tuesday) we did another forest hike.  This time we headed towards the little village of Ae (yep, just the 2 letters) to hike a little over 5 miles in the Ae Forest.  Bruce accompanied us on a lovely, sunny day out.  We saw a number of people — mostly families enjoying the mountain bike trails — but no other hikers or dogs.