Loch Ness, Cawdor Castle, Scottish Highlands

Monday, August 15, 2016

What a fantastic day!  Absolutely loving Scotland!  And apparently we got one of the few sunny days of the whole summer!

There were SOOO many good tours to choose from today!  But we decided we couldn't come to Scotland without at least trying to see Nessie!

Again, we booked with a private company (WowScotlandTours) instead of the ship. The ship would have actually been a bit cheaper (for a change!) BUT would only have been a half day, and the one we choose was a full day.  Plus we enjoyed the banter between Sandy the guide and John the driver.  I think John knew more than Sandy did...

We lined up good and early for disembarkation, and were the first ones off the ship. Front seat of the bus again!

We began by driving along the Cromarty Firth where you can often see seals and herons.  A firth is a narrow inlet of the sea.

Imageccredit:http://www.ross-shirejournal.co.uk/imagelibrary/Client_Images/Client00007/01502000/01502441.jpg

There are tales of "Selkies":  seals that shed their skin and live as women on land and get married.  The husbands try to hide their skins, but the selkies find them because sea life beckons to them once again.

They took us to Inverness and Sandy gave us a 45 minute walking tour.  Inverness means "Mouth of the River Ness".  The city was founded in the 12th century by King David (NOT the King David of the Bible!).  It is the northernmost city in the UK.

Finally, what we had been waiting for!  A chance to see Nessie herself.

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They drove us to the south side of Loch Ness which is the less visited side. Loch Ness is the largest (by volume) body of fresh water in the UK.  A "loch" is the Scottish word for a lake or a sea inlet. Loch Ness is 39 km long and averages 132 m deep.  The lake never freezes.

Of course, the lake is famous for its Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie.  It should be noted that the lake has low visibility due to its high peat content, which no doubt has helped build the story.  The first recorded sighting of the monster was in 565 AD by St Columba.  There have been hundreds of supposed sightings by different people, and of course, many are hoaxes. Nessie became world famous in 1933 when this photograph was taken:

Imagecredit:http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article5556902.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Loch-Ness-Monster.jpg

There have actually been people that have dedicated their lives to looking for Nessie. One of those people is Steve Felthan, who has lived in his van on the banks of Loch Ness for almost 25 years. Right now he thinks the best explanation is that Nessie is a giant catfish, but he's not leaving until he proves whatever it is.  We couldn't resist buying a Nessie sculpture from him.  If anyone is interested, here's his website: http://www.nessiehunter.co.uk/.

Next they took us to Culloden Battlefield.  This is a large marshy field.  Here was the fierce and bloody battle in April 1746 that ended the civil war between the ruling Brits (supported by many Scotsmen) and the uprising clans led by Bonnie Prince Charlie.  Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobites were soundly defeated.  The battle left 1200 soldiers dead in just one hour (800 dead in the first 2 minutes).  This was effectively the end of clans in Scotland.  So many died there that they were buried all together by clan.  For all you Outlander fans, here is where the Fraser clan was buried:

After the short battle, instead of taking the wounded as prisoners, as was usual, the English went through and shot them.  One young soldier was ordered to shoot a wounded enemy, but refused on the grounds that it would be murder.  That soldier's name? James Wolfe, who later went on to defeat Montcalm at the Plains of Abraham.

Then we went to Clava Cairns.  Clava Cairns is a group of burial cairns which are about 4000 years old.  A cairn is basically a pile of stones (think inuksuk in Canada). They can be used as landmarks, etc. These were used to mark burial sites.

They were in different shapes.  Passage graves were burial chambers that had narrow stone passages:

 A ring cairn is multiple stones forming a circle low to the ground:

Imagecredit:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Clava_Cairns_-_Bronze_Age_monuments_-_geograph.org.uk_-_476681.jpg

And there were also standing stones:

 Then we had an hour and a half to visit Cawdor Castle.

 

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The Thanes (clan chiefs) of Cawdor built the castle as a private fortress in the 1300s.  Legend has it that in 1370, William Thane of Cawdor had a dream that told him to load up his donkey and then follow it until it laid down.  That was where he was supposed to build his castle.  The donkey lay down beneath a hawthorn tree, so William built the castle right around the tree.  Today there is still a room built around a tree, called the Hawthorn Room.

Imagecredit:http://www.cawdorcastle.com/The-Castle/gallery/castle6.aspx

Cawder Castle is still lived in by Dowager Lady Cawdor.  All you Downton Abbey fans know that a dowager is a widow with an aristocratic title from her husband.  Lady Cawdor moves out every summer to let the tourists go through her home.

There was some controversy over the ownership of the estate. She was actually the second wife and a hot supermodel to boot.  When the husband died, he left the estate to her instead of to his son from his first marriage.  Many thought the estate should have remained in the family.  However, our guide was quick to praise Angelika because she has taken excellent care of the estate and made important renovations. The question remains: when she dies, will she leave the estate to the son, or to the state, or to charity?  No one knows.

The castle has lovely gardens, the Walled Garden from the 1600s being the oldest.

Shakespeare used Cawdor Castle as Macbeth's home.  In the play, the 3 witches told Macbeth he would be Thane of Cawdor, and Duncan was killed at Macbeth's castle. Shakespeare wrote the play in 1606, and the characters were real.  Duncan was king of Scotland from 1034 to 1040, and Macbeth ruled from 1040 to 1057.  However, they could not have really lived at Cawdor Castle since the castle was not built until the 1300s.  Good try, Shakespeare!  By the way, Macbeth was actually quite a good king and not at all like he was portrayed by Shakespeare.

Imagecredit:http://news.clarku.edu/news/files/2016/02/208_Macbeth.png

As we were ready to leave Cawdor Castle, we discovered that the fan belt had broken on our bus and we had to wait for a replacement bus.  It did not take very long, but then they discovered that the bus was one seat short!  So our driver had to ask a Celebrity excursions bus to take one person, and for some reason his wife stayed on our bus.  When we got back to the ship, Sandy gave everyone some Scottish fudge to make up for our troubles. Yum.

We wandered into a shop on the dock, and found a perfect plate for our collection even though we were not looking.

This was the view as we ate in the dining room tonight.  The oil rigs went out of business with the oil crisis in the 1980s, but now they are starting to be used to build parts for the gigantic wind turbines: